Rogue Ninja   Starring: Mika Hijii MVM RRP: £15.99 MLA2013 Certificate: 18 Available 05 September 2011

16th century Japan was a scene of unending civil war, a place where ninja’s could prosper. One such Ninja is Ukagami (Mika Hijii) who is sentenced to death by her peers for disobeying orders and leaving her clan to search for a missing, kidnapped childhood friend...

Rogue Ninja (2010 - 1 hr, 10 min, 12 sec) is a martial arts film directed and written by Seiji Chiba (Alien Vs Ninja, Evil Ninja).

Cutting to the chase, this film is not very good. The encoding is awful or it was made on some very cheap equipment, the script is derivative and the martial arts only occasionally interesting. The whole thing appears to have been filmed in a wood, which gives a nice background and removes the need for numerous extras. The film's characters love to chat and you quickly discover that the film goes - chat, fight, chat, and fight - round and round, producing an underwhelming experience.

The acting is average to good, but it is difficult to concentrate on or care about the characters. The disc contains no extras and only a Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track, with burned in subtitles. This is only for hard-core martial arts fans.

5

Charles Packer