In Thailand, a checkered ninja doll is produced, but after its maker (a child factory worker) is murdered and a lightning storm hits, the soul of 17th-century ninja Taiko Nakamura possesses it and it lands on a ship bound for Denmark. Once it arrives there, local drunkard Stewart Stardust (the voice of Anders Matthesen, with Michael Glenn Murphy doing the English dub) finds him and gives him to his nephew Aske (Alex in the ED, voiced by Cameron Simpson). Once the ninja defends Alex's friend John against bully Glenn (Paul Tylak in both roles), Alex realises the doll is alive and they become friends. Now Checkered Ninja recruits Alex's help in exacting his revenge on his maker's killer Phillip Eberfo (aka Eppermint; Luke Griffin), but first Alex recruits Ninja's help in winning the attention of his crush, Jessica (Ava Connolly).
This Danish animated effort, from co-directors Matthesen and Thorbjorn Christofferson and adapted from Matthesen's novel, gets as much wrong as it gets right. It's decidedly more mature in content than most other animated films (there's a lot more violence and, particularly, strong language) and the possessed ninja doll motif is fresh and subversive. But then it mixes a cheesy message about self-belief and numerous adolescent fiction cliches into it, diluting that subversion. Plus, Griffin doesn't come close to sounding like children as either Glenn or John in the dubbed version which I saw and that was very jarring for me. I also didn't find it anywhere near as shocking, with the use of swearing, as it tried to be, and the character of Sean, Alex's brother, annoyed me quite a lot.
The visuals are consistently crisp, and its heart definitely beats, but thanks to the afore-mentioned flaws, this Checkered Ninja misses out on a belt from me. 6/10.
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