Review for Naruto Shippuden The Movie (Review)
Sunday, 18th July 2010, 16:24

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Introduction
That was fast! Manga Entertainment have only just released the first collection of Naruto Shippuden episodes, and they are already onto the first film. It's certainly proceeding at a pace even hastier than the first Naruto series. But then again, Naruto Shippuden hasn't exactly been a laggard in its native Japan. The Shippuden series debuted in February of 2007, and this first film was in theatres just six months later. At the time of writing, the series has just passed episode 167, while the fourth movie is about to be released to Japanese cinemas. With that in mind, maybe this rapid release of the first movie by Manga Entertainment isn't out of place at all.

15 years previously, the Hidden Leaf village was plagued by the Nine-Tailed fox demon. The Fourth Hokage ninja sacrificed his life to defeat the menace, and sealed up the spirit in the body of a newborn child. That orphan grew up as Naruto Uzumaki, a mischievous prankster with great ambition. He wants to be the strongest ninja of them all and be granted the title Hokage, leader of the Hidden Leaf village. In the first Naruto series, we followed him on his training as a ninja, tutored by Kakashi, and partnered with his ideal girl Sakura, and his archrival Sasuke. Of course Sakura was sweet on Sasuke, which didn't help, but slowly the three became firm friends. The dark clouds of ambition tore that friendship apart though, but it wasn't Naruto's ambition. It was Sasuke's, sole survivor of the Uchiha clan, slaughtered by his brother Itachi. He grew up wanting revenge on Itachi, and wanted to gain in power and strength as quickly as possible. Sasuke gave into the temptation for easy power offered by the renegade ninja Orochimaru. Sasuke left to join Orochimaru, and Naruto swore to get him back. The Naruto Shippuden series takes place after a 2-and-half year hiatus where Naruto was off training, and follows his return to resume his mission.

Of course the film has nothing to do with that at all, and is like all the earlier Naruto movies, pure filler, a standalone story that features the characters, has them off on a mission unrelated to the main plot, which offers 90-odd minutes of entertainment for cinema going Naruto fans. But this Shippuden movie does offer characters who are older and more experienced in their ninja techniques, which should mean for more animated fireworks on screen. 

Several years previously, a band of rogue ninja tried to take over the world with the aid of an otherworldly demon named Moryo. The priestess of the Land Of Ogres, who separated Moryo's body from his soul, and sealed both separately, stopped them. But now, they are trying again, and have liberated Moryo's soul and are taking it to his body to complete the resurrection. The ninja of the Hidden Leaf village have their hands full battling the reanimated ghost Terracotta Army that is laying waste to the lands, and the rogue ninja are going to assassinate the current priestess Shion before she has a chance to seal Moryo away again. The only ninja team that can be spared to protect the priestess is Naruto's, and teamed with Sakura, Neji and Rock Lee, they race to the Land of Ogres before the enemy can get there. The thing about the priestess is that she has an unusual ability. She can see the future, but only the deaths of those sworn to protect her. And she's just dreamed of the death of an orange haired ninja. Can Naruto save the priestess, save the world, and change his own destiny?

Picture
The first Naruto Shippuden movie gets a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer. It's an NTSC-PAL conversion of course, but it's a bright, shiny anime, with little evidence of ghosting or compression artefacts. It's just the usual interlacing, and judder during pans and scrolls, but watch enough anime, you begin to blank that stuff out. The movie budget does offer wider scope for the animation, it's a lot more fluid and energetic than the television series, character designs are a little fuller and more refined, and the action sequences really zing in comparison to the television show. That's in comparison to the television show. Standing alone as a feature film, Naruto Shippuden The Movie seems a little unrefined and simplistic, not really justifying the budget, although I guess some of that comes from having to keep the character designs consistent from TV to movie. By far the biggest culprit is some horrendous CGI, especially with the Terracotta Army. There is no attempt to blend it into the 2D animation, and where the two have to interact, it looks dire.

Sound
You have a choice between DD 5.1 English and Japanese, along with translated English subtitles. The dialogue is clear, and the upgrade in sound is appreciated for the film's many action sequences. My preference as always was for the Japanese track, but the English is there if you prefer. I didn't think to sample it, until I learned that guest starring in this film was Wil Wheaton, Wesley Crusher himself.

The check disc had a couple of issues with the subtitle stream, with a couple of missing lines (including one rather important one), and more importantly, the subtitles were out of sync throughout, ahead of the screen dialogue by a fraction of a second. Manga Entertainment are aware of this, and the retail release should have subtitles that are correctly timed.

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