Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Comeuppance Reviews When Raimei Dark Bishop (Yamamoto) creates "the perfect cyber ninja to please Dark Overlord's birthday" (Dark Overlord is a menacing vision on a screen played by Masaaki Emori, by the by) , he doesn't realize he has set in motion the ultimate battle between human ninja/samurai, and the kind of the cybernetic variety. When Princess Saki (Morishita) is kidnapped, bounty hunter Akagi (Kawai) snaps into action. Told he will be paid for every Cyber Ninja head he brings back to his master, he ends up teaming up with the aforementioned "perfect Cyber Ninja", who laments the loss of his human soul. Henceforth a wild, unmanageable and messy battle ensues. Will humans come out victorious in the war between them and their mecha-ninja assailants? Find out today...? Well, here's a movie that delivers on its promises. It offers cybernetic ninjas, and indeed cybernetic ninjas are what you get. This is a movie that is completely Japanese, with absolutely no concessions made for any Western audiences. It's certainly the "most Japanese" thing we've witnessed in some time: seemingly out of nowhere huge robots appear, seemingly ultra-futuristic but with traditional Japanese home architecture affixed to the front of their panels (!!!), then Japanese men in traditional garb swordfight against constant volleys of "pew-pew" lasers, then a beautiful princess is kidnapped by a guy named "Raimei Dark Bishop", whose costume seems to fuse Kabuki makeup with modern updates like stylized insect-like tines sprouting out his back. Then ninjas have helmets that stream Japanese writing in their field of vision. Then a creature who looks like a cross between Predator and Terl named Shoki appears, who has a tiny face on top of a huge mass of snakelike wires...I think you get the idea. If you're looking for anything remotely resembling coherency, run screaming in the other direction. If you're looking for something weird and Japanese, this is the movie for you.The movie plays like a live-action Anime, and contains all the insanity an attempt like that may create. Apparently it was based on a Japanese video game, which again is not surprising. Normal movie-watchers are used to seeing the Paramount or Columbia logos before the movie starts. Cyber Ninja begins with the Namco logo complete with a smiling Pac-Man giving us the thumbs-up. You know before the movie even begins that if it's a Namco production, you're in for something...unusual. But surely that makes this one of the very first video game movies. The Japanese are always ahead of us.Even though the film starts with a couple of silent movie-style intertitles "explaining" what's going on, not only do the explanations make no sense, the fact that they're done in that style just adds to the confusion. The overall concept seems to be "old school meets new school" in a mix of crazy inventions, swords, lasers and explosions. But the visuals are very strong, and whoever created the costumes and special effects should be commended. Not only does the movie have funny dubbing, it also has funny running, as the ninjas have their own way of moving which in itself is very amusing, which you just have to see, it's too hard to explain.Amazingly, this movie was released in the U.S. by Fox Lorber Home Video. Cyber Ninja is seemingly incomprehensible to us round-eyes, and we're not even sure if the video game it's based off of, Mirai Ninja, was even released here. Presumably this would have come out on Nintendo...any guesses? But the bottom line is that while the movie itself is utterly nonsensical, it is strong visually and has that wacky sensibility with a lot of creative inventions that show effort and energy. If that appeals to you, do go off and seek this movie out. If you're obsessed with coherency, you probably wouldn't be considering Cyber Ninja anyway, so, everybody wins.

the_wolf_imdb 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.

MnSO2 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)!!

craigjclark Ahh, "Cyber Ninja," where to begin with you?I got to see this movie at a gaming convention during a weekend-long program wherein a group of people in lab coats showed B-movies to test subjects and then monitored them, keeping track of who said the most funny comments during the movies. Sound familiar? If you're a fan of MST3K, it should. And if you can track down a copy of this movie, you'll probably be able to come up with as many riffs as I did.I realize I haven't said anything about the movie yet, but that's just as well. The more you discover for yourself as you watch, the more brazen and outlandish the whole thing becomes. Suffice to say, it's a Japanese rip-off of "Star Wars" with "Power Rangers"-type villains and some of the silliest-looking ninja I've ever seen in my life. (Once you see how the mecha-ninja get around, you'll know what I'm talking about.)Calling this movie "reminiscent of 'Star Wars'" -- as somebody did in the blurb on the front of the box -- is amusing since it's set in a quasi-futuristic feudal Japan (with laser guns and sword battles existing side-by-side), and "Star Wars" itself is "reminiscent" of Akira Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress" (i.e. Lucas stole characters and plot points wholesale from it). Does that make this a second generation rip-off? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I think it does.