After watching Shogun's Ninja, I must conclude that this is the strangest movie I've ever seen, and I say this after watching numerous Ching Siu Tung movies. This movie is just straight-up weird.
The plot takes place during the reign of Emperor Hideyoshi and there are historical references throughout (Ieyasu, the attempt to invade Korea, etc.) The conflict exists between the last survivors of the Momochi clan led by Henry Sanada (that Japanese guy from Royal Warriors with Michelle Yeoh) and Shogun (Sonny Chiba from the infamous Streetfighter series) and his ninja army. Sanada learns Chinese kung fu and comes back to avenge his clan, does some fighting, learns Japanese ninjitsu, and does some more fighting. The movie ends with a large battle between Chiba and his warriors (which are many) and Sanada and his pals (which are few).
The fighting in this movie is pretty good sometimes, and unexciting other times. Sanada is fairly impressive, he is one of the few characters that actually does any hand-to-combat (everyone else uses swords, guns, or other weapons). His kicks are fairly fun to watch. Sometimes, the swordplay is done bad in the sense that no excitement exists in watching them swing swords clumsily at each other. Unfortunately, Sonny Chiba doesn't do anything too interesting. Neither does Sue Shiomi (she appeared in Sister Street Fighter I believe). There was a female Chinese fighter who could bust out a good boot and the nunchaku, though.
When I say this movie is strange, I don't mean the strange in the Ching Siu Tung-style of bombard the viewer with bizarre, yet beautiful visual image style of being strange. This movie is strange in the sense that its level of camp is off the charts. For one thing, with the exception of some flute playing, most of the music in the movie is of the contemporary jazz/1970's elevator music variety with the occasional Japanese pop tune thrown in. The sounds effects are silly to the point where I wonder if this movie was actually a spoof. There are underground ninja, spider-like ninja (you can see the wires), and a nice little army of ninja at the end (although the third group doesn't do anything). There is a fair amount of wire-work in this, although none of it is really imaginative. Some of the stunts in this movie is just straight-up screwy (watch Sanada block the archers). Well, whether or not one enjoys this depends on his/her tolerance to high-camp.
