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Let me say up froht that I really love the concept of cute Ninja-girls
doing fighting in skimpy costumes, especially when they occasionally have
to use part of their costumes for special Ninja magic (which is why
I always had a soft spot for the Female Ninjas: Magic Chronicles series,
the 7th part of which this movie is). And when these girls fight some
eccentric, over-the-top villains, that schouldn't hurt either, right ?
Well wrong, somehow this particular film didn't work at all for me. The
main problem with it - besides the totally flat characters - is that I
couldn't make head nor tails of the plot.
I'll try to recount it anyway, as best as I can: The Kato Clan are the
baddies here, especially therir assassins called The Seven Beasts.
They even kill nuns from a convent as well as defenseless men and women.
But then there are the seven girls of the Hori Clan, the goodies. These
seven girls are not only incredibly cute, they are also Ninjas, and since
they are Ninjas, they want revenge. Their only problem is, there special
powers only come to the fore in times of stress, which does not always
help, and their special powers often involve a bit of tame nudity
(sometimes to comical effect). the girls are helped by one-eyed Jubei
Yagyu, blind master Hannya and monk Takuwan.
Now this is the set-up of the story, from here on it gets unnecessarily
complicated: characters and subplots are thrown into the film and vanish
into thin air repeatedly, fight scenes seem to start out of nowhere, and
several of the girls are even killed . In the end its jubei and the last
three Ninja girls against the remainder of the Kato clan, led by the Lord
of Aizu ... which is decided for the side of good when (totally
unprovoked) one of the Ninja girls, Ochie (Yuko Moriyama), suddenly
receives a magic sword and ultimately slays the Lord of Aizu. Then Jubei
Yagyu leaves, but not before Ochie smiles for the first time (though I
didn't even remember that she didn't smile through the rest of the film
...).
Now if my synopsis sounds relatively coherent, the film is not, and
it's not helped at all by a rather bland direction and confusingly cut
fight-scenes. It is really a waste of time, which is a pity because I so
wanted to like this film ... oh well, one can't have everything
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