Review: The Grandmaster

Here's how little I knew about Ip Man going into The Grandmaster, the latest of many biopics about him: when I saw the Netflix Instant cover art for the film Ip Man, with the title in all caps, I guessed that it was a wry mockumentary about a superhero charged with enforcing copyrights by going after internet pirates around the world.

Of course, Ip Man was in fact a legendary Chinese martial artist (and Bruce Lee's teacher). And as The Grandmaster unfolded, I began to feel that it may be precisely the worst way to start learning about Ip Man. Partly, this is because the movie really should have been called The Grandmaster's Girlfriend.

Review: Shinobi: Heart Under Blade

I recently found myself in the mood for a "ninja movie," and while Shinobi: Heart Under Blade does have ninjas, and is a movie, it wasn't quite what I had in mind. Next time maybe I'll do more research.

Not that Heart Under Blade is bad or anything. But I'd hoped for more of a "ninjas doing badass shit to non-ninja mooks" kind of movie, rather than "ninja clan vs. ninja clan, but with lots of talking and romance-y moping, and also they're superhuman." That said, if you're in the mood for the latter, look no further.

The Netflix description nails it for once, describing this film as Romeo and Juliet meets the X-Men. The lead characters, Gennosuke and Oboro, are the star-crossed lovers (and yes, they use that phrase a couple of times, just in case the influence is unclear). They belong to rival ninja clans populated by a host of bizarre characters, including a Wolverine analogue with rapid healing, a male Mystique analogue, a poisonous Rogue analogue, and Sleeve Guy—whose power is telekinetic control over the fibers in his sleeves. (I'm not enough of a comic book nerd to know the relevant X-Man for Sleeve Guy.)