Shinobi: Heart Under Blade

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Shinobi: Heart Under Blade is a 2005, Japanese, ninjutsu, romance movie. The story is an adaptation of the novel, Kouga Ninpou Cho by Futaro Yamada, which depicts the clash between two ninja clans, Iga and Kouga, and the fated love between Kouga Gennosuke (Kouga) and Oboro (Iga). The theme song of this movie was the #1 hit, HEAVEN, by superstar Ayumi Hamasaki.

Also a manga and an anime called Basilisk: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls are based on the same novel, and bear the same character names as in the novel and the movie.

Shinobi: Heart Under Blade
Directed by	Ten Shimoyama
Written by	Kenya Hirata & Futaro Yamada (based on the novel by)
Starring	Yukie Nakama, Joe Odagiri
Music by	Taro Iwashiro
Release date(s)	2005
Language	Japanese

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Set immediately after the Japanese Warring States Period (Sengoku period), Iga and Kouga, two ninja clans that produced powerful ninjas for warlords, have been waging a vendetta against each other over hundreds of years.

Around 1614, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the highest ruler of Japan and the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate , perceived the threat posed by the ninjas of Iga and Kouga. Attempting to consolidate his reign, he deliberately stirred up the feud between the two clans by inviting them to choose their five best ninja warriors to have a fight to the death.

Designated as the leaders of the two clans respectively, Kouga Gennosuke (Joe Odagiri) and Oboro (Yukie Nakama), who were secretly married, are unwillingly embroiled in the political plot. Hence, they have to make a difficult decision between their love and clans.

Initially, being peaceful and knowing the preciousness of life, they tried their utmost to prevent this meaningless and brutal fight by questioning the shogunate's motives. After the deaths of all their comrades during several fights, however, they gradually accepted their inevitable fate.

Scene of the last fight between Oboro (left) and Gennosuke (right)

In the last fight, Kouga Gennosuke chose not to defend himself and allowed his lover Oboro to kill him, thus letting the clan of Iga 'win'. Meanwhile, Tokugawa Ieyasu sent his armies to exterminate ninja villages. To accomplish Gennosuke's hope of saving the villages, Oboro implores Tokugawa Ieyasu not to destroy the villages and, as a show of her sincerity, blinds herself, thereby destroying her most powerful weapons, her eyes (which possessed the power to destroy an enemy from within the minute they make eye contact with her, a technique called '破幻之瞳', literally 'the iris of annihilation').

Moved profoundly by Oboro, Ieyasu withdrew his armies and issued an injunction to protect the ninja villages. According to the movie, the ninjas of the villages lived on peacefully. Their descendants continue to live today.