Why do I love this movie so much? Because it's got it all. Sword
swingin' ninjas, blinding violence, a fairly good plot, great character development, and,
of course, the women. You may have seen some Japanese clips of this movie on MTV's Cartoon
Sushi a few years back. The movie tells the story of master swordsman Jubei and his companions as they set out to stop the evil plans of the warlord Gemma. Gemma plans to build an army of ninjas. With this army, he plans to conquer the world. What makes things worse is that Gemma has gained the power of immortality, which comes as a surprise to Jubei, who thought that he had killed him years before.
The journey starts when Jubei unwittingly kills one of the 8 devils of Kimon. These are Lord Gemma's personal guard. When one is killed, the others must avenge his/her death. Throw in Jubei's love interest, Kagero, a ninja girl with a mysterious problem. See, she poisins the man that she, uh...well...it's a whore's version of Rogue from the X-Men's power. Figure it out.
The movie contains beautiful animation, and fast paced action. The pace of the movie is set when Jubei (eating a rice ball) is confronted by bandits on a bridge and is ordered to hand over a sword. He then throws his rice ball into the air, slaughters all but the leader, sheaths his sword, and catches the rice ball as it falls back down. Hard hitting, fast paced violence. It's fan-TASTIC.
This movie is a must have for any anime fan. And if your'e looking for a movie to get your buddy into anime, this is definitely the one. It has violence, nudity, ninjas, more violence, cool ass weapons, and even more violence. It grabs one of my highest reccomendations.