I can remember the first time our little group saw this movie.  We were looking around at the video place for Ninja Scroll, 'cause I'd heard it was cool.  Unfortunately, when I'd last heard about it was way back in basic training and I hadn't paid much attention to it then, so I couldn't remember the name.  We looked around for awhile and saw Wrath of the Ninja.  Figuring there was a good chance this was the movie because it had ninja in the title, we rented it.  It didn't take very long for us to figure out that this wasn't nearly cool enough to be Ninja Scroll.

          From what I've heard, Wrath of the Ninja is actually a chopped down version of another movie (I might be wrong 'cause I just read something about a series, but it's still the same general idea), which I think is called Yotoden or something.  This helps explain why Wrath of the Ninja is so confusing most of the time.

          Okay, we got ninjas, monsters and a bunch of people who appear at random times, making you think they may be influential characters until they die.  Basic plot, we got a bad guy who can only be stopped by three ninjas from certain schools of training who each have a special weapon.   There, now that that's over with, let me tell you that this movie confused me almost as much as Akira did the first time I saw it.  I didn't know what the hell was going on and, on top of that, much of the movie was pretty boring.

          It's actually pretty sad, I've seen this movie twice and I still don't know who was fighting on what side.  They had two opposing forces fighting each other at times and I just didn't know who was the good guys because of all the crazy Japanese names that were thrown around all the time during the boring meetings and all the double crossing that was going on.  I dunno, I've heard that the original movie was a lot better than this one, and easier to understand, but I still don't know why they would make a good movie, then cut it down into a separate movie that is pretty much the same thing.

          Anyway, the animation was very nice and the music did fit well.   They also managed to put in some pretty cool fight scenes, chuck full of ninja action.  How do I know it was true ninja action you ask?  Well, the ninjas could do the magical ninja blur trick, the one used to show they're moving really fast.  Unfortunately, while the fights with the normal people were cool, when the three ninjas fought the demons, it kinda sucked.   Example... one demon has control of a woman and is using her to fight, then the demon makes all these tentacles and crap burst out of her so far, everything is okay right?  Well, the scene jumps to something else and when it gets back to the demon possessed girl, she's suddenly naked.  Come on!   Stuff like that and the fact that the demon lord type guys seemed pretty easy to take out made for some crappy fights.

          So, to summarize, kinda boring, only good fights were the unimportant ones, extremely confusing and the movie was just too long.

Genre - action/ninja/adventure

Animation - The animation and artwork were very nice at all times.

Sub vs. Dub - only seen the dub

the Good - it had ninjas, a few cool fights scenes...

the Bad - too confusing, too boring, too long for how confusing and 
boring it was, mostly crappy fights, random boobs...

Overall - I hope the original is a lot better than this one, 'cause this 
one isn't good