The setting is feudal Japan. In the wild, we meet a band of rogue Iga Ninja warriors, led by Yamata (Masanori Mimoto). Once day they encounter a flash in the sky, which becomes a fireball that crashes into the forest nearby. After then rushing to investigate it, they make a most shocking discovery: alien predators! They quite literally make mincemeat of several of the Ninja, and now Yamata and his crew, along with a young peasant whose village the aliens devastated, set out for revenge. But it will take far more than swords and throwing stars for them to fell these foes.
Even if it was already obvious, let me make this abundantly clear right now: Alien vs. Ninja (2010) is intentionally ridiculous and anachronistic. And it thoroughly wallows in that. Writer, director and even editor Seiji Chiba evidently loves science fiction and martial arts films, and by fusing the two he delivers a movie that turns both of those phenomena, individually and combined, very much on their heads. And except perhaps the theme of revenge there's no political or metaphorical subtext here either: it's just 90 minutes of shamelessly self-indulgent Eastern action with a postmodern twist, but that's clearly the point.
Action directors Yuji Shimomura and Kensuke Sonomura help Chiba deliver breathlessly paced and choreographed fight sequences, the cast all have great fun with their performances (especially Donpei Tsuchihira as the group's bumbling inventor Nezumi and Yuuki Ogoe as young peasant Nishi), the visual and special effects (there is a difference there) are utterly convincing and detailed especially for the budget (600, 000 Yen), and Kuniyuki Morohashi's score is a totally intoxicating and fitting electronic twist on traditional Japanese music.
At a time when far too many Hollywood action movies either rely on countless cliches or just don't even acknowledge how stupid and dull they are, Asian ones, particularly Japanese ones for me, are easily kicking their arses. And none more so than Alien vs. Ninja.
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