This is a review of the cinematic masterpiece known as
Alien vs Ninja.
I'd warn of spoilers but there's not a lot to spoil.
The story opens in "ancient" Japan. When? They're vague on that point and it really doesn't matter. Some badass ninjas (Masanori Mimoto and Kashiwabara Shuuji) have obliterated a target and are heading home with their cowardly gageteer associate.
Mimoto's ninja, Yamata, loves to fight. So when a band of enemy ninja come after him, he slaughters them in an orgy of cartoony, CGI violence.
Then a meteor blazes overhead.
Nearby, another band of ninja - including Rie (Hijii Mika), a kunoichi (female ninja) are heading back home from a mission and indulging in some commentary that most certainly ought to get them a visit to HR. Rie pauses and takes note of the same meteor overhead.
I bet you can't guess what happens from here.
So all the ninjas return home. There's a chat with the scar-faced ninja master who sits amidst a series of anachronistically-garbed ninja warriors (but that's okay, y'see, 'cause the main ninjas are all anachronistically-garbed as well).
They're sent out as a group to poke around and investigate the meteor.
And that's when they encounter the titular alien that crashed on Earth.
Cue the slaughter of the redshirt ninjas. Cue the stylistic fighting with ridiculous, cartoony weapons. Cue the comical blood and gore.
The numbers are quickly whittled down the four ninjas (including the coward one). Cue the sexual tension between the two leading ninja guys (the hotheaded uber-violent one and the cool, lazy-seeming, one) and the lady ninja.
It's actually unclear who was into whom, really. I guess it doesn't matter.
Cue the survivor kid from a slaughtered village who tells them of the monster.
Ninjas hunt the monster to avenge their fallen comerades. Meanwhile, the monster infects surviving wounded ninjas with parasite aliens that take over the bodies of those they inhabit.
More fighting. One hero-ninja gets captured. Other hero-ninjas get spanked by the monster (not literally, though the alien did try some hentai-style groping and phallic tail attacks against Hijii Mika's character, but she wasn't having any of that).
Cue the heroes going after their captured comerade.
Cue the possessed ninjas (who are essentially zombies, making this movie
EVEN BETTER!!!).
More fighting. Asskickery all over the place.
Carnage. Climactic battle against the alien. Gunplay with the ninja gageteer's inexplicably sophisticated ninja machine pistol. Swordplay. At one point, both at the same time.
I think there was a couple of seconds dedicated to an attempt at character development and backstory.
There was a lot of trash talking. There was some random bits of utterly-baffling profanity.
There was an awful lot of sexual harrassment. I'm mildly-surprised Hijii's character didn't just stab the crap out of her teammates.
I guess that's not how they do things in ninja villages.
All-in-all, this movie was an INCREDIBLY-satisfying orgy of ridiculous ultra-violence and cartoony battles.
It boggles my mind that this wasn't up for an academy award.
I laughed. I cried.
It was better than "Cats".
