Love/Hate: Ninja Ryukenden (1991) (BONUS)

Welcome back to the Ninja Gaiden Love/Hate series! We’ve covered all the Ninja Gaiden video games that I could get my hands on, so we’re coming in with a bonus entry for the Ninja Gaiden anime film from the 90s which acts as a direct sequel to the NES trilogy! I knew literally nothing about this film going in, so I had no idea what to expect from it. Does this film hold up as a stand-alone film and/or as a canonical entry in the Ninja Gaiden storyline? Read on to find out…

Love

• The Early-90s Anime Aesthetic – Ninja Ryukenden looks gorgeous, and that is largely due to the hand-drawn style which screams early-90s anime. It looks incredible and makes me very nostalgic for that simpler aesthetic.
• The Fights – Being a video game movie, Ninja Ryukenden has a bunch of fights. What I was not expecting was for these sequences to be really well-animated and surprisingly violent affairs! I guess that this film would have released right before Mortal Kombat and the subsequent moral panic, so maybe Tecmo had no problem showing Ryu lop off heads and slice people in half in a geyser of blood and gore. Seriously, there are sequences in this film which feel like they directly inspired the ultra-violence of Ninja Gaiden II!
• Side Characters – As enjoyable as it is to see Ryu being a ninja badass, I think that my favourite part of the narrative was its B-plot, featuring Robert F. Sturgeon (whose return means that he survived Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos!), his girlfriend Sara, and his friend Jeff. They basically spend this time doing typical detective investigation stuff, but the trio have fun personalities that really endears you to them. Jeff’s sudden shift to being a total badass in the third act was also joyous, I was grinning from ear-to-ear whenever he was on-screen.

Mixed

• Animation – While the pure 90s aesthetic of Ninja Ryukenden sure elevates it, it’s pretty clear that they didn’t have much of a budget or time at their disposal. Many scenes have very little animation to them at all. That said, when the film does start animating at a higher quality, they’ve allocated it to the areas where it mattered most (particularly during the fights). Still, there are some moments where the lack of motion to the animation can be a bit distracting…

Hate

• The Story – While Ninja Ryukenden looks good, its story is incredibly generic. The bad guys are trying to summon the Dark God, again. Irene gets kidnapped, again. Ryu has to fight through monsters to get to the bad guy, again. But wait, they added something new this time! A melodramatic romance subplot between Ryu and Irene… oh wait, no, that’s also extremely generic in its own right.
  • It probably doesn’t help that the film’s only forty-five minutes long, so it’s not like they had a lot of time to let the narrative breathe.
• Irene – God, I don’t know who’s been disrespected more in this franchise: Rachel, or Irene? At least Rachel’s gotten a chance to kick some ass, Irene is just constantly getting kidnapped. She’s even worse here though, being nearly worthless in a fight (despite being a trained CIA operative in the NES trilogy!), and spending every scene whining about her fear that Ryu will break up with her. She’s a burden and a wet blanket on the whole affair, it’s idiotic that they made her so incapable here.

Having seen my fair share of extended universe video game movies, I wasn’t really expecting much out of Ninja Ryukenden. As a result, I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot to like here, even if the narrative is completely generic. It’s too bad that this film never got a sequel, I would have loved to see more of this style… especially because it hints at a potential follow-up that never was!

Related Posts

About the Author

Barloq

Administrator

Writer, blogger, father. Blogging since 2012, writing my whole life. Was blessed by the chupacabra and the guardian shepherd.

Visit Website View All Posts