AKA: Shinobi: Heart Under Blade

Languages: ENGLISH

Plot: A truce between two rival ninja clans is broken when the supreme shogun orders them to end their dispute with a battle. However, the representative fighters from each clan, one female and one male, wind up falling in love. How will this play out? The year is 1614. Japan has been united under Ieyasu, first of the Tokugawa Shoguns, and the land is beginning to feel at peace. Two remote ninja villages, Manjidani in the land of Koga, and Tsubagakure, in the land of Iga, are ancient enemies, but have long been bound by an agreement pressed on them by the first Hattori Hanzo forbidding them to pit their skills against each other.
The heirs to the leadership of both villages, Gennosuke of Koga and Oboro of Iga, have fallen in love and meet secretly, not knowing at first who the other is. But a tragic fate awaits the pair, in Ieyasu’s cruel plot to make the families’ existence vanish into the darkness once and for all, which sets the two villages against each other, and to exterminate each tribe. Five ninja of Manjidani/Koga will battle five of Tsubagakure/Iga to decide who will follow him. The top ten ninja are chosen, and a great war begins between Iga and Koga, bringing Gennosuke and Oboro together again, but now only to meet again as enemies. The pursuit for their star-crossed love, begins.

Cast: Yukie Nakama, Joe Odagiri, Tomoka Kurotani, Erika Sawajiri, Kippei Shiina. . .

Running Time: 101 mins. (approx.)
Features: Anamorphic Widescreen Dolby Digital EX Surround
Stereo