Ninja Legend: High School Battle

Ninja Legend: High School Battle
Naruto Evolution?
Genre: Martial Arts Directed by: Shenzhen Shixian Culture Media Co., Ltd. Produced by: Slight Media Inc Based on: Naruto Runtime: 72 minutes Country: China Language: Chinese

Ninja Legend: High School Battle (忍者传说之高校争霸 in Mandarin) is a 2017 Chinese martial arts movie. It was produced by Slight Media Inc and directed by Shenzhen Shixian Culture Media. The famous host of Happy Family, Du Haitao, plays the role of the peculiar principal of ninjutsu in the film. The movie is very obscure outside of China and there are no English reviews. The movie is loosely based off Masashi Kishimoto's popular anime and manga series Naruto.

Plot

The film tells that in modern China, there is a base for training ninjas called Chihuo Campus. The Chihuo Campus ranks first in the country, and the Millennium Lao Er Shantu College is plotting to exterminate the entire Chihuo Campus in order to grab students and dominate the world for huge profits. The Chihuo campus was at stake, and the principal actually asked Mr. Guangguang to find a common high school idiot Mu Yexing and the monitor Violent Qiu to form a team to fight.

Why It's Nothing Like Anime

1. An unoriginal, yet predictable movie that is a huge rip-off of the Naruto manga/anime franchise.
   1. The main protagonist, Mu Ye, whie decent, is a rip-off of Naruto Uzumaki, having the same personality as him.
      • For some reason, he gets a knock off version of the Sharingan. They didn't even bother covering up the very similar design.
      • His name straight up translates into Konoha, which is the Japanese name for Hidden Leaf Village.
   2. The female protagonist is a Sakura rip-off, even using healing powers and sometimes slaps Mu Ye similar to how Sakura does.
   3. At the beginning, there is a character that is a rip-off of Hiruzen. He even wears a cloak similar to Minato's, just with different kanji on the back. In fact, the cloak is just a modified replica of Minato's cloak.
   4. At the beginning, there is a ripoff of the Hokage Rock, in fact, Hashirama's face was left untouched on it.
   5. There are other students in the movie that are rip-offs of Neji, Rock Lee, Gaara, Temari, Tenten, Shikamaru, Ino, Choji, Shino and Hinata. They even have the same powers as them.
   6. There is a evil group that is a ripoff of the Akatsuki from Naruto Shippuden. One of the members of the group even has a face similar to Zetsu and they even wear black outfits.
   7. The main villain is a poor man's ripoff of the primary Naruto villains Pain, Orochimaru and Madara. He even uses a move similar to the Planetary Devastation Jutsu near the end.
   8. Several of the moves are direct copies of the ones from the Naruto series like the Fireball Jutsu, Dust Release, Planetary Devastation, Insect Swarm, Sand Burial, Byakugan, Human Boulder, Shadow Possession Jutsu, Wind Scythe Jutsu and even the Mind Transfer Jutsu.
   9. The sound effects are ripped straight from the show, Some notable sounds include the hand sign, substitution and Sharingan sounds.
   10. The female teacher is a Tsunade rip-off.
   11. Some of the weapons are just straight up replica versions of the ones from the Naruto manga and anime, like the kunai and the Demon Wind Shuriken.
   12. There is even a scene where the female character is healing a fish, which Sakura did in the Naruto anime and manga series.
   13. Even the movie posters are direct copies of Naruto wallpapers.
   14. Even the plot can feel like a direct copy of the first Naruto episodes, especially at the beginning, where Mu Ye is hated by everyone at his school, sound familiar?
   15. Some of the songs are copies of the ones from the Naruto anime, one of them being a copy of the beginning part of Jiraiya's theme.
   16. The characters even use hand seals to perform the moves.
   17. Some of the special effects also look very similar to the ones used in the Ultimate Ninja Storm games.
   18. The tie-in mobile game is also a direct ripoff of Naruto Mobile, with it having very similar gameplay.
2. Most of the characters names aren't even mentioned during the movie, which makes them hard to remember.
3. The camera work is incredibly poor and makes it look like a college film project rather than a actual movie.
4. Extremely poor acting from most actors. Most of the actors look extremely bored and tired.
5. Very awful special effects that resemble those of a Playstation 2 game.
6. Despite this movie being family friendly, there are some incredibly harsh words during the movie. There is also a incredibly gruesome scene near the middle of the movie, that shows a ton of blood and gore, making the tone very inconsistent.
7. The story is rather confusing unlike Naruto which did takes its time.
8. There are some scenes that can be offensive to Naruto fans and people outside of China.
9. Poor attempts at comedy which just come off as dry most of the time.
10. Major Plothole: Mu Ye's sacrifice was confusing. How did he come back to Earth after he disappeared?
11. The movie has tons of bad morals, like not listening to your friends, etc.
12. Poor writing that really tries to be what Naruto was meant to be special, instead it should have turned the martial arts film genre into a dead horse.
13. Most of the costumes look extremely poor, especially the evil ninjitsu groups, the ninja school uniforms, the female ninjitsu teacher’s Hakama being ripped in the left and the fake white old man beard for the ninjutsu principal with his trenchcoat resembling a knock-off version of Minato’s Hokage trenchcoat and with his appearance being a straight-up knockoff of Master Roshi from the Dragon Ball manga/anime series with said beard and a Hawaiian swim shorts.
14. The main villain is bland and has a extremely poor goal of him wanting to take over the world, making him a generic doomsday villain.
15. Many of the voices are annoying to listen to.
16. The pacing is atrocious and boring.
17. It's another forgettable martial arts movie with no originality.
18. It feels like this movie didn’t exist as it felt like it was made probably that the filmmakers have no idea what Naruto is and assumed to just went onto it’s wiki pages and googled a bunch of things about the series which ended up in a laziest way as possible.
    • It's also possible that the filmmakers made this because they have seen way too many martial arts movies.
    • Another is that they tried to make a different film outside from Naruto in a chinese setting.
19. Very poor fight scenes that are hard to watch due to them having tons of special effects that suffers just like the live action Dragon Ball film, Dragonball: Evolution.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Some Naruto fans may enjoy it, and they might.
2. It is the closest thing to a live action Naruto movie if it's executed well.
3. Despite most of them being poor, some of the fight scenes are really cool, especially the final battle.
4. The soundtrack, despite it being ripped off, is decent.
5. Mu Ye is a likable character. The other students can be likable as well.
6. The ending is heartwarming. The female character healed Mu Ye and his friends congratulated him for defeating the villain and they gave him their necklaces.
7. At least it is considered to be better than Dragonball: Evolution.

Reception

The movie received negative reviews from critics and watchers in China. They criticized the movie for it's low budget, it's blatant plagiarism of the manga/anime series Naruto, the poor acting and the awful special effects. Many Naruto fans in China consider it a huge disrespect to the anime and manga series. Some Chinese Naruto fans even call it disgraceful to the series. However, there are some people and Naruto fans that enjoy this movie.

It currently has a 1.5 rating on Baidu.

Trivia

1. This movie was technically the first live-action Naruto film unofficially, as the film by Lionsgate hasn't been released yet.

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