Ninja Scroll (1994) |
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Ninja Scroll (1994) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Anime |
Main Menu Audio Notes-A Guide To Ninja Scroll Trailer-2 Theatrical Trailer |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1994 | ||
| Running Time | 90:28 (Case: 94) | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 1,2,4 | Directed By | Yoshiaki Kawajiri |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Madman Entertainment |
Starring | None Given |
| Case | Brackley-Trans-No Lip | ||
| RPI | $29.95 | Music | Kaoru Wada |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.33:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | English | Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
Tessai captures Kagero and takes her back to his dwelling, where he starts to have his way with her, but a stranger appears (Jubei) and asks for directions to the town of Kakio. Tessai is irritated by Jubei and attempts to kill him, but Jubei and Kagero manage to escape. At a later stage, Jubei's and Tessai's paths cross again, but this time Jubei manages to kill Tessai.
Dakuan, a surprisingly agile and resourceful old man, saves Jubei when he is attacked by Benisato (the sorceress of snakes). Dakuan explains that Tessai and Benisato are members of the Eight Devils of Kimon, a group of Ninjas who work for the Shogun of the Dark. Dakuan warns Jubei that the rest of the Devils will be looking for him to avenge the death of Tessai. Dakuan offers Jubei a hundred pieces of gold to find out what the Kimon Devils are doing in the Fief of Machizuki. At first, Jubei refuses Dakuan's offer of employment, but after he finds out that the old man has poisoned him and he only has a day and a night to live without an antidote, he agrees. Dakuan promises to give Jubei the antidote after he has helped him.
Dakuan and Jubei start their search for the Devils of Kimon. Kagero arrives just in time to save Jubei from another attack from Benisato. Dakuan asks Kagero to join the team and the trio soon discovers that the villagers of Shimoda were not killed by an epidemic, but by Devils of Kimon who had poisoned the well water.
The are many fights and adventures to come as the team battles the Devils of Kimon.
The picture sharpness and detail is pretty good. Unfortunately, the picture suffers from the occasional line drop-out, some very noticeable and distracting edge enhancement, some minor interlacing artefacts, and some edge rippling which is most noticeable on strongly-contrasted still objects like white writing. A great example of this annoying edge enhancement can be found during the opening scene on the bridge - just look at the edge of any object. When you consider all of these artefacts in combination, we can only come to the rather disappointing conclusion that this transfer was created from an analogue tape source.
The colour is very good, with good even saturation throughout.
Some trivial pixelization was noticed on a couple of occasions, but it was never anything to worry about.
No MPEG artefacts or aliasing was noticed. As previously mentioned, there are several single line dropouts throughout the film. The most noticeable of these are at 5:51 and 61:11. No film artefacts were seen, which is not surprising since this transfer was not taken from film.
| Sharpness |  |
| Shadow Detail |  |
| Colour | |
| Grain/Pixelization | |
| Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
| Film Artefacts | |
| Overall | |
The dialogue was extremely clear and easy to understand throughout the entire movie. No distortion, clicks, pops or dropouts were heard. Since the original movie was in Japanese and then later dubbed into English, the lip sync is not something we have to worry about, since it is never correct.
Kaoru Wada's musical score adds to the on-screen action nicely.
The surround channel use is extremely aggressive. In fact, it is a little too aggressive in some instances, as some of the foreground sounds start to sound like they are coming from behind, but this probably being a little too picky. This aggressive surround channel use creates a totally enveloping sound field during the action-oriented sequences, which there are plenty of.
The subwoofer is almost continually being used to subtly add bass to the soundtrack. It underscores the music and is quite active during many of the fight sequences. This further enhances the kicks and blows that the on-screen characters are delivering.
| Dialogue | |
| Audio Sync | |
| Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
| Surround Channel Use | |
| Subwoofer | |
| Overall | |
The Chapter Selection menu is beautifully laid out and has an index.
There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The picture quality is good, but since the transfer has been taken from an analogue tape source there are noticeable artefacts.
The audio quality is excellent.
There is a pretty reasonable selection of extras present.
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Extras | |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Sony DVP-725, using Component output |
| Display | Sony Projector VPH-G70 (No Line Doubler), Technics Da-Lite matt screen with gain of 1.0 (229cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to DVD player. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Onkyo TX-SV919THX |
| Speakers | Fronts: Energy RVS-1 (3), Rears: Energy RVSS-1 (2), Subwoofer: Energy EPS-150 (1) |