Mirai Ninja: Keiun Kinin Gaiden

I really enjoyed this film. Is there some cheese? Sure, but Keita Amemiya's films are so very entertaining and use every trick in the book to successfully suspend disbelief and add in great effects. Usually these kinda cool effects are just things you wont see in other films. For open minded, Japanese sci fi lovers this is a fun film with use of some minatures and decent lighting. Really love Zeiram, Zeriam 2, and Moon Over Tao as well from the same director. Cyber Ninja is a hard standalone film to source, but comes in a set called The Ninja Collection on dvd with english dub and decent quality- like a very good vhs tape.

This movie is nothing amazing for sure. Yet it is very interesting scifi retro futuro B-class movie with a lot of swordplay and somewhat acceptable effects.

The only way how to describe this movie is mix of Star Gate with a lot of Kurosawa and maybe a little bit of Tron and Doom (the computer game, not the movie). Both parties, the cyber demons and the humans fight as they would were teleported from medieval Japan. The story leaves a lot of parts unexplained and it is open for the imagination of the viewer as it it typical for "genuine, non-Westernized" Japanese movies. This is not bad in general but it will probably leave a lot of Western viewers confused.

The movie is definitely not something special. It is probably not worthy to seek on DVD either. But it is enjoyable and well done in terms of its probably tight budget so it is not insult of the viewer nor a loss of time. It allows us to see "retro cyber punk" as it is perceived by the Japanese authors. It is comparable to "Mutant Chronicles" which is not miracle either but it is solid fun anyway. I think the more hardcore scifi fans will like it.

Cyber Ninja is about a cyber ninja and some dip$#!+ who must rescue a warrior broad with a tight little booty from some cybernetic wizard. The movie combines cyberpunk with 16th century samurai genre. Whoopie do-do. The film is creative with some nice 80s style special effects and the costumes look cool. The action is very well choreographed with a sort of kung fu action feel to it. The story is absurd but straightforward and pacing was tedious. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. God I hate it when my reviews get this typical and boring and gay and $#!+.

Gosh.. I first watched this movie when I was ten and own a bad quality copy of VHS. Fortunately though, it has original Japanese soundtrack. Having not seen the English dubbed version, I am little puzzled by other reviews because overall I thought this was a quite decent film. Although I have to admit that 7/10 rating was somewhat based on nostalgia. In any case, I like the concept of Cyborgs and robots fighting with swords, wearing samurai armors, and knives shooting out from hands. Plus you have to admit that putting ammos into katanas is kind of cool. Not to mention different types of robotic ninjas. There were actually action figures of shiranui(main character) and shouki(badass white ninja)!!

I liked this. Granted, the Godzilla-like sfx are laughable at times...but I kind of like that part about it too. Regardless of what a previous review has said, this IS a little like Star Wars. The original three movies especially. However it is also like Godzilla, Krull, Tron,Dune and any number of science fiction movies made in the eighties. you have your laser blasts, your enemies wearing strange costumes, your princess that needs saving etc. What's cool about this movie is that it's from Japan and so its ALSO like anime and you have all these shinto symbols and what not. The first scene of the movie looks an awful lot like the movie Ran, (the samurai version of King Lear)and if you take away the scifi elements its stylistically extremely similar. In fact, one of the actors worked in both movies!

Anyway, maybe this movie isn't for everybody, but if you like Godzilla movies, or eighties scifi, or if you've ever enjoyed an episode of mystery science theater 3000, you'll probably like this movie.