Kunoichi: Lady Ninjas
Kunoichi: Lady Ninjas
Director: Hitoshi Ozawa
Year: 1998
Production Company: Daiei
Running Time: 107 minutes
Perhaps if I borrowed Stephen Hawkins’s brain and had it transplanted
in my cranium, I could have made better sense of this film. But that’s only
perhaps. This frantic film moves so fast and explains so little that you
soon give up on worrying about a meaningful plot and just enjoy it for its
high gravity slapdash action, fantasy elements, nudity, campy imagery and
of course female ninjas. Is anything in the world much more satisfying than
female ninjas? Especially ones that have powers like the “Nipple Shock Wave”
and the spread legged “Echo Power”. These are the kind of super powers I
like to see my super heroes have. Apparently, this is part of a seven film
straight to video movie series about female ninjas called “Kunoichi Ninpocho”
that is based on a number of books. There doesn’t seem to be any characters
that cross these films and from what I can gather they are all often dead
by the end – so much for happy ninja endings. This one takes place fairly
late in the series – so possibly but by no means definitely - if the earlier
films had been seen this would have been easier to follow. But in truth it’s
not worth worrying about – either you enjoy nonsensical fast moving action
movies like this where you turn your brain down real low or you don’t – I
generally do.
A very high overview of the story goes something like this. There is a High
Lord named Akinari who reports in to the Shogun during the era of the Tokugawa
government (1603 – 1868). He has become so corrupt and licentious that he
has had to surround himself with deadly bodyguards who also act as pimps
to bring him a constant turnover of young female flesh to play with. His
bodyguards referred to as the 7 Spears all have various powers as well but
wouldn’t likely be invited to a posh society party or get their own calendar
as their looks could use a dramatic makeover – bring in those guys from “Queer
Eye for the Straight Guy” to see what they can do. One of them can even pull
out his eyeballs and roll them like dice on the ground whereupon they turn
into demons. They attack a convent and kill most of the inhabitants until
only seven young women remain alive. At this point Princess Sen appears on
a hovering pillow and persuades the men to leave with her reverberating voice.
She takes these women under her wing and it turns out they are all Hori Women
with great ninja potential – they just have to “awaken your powers” and she
invites a samurai to show them the way. This is no ordinary samurai though
– it is the legendary Jubei Yagyu, the son of a famous sword maker and once
a sword instructor at the residence of the Shogun. Jubei was actually a real
person back in the 1600’s and has been the subject of a few films as well
as anime, manga and video games. You can read more about him here.
Their mission is to kill the 7 Spears and the Lord – it won’t be easy.
In a number of ensuing action scenes the 7 Spears are pared down one at a
time by the female ninjas but not without fatalities on their own side (at
which point a pearl drops out of their body and if you collect enough of
them you get a free trip to Disney Land). The leader of the Hori Women is
Ochie played by action star Yuko Moriyama (Zeiram) who looks quite lovely
and very serious, but doesn’t get to do as much action as I would have liked.
Much of the action resides with Jubei and that may not be surprising since
he is played by the director Hitoshi Ozawa, but since this is a female ninja
film one might expect them to be more central to the action. They get their
share but it wasn’t enough for a lame fan boy like me. The female ninjas
all have powers within, but it is difficult to activate them and often only
duress, danger and even death can bring them to the surface – or the nipples
or the crotch. The killings are quite bloody and in true pulp samurai fashion
there are geysers that fill the sky. Sex can also bring out the ninja
powers and in one scene Jubei and one of the ninjas are held captive in a
deep pit surrounded by rotting corpses when the ninja insists that Jubei
deflower her to bring out her power and he does so even with people shooting
arrows at them from above – a true samurai!
My rating for this: 6.5
Kunoichi: Deadly Mirage
Director: Yutaka Akiyama
Year: 1997
Production Company: Daiei
Running Time: 72 minutes
It seems that “Kunoichi: Lady Ninjas” was the seventh in the series
while this one comes in as the sixth. That’s important to know because if
this one is representative of what came before in the earlier films, you
may want to save your hard earned money. “Kunoichi: Lady Ninja” was a major
step up from this with a much larger budget, better special effects and higher
profile actors. The only thing that “Deadly Mirage” really has going for
it is that it is mercifully short at 72 minutes and yet still manages to
drag itself painfully to the finish line. There is nothing good to say about
this other than perhaps a helping of female nudity for those who see that
as a plus – the actors look to have just gotten out of high school where
they failed theater class, the choreography is woefully slow and laughable,
the female ninjas aren’t even all that hot as female ninjas are suppose to
be and the story makes as much sense as George Bush during his extemporaneous
remarks.
In the 1600’s during the rule of the Tokugawa, unrest has fallen on Japan
and rumors of a coup are in the air. The Shogun has formed the Shinsengumi
in Kyoto to restore order in the Imperial city. They are a motley crew of
ronin and are given great leeway in bringing order and establishing authority
as they see fit. They have been the subject of many films (a recent one being
“When The Sword is Drawn”) and television – sometimes being portrayed as
heroes, sometimes as villains - more can be read about them here. A new
Shogun comes to power and he sends a secret letter (well, not all that secret
as everyone but the milkman seems to know about it) to the Shinsengumi with
mysterious instructions. The enemies of the Shogun want to know what those
instructions are and so order the six female ninjas of the Hiryu clan to
steal the letter. After sneaking in, the women discover the letter is no
longer there and they have to fight their way out but one of them is captured,
tortured and raped by the Shinsegumi.
This mildly promising beginning goes quickly off track though as it turns
out that a member of the Shinsegumi deserted with his lover and stole the
letter as leverage. Both the ninjas and the Shinsengumi are hot on his heals,
but it’s the Shinsengumi who catch up with him first and cut his head off
(so much for leverage) – leading to a truly awful scene of his lover having
a lengthy conversation with his head. It only gets worse – a monk tries to
bring him back to life – though with only a head I would think getting around
would be a problem, but perhaps the lover only wants a head that would simply
listen to her complaints about life – “take out the garbage, can’t you? Oh,
that’s right – you only have your head. Excuses, excuses” but instead the
monk had apparently not brought his “Bringing Back the Dead for Dummies”
book with him because he lets an evil spirit through the portals and it begins
causing havoc with the ninjas and the Shinsegumi – it sort of looks like
something that was left over from an early Hong Kong hopping vampire movie.
All of this time mind you I was checking to see how much longer I had to
suffer through this and was just wishing I could jump into the future when
it would be over. It is just plain awful.
My rating for this film: 3.5