The movie is set 500 years in the future, much like Firefly, but rather than humanity taking to the stars, the world is decidedly low-tech and plunged into chaos. Rather than take a Mad Max approach where the resources have run out and people adapted, the movie shows them still driving around in cars that look a couple years old, shooting handguns that you can buy off the shelves, and wearing clothing that wouldn't be too unfashionable to find in current, everyday life. Overlooking the temporal anachronisms for the moment, including the language/slang problems, the movie looks at one young gal, Yuki (Yumiko Shaku from a few of the recent Godzilla flicks in Japan), who is a member of a clan of modern day ninjas in Japan. She is a good little assassin for her clan until she discovers that her mother was killed by them years prior. She seeks revenge by attempting to off the boss with her skill, only to find that he's the boss for a reason (i.e.: he's a better killer than she is), and she retreats to fight another day.

The twenty-year-old Yuki finds solace in the arms of Takashi (Hideaki Ito from the Onmyoji Trilogy). Takashi is a rebel trying to overthrow the oppressive government and by coincidence, a major employer for Yuki's old clan. Through a series of fights and expositions, Yuki has to balance her growing love for Takashi against her thirst for revenge, the two proving mutually exclusive at times. In the end, after losing almost everything else, will she choose life with Takashi or death at the hands of her clan?

Okay, the primary reason to watch this one will be for the fight scenes, not the writing, acting or plot. The movie is said to be inspired by a comic book/Manga, Shura Yukihime, one of the more violent sagas in print and due to the nature of the beast, the "real" director would be the guy in charge of the fight scenes, Donnie Yen, not the film's acknowledged head, Shinsuke Sato. If you skip the talking parts, the fight sequences are actually pretty solid, better than anything you'll find made domestically by a long margin and above average in the wild world of chop-soky flicks from China or Japan.

If you can suspend your disbelief over the wide variety of goofy talking parts, the fact that the settings are contemporary (not centuries in the future) and the violence incredibly graphic (I know, a good thing for most of you), there was a fair amount to enjoy here. Unlike most movies from Japan, it looked good and the audio was pretty solid too, which made it a lot easier to pay attention to. It had some decent sword-play taking place and with the advent of the remote control, you'll be able to skip the weak parts in favor of the good stuff easily enough to make this one worth a rating of Rent It.

Picture: The picture was presented in its original 1.85:1 ratio widescreen color. Although not anamorphic, it looked very good for a low budget movie from Japan with no print scratches and very few artifacts (that I noticed when I played it the second time, to hear the dubbed track), although the grain in a few of the darker scenes was noticeable. The shots were generally composed fairly well and some attention was paid to the technical aspects.

Sound: The audio was presented with in 5.1 Dolby Digital surround with a choice of either English or Japanese with English subtitles. The dub track was a bit off at times, just feeling wrong at times, while the original track (which, contrary to the DVD box cover, was not in 2.0) seemed superior. Except in the fight scenes or with the ambiance and music, the separation between the channels was minimal although it came alive when the fighting started. In short, it was a decent set of audio tracks.

Extras: The extras included some trailers and a paper insert. The menus were basic and the DVD case was the standard used by ADV Films. The cover looked cool and fans of Miss Shaku will probably appreciate it as much as I did.

Final Thoughts: While the movie was flawed in a number of ways, it was fun to watch the fight scenes and it looked pretty good compared to much of what comes out of Japan at this time. I'm glad the box cover was wrong in terms of the audio and the aspect ratio (it wasn't full frame as advertised) although I wish the story had been more engaging. If you skip the love story parts of the movie, you'll like this one a lot more but it has a few moments there that were worth checking out (although few and far between-more nudity might've helped with this).