If you’re interested in romance, ninjas or any combination of the both (or if you’re into one of the two and your romantic partner digs the other), you might want to check out Shino- bi—Heart Under Blade, which comes out on DVD this week. This very silly movie from Japanese director Shimoyama Ten played at Fantasia last year; it’s set in the hills of Japan among two rival clans of ninja. As tends to happen when rival clans produce attractive off- spring, a Romeo and Juliet thing gets going when the groups’ respective heirs start getting smoochy. And when a war breaks out, things get seriously freaky. It’s hard to take Shinobi seriously, with its high theatrics and over-the-top CGI, but that’s what makes it ridiculous fun. If you’re into that kind of thing Universal drops a bunch of films in their worthy, if special-feature- skimpy Universal Cinema Classics series this week. There’s the exoti- cized Technicolor adventure of 1942’s Arabian Nights, which stars the single-monickered Sabu as Ali Ben Ali—incidentally, the Indian actor Sabu was one of the wealthiest stars of the era, though he’s not remem- bered well today. Also available: The Heiress with Olivia de Havilland and Montgomery Clift, Bing Crosby in Going My Way and Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front.
>> MARK SLUTSKY
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