Cyber Ninja

1988 "The Hour of Final Conflict Has Arrived..."
6.2| 1h12m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 01 October 1988 Released
Producted By: Namco
Country: Japan
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

In a futuristic version of medieval Japan, a band of swordsmen battles an evil warlord and his mechanical army of ninjas, and are aided by a mysterious heroic cyborg ninja, Shiranui.

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Director

Keita Amemiya

Production Companies

Namco

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Cyber Ninja Audience Reviews

Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.
StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
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.
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)!!
Zorknot I liked this. Granted, the Godzilla-like sfx are laughable at times...but I kind of like that part about it too. Regardless of what a previous review has said, this IS a little like Star Wars. The original three movies especially. However it is also like Godzilla, Krull, Tron,Dune and any number of science fiction movies made in the eighties. you have your laser blasts, your enemies wearing strange costumes, your princess that needs saving etc. What's cool about this movie is that it's from Japan and so its ALSO like anime and you have all these shinto symbols and what not. The first scene of the movie looks an awful lot like the movie Ran, (the samurai version of King Lear)and if you take away the scifi elements its stylistically extremely similar. In fact, one of the actors worked in both movies!Anyway, maybe this movie isn't for everybody, but if you like Godzilla movies, or eighties scifi, or if you've ever enjoyed an episode of mystery science theater 3000, you'll probably like this movie.
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.