Ninja Battle   Starring: Aiko Ito, Shuji Kashiwabara and Daisuke Nagakura MVM RRP: £15.99 MLA2015 Certificate: 15 Available 06 February 2012

Having been discovered next to the dead body of an Iga ninja, Sawa is immediately suspected of his murder. The arriving Iga take her prisoner to discover the truth behind the death of Yoshimori...

Ninja Battle is another in the cult series of ninja film from Seiji Chiba. The film stars Aiko Ito, Shuji Kashiwabara and Daisuke Nagakura.

The premise of the film falls down almost in the first ten minutes, as Sawa is found trussed up next to the man she has supposedly killed. Now that’s a neat trick, it means she either killed him first or then tied herself up, or she was skilful enough to kill a man while still bound.

As the film progresses, the plot transforms into pot holes, with little of the film making perfect sense. The acting is alright, although there is an air of amateur hour about the whole thing.

The first couple of films by Seiji Chiba seemed to have something going for them. They have all been budget affairs, but the original flair has turned into repetition and there is little here that hasn’t been show or explored in his previous movies.

I’m hoping that the check disc in no way represents the final commercial product. The picture is frankly dire, probably the worst I’ve seen in a long time. It’s akin to playing on a big screen a movie that’s been encoded to play on a small hand held device. If this is the lack of care given to the film's presentation, it’s a wonder any reviewer would agree to sit through the whole thing.

Whilst it is true that the films were shot on digital cameras, using only natural light, only a dedicated fan of Chiba’s particular brand of martial arts film would want to sit through something of such poor quality.

The film comes with only the original Japanese audio track with burned in subtitles, the only extra is the trailer.

5

Charles Packer