#Naruto ninja clash in the land of snow

[froggie-bolt]

Found this cool Naruto bag at the comic book store!! Omg!

[roseillith]

[inosukz]

KAKASHI VS NADARE — ✦ NARUTO The Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow

[shizukais]

[scarecrowofthefields]

sotf surveys - Naruto: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow

Yo, welcome to a series about my reactions to the Naruto movies and OVAs. Today we will be reviewing Naruto: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow (legit thought about doing this right after I finished the movie while having dinner lol)

I had previously watched Naruto Movie 1 when I was younger so this was more of a refresher to me. I remember a few major details but the rest were cloudy so I had a few surprises which was exciting, this is the benefit of rewatching something you've seen ages ago and become encapsulated with it all over again. Let's get into it:

OH MAN, you can definitely tell this was movie quality animation. I did not notice how well it was animated when I was younger, they really used up the budget well. Animated shows like to cut corners when it comes to animating to save both time and money which can make the animation feel stale. BUT THIS OUGH, you can see the overshoots and the anticipation in the characters' movements which adds more to their personality, specifically Naruto and Sakura who are outwardly expressive.

SPEAKING OF EXPRESSIONS

FINALLY I KNOW THE CONTEXT OF THIS IMAGE, I've seen it around before but wasn't sure where it was from.

An example of animation that display's Sakura's personality is in a scene 11 minutes into the movie where Team 7 (minus Naruto) gets a debrief on their mission with the film team.

Just for those 7 seconds we see how interested and excited Sakura is being in a movie studio. If it were set on the show I feel like she would only look over her shoulder and that would be it. In movie form we get a bit extra, not just looking over her should but she's innocently rocking back and forth. In addition, we have some background characters moving around which makes the space feel alive.

Another thing to note is the fluid motion of a character or scene being carried over from one frame to the next also the physical weight of their actions.

My favorite example of this is Yukie getting drunk in a small bar, you can see in both her and the other patron are clearly drunk and it's not because of the sake present. Yukie would slosh around, jerk forward suddenly, and have a heavy hand. When Sandayuu and Sakura burst in you can see the weight of their movements as well.

I'm also a sucker for sound quality and the use of foley sounds in movies ever since I learned about it in school. The sounds in Naruto Movie 1 are DELICIOUS. I'm fortunate to have access to a surround sound software also the website I'm using to watch the movie still contains the original sound file so, audibly, it feels like I am in a physical movie theater.

Interestingly, noticed a few scenes used dolly zoom. Not much to comment about it, very neutral about it.

Ma ma, enough with the technicalities, let's get into the plot-

"I guess it can't be helped." KAKASHI!?!? STRAIGHT UP WHIPS OUT THE SHARINGAN JUST TO PUT YUKIE UNDER A GENJUTSU. LIKE I GET IT, GOTTA MOVE HER ALONG NO SENSE IN BICKERING, BUT LMAO

Baby Koyuki and her father :(( the whole dream/flashback was adorable, even if it was short-lived.

Time to be a little Kakashi-biased, mainly the voice acting teehee. I'd like to note that I'm watching this in sub so Kazuhiko Inoue I am all ears. This is the scene where the filming gets interrupted by the villains, Kakashi springs into action, with a quick and commanding voice directs Team 7 to protect the now revealed princess, Koyuki.

If only y'all can hear this gif

Not the villains boasting about their literal plot armor to our protagonists.

Good job Sakura on doing what you're suppose to be doing! Protecting Koyuki-sama. Naruto ran straight towards one of the antagonists, though to be fair Sasuke was defending himself against the female antagonist. For theatrics sake makes sense, you gotta have a fight scene yknow.

I need to remember the movies aren't canon- Kakashi copying Ice-Style? Not possible since it's known as a kekki genkai, though for the sake of the plot and theatrics Kakashi's allowed to use Ice-Style lol.

ANBU KAKASHI SPOTTED IN FLASHBACK

"I, Sandayuu, will protect you with my life!" My pattern recognition senses are tingling...

Gonna dip back into some technicals again for a moment:

One of my favorite tropes in shows and movies is the involvement of the behind the scenes team present on stage, regardless if it's the camera crew, the animation crew, the production crew, etc. It's a funny gag, letting the audience know how hard these people work to produce their shows and movies. In Naruto: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow is no different where they show the type of work they put in setting up the scene with backdrops and props, ensuring the actors are in costume and make-up, and the final touch is the lights, mic, and camera are a go before calling action. The movie takes it a step further and shows us how far the director is willing to go to produce the final chapter of their movie series, it's also a chance of a lifetime.

I WAS RIGHT- BUT HOLY FUCK WAS THAT OVERKILL. RIP Sandayuu

I love the initial exchange in dialogue between Koyuki and Naruto during the prison scene,

"Well deserved." "You too."

MORE BABY KOYUKI AND HER DAD FLASHBACK

"Everyone seems to forget, I'm an actress." Ngl, thought Koyuki was under a genjutsu at first, then she double played me by stabbing Dotou. She really is an actress, go off girl

Sakura and Sasuke showing off their clever battle tactics??? A really impressive scene with their skills as shinobi; using their environment to their advantage, great use of ninja tools, great use of taijutsu too, and lastly they figured out how to destroy the chakra armor.

"Even if ninjutsu and genjutsu don't work on you, a shinobi still has taijutsu." The essential Shinobi Battle Skills!!!

A common trend with the first movie and the following Naruto movies, the main villain is always defeated with a rasengan variant, with Naruto: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow it's a 7 color chakra rasengan, or "rainbow rasengan". I find the variants really cool, though the trend to be silly /pos

baby Koyuki and her father memory? NO, baby Koyuki and her father projection!!! Legit thought she was having another flashback.

MY MAN KAKASHI JUST FOUND OUT ICHA ICHA PARADISE IS GETTING A MOVIE ADAPTION AND KOYUKI IS STARRING IN IT

Like any marvel movie, if you stick around until the very end the animation crew shows their gratitude towards the audience by thanking them which I really like especially since this is the first Naruto movie so they worked really hard on this and I appreciate their efforts.

[a-polani]

ninja clash in the land of snow is my favourite naruto movie for many reasons but the most important one is because no character trope is funnier and more iconic than a grown ass woman who has absolutely zero qualms about beefing with little kids

[scarecrowofthefields]

Gonna write this all here because if I keep writing it in tags my message will be lost:

Atm I find Naruto: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow to be my favorite, but I really enjoy finding rants/analyses like these that challenges a piece of media, specifically this movie, opens the mind kind of thing. Yes, I love the movie, though I do not think it's perfect, the post above is a reason why I think that.

I do agree it was wrong for both the film crew AND team 7 to push Koyuki to reclaim her country after enduring heavy trauma in her childhood. Though if you look at her behavior at the beginning of the movie she is withdrawn, cruel, and lost the spark of life. She is still harboring her trauma, constantly running away and playing a part to fill the life she claims she does not have. Everyone responds to their trauma in their own way, for Koyuki was to turn cold and bitter (LIKE WINTER GET IT??) she's basically a living corpse going through the motions. The purpose of the movie was to give Koyuki purpose and life again (not life as Queen but a reason to enjoy life). If Koyuki was satisfied as an actress and was forced to become a Queen of her home country, then I would have a much more serious problem with this movie

I also remember it's a movie that isn't entirely canon to the show. Typically in movies they try to push a message to their audience before their allotted 90 minutes are up. In Naruto: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow is to never give up.

I rewatched the first Naruto movie recently (Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow) because Blind Wave was reacting to it. And while I do still think it’s a really good movie– it’s held up really well compared to how many forgettable ones followed it– it left me with sort of a weird feeling this time around…

Like, I know they’re our heroes… But who were any of these people to have the right to try and force Koyuki to go back and be the princess of her homeland if that’s not what she wanted? 

They literally kidnapped her to get her there. 

Naruto tries to shame her into it because seeing her reclaim the throne is what Sandayu’s dreamed of for so long…. Like, Naruto sympathizes with that aspect– the dream. But what gives him the right for his dream to dictate what she does with her life? At least, what gives him the right to try and enforce that? 

And then Naruto’s totally condescending line about how she was running from her fate? Get out of here with that bullshit. It was not that long ago–from the point in the series when this movie was made– that Neji was one of the main antagonists, and everyone was railing against his views on not being able to fight your destiny. It is just plain out of character to hear Naruto spewing that kind of shit.

Like, I’m glad she came around and moved past her past trauma… But the way they got her there just… doesn’t feel great.

[skjam]

September Challenge Movies Poll

[kakashihasibs]

Okay so my official ranking of the naruto movies now that i have seen all of them:

Guardians Of The Crescent Moon Kingdom - a solid made-for-TV movie. Enjoyable. Loved the summer outfits. Loved seeing kakashi not give a shit. Fun time.

The Will Of Fire - Kakashi is a big dumb idiot and i love him. He needs to be dragged back home by the ear.

Ninja Clash In The Land Of Snow - honestly probably should be number 2 but i had to make a decision. Excellent fun movie. They wont let the poor actress lady quit her damn job and it's 100% bc Kakashi doesn't know you can quit a job.

Blood Prison - even with the weird sorta transphobia and cavity search this one is still weirdly enjoyable? I have no excuse. I should hate it more than i do.

The Lost Tower - time travel! Grumpy baby kakashi! Father son angst! Enjoyable! Cool creepy villain idea with replacing a whole city of people with puppets. Yamato is in it!

Naruto Shippuden The Movie - an okay movie. Rock lee had a good fight in it and the priestess lady asked naruto to make a baby with her at the end which Kakashi witnessed which made me laugh. I enjoy seeing kakashi astral project into a different dimension to escape uncomfortable situations.

Road To Ninja - gave us menma which was silly and fun. Got to see obito being an extra bitch which is also silly and fun.

Bonds - not a bad movie over-all but Naruto did encourage the like 13 year old girl to confess her love for her (evil) 60 year old teacher??? Loses a lot of points for that.

Legend Of The Stone Of Gelel - okay so i know i have seen this one twice but I can't remember /anything/ from it. It's just a blank to me. So must have been boring. Probably not bad but definitely not good either.

The Last - it's not good. I didn't have fun watching it. Usually when naruto is bad it's at least still fun. But genuinely felt like naruto was under a spell he was just so ??? out of character???? And the misogyny cannot be exaggerated. It was bad.

[lecliss]

Why tye fuck am I crying over ninja clash in the land of snow???? I fucking love this movie so much. It's sooooo fucking good. It's definitely my favorite and it was only the first ever Naruto movie. Can you believe they peaked at the first fucking one??? Why is it so good??? Fuck man aaaaaa

[roseillith]

[inosukz]

KAKASHI of the Sharingan — ✦ NARUTO The Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow

[sweetkakashihatake47]

this is from the first Naruto Movie ...Ninja Clash in the land of snow ..where Kakashi sets the actress Yukie to sleep ...because she refuses to set foot unto the ship!

[emeraldlupin]

Breaking Down Naruto: Blood Prison Part 1

Naruto: Blood Prison. One of the Shippuden films. Having watched most of the films connected with the franchise, I can't say any of them are all that good. I enjoyed Clash in the Land of Snow. That was great. Crescent Moon Kingdom was also enjoyable.

But the others? They tend to either be bland or give me a headache. Blood Prison was one of the few I hadn't gotten around to watching yet, and oh boy did it give me a headache. Movies like this are why MST3K was invented.

Normally, I'd be discussing this in my timeline or geography analysis, but I've started to realize that perhaps some of my thoughts should be confined to another space, and since I set up a Tumblr account, well, I'd try writing something here. This movie is an hour and 42 minutes, and there's so much to unpack and analyze in the dialogue that I'm going to have to do this in parts.

And let's be clear: Even if the animation in this movie is of high quality, I'm more concerned with story. High quality animation shouldn't be wasted on low quality writing.

In this movie, it seems that Naruto tried to kill the Fourth Raikage, even though the Naruto on screen fought nothing like him, and you know, the Transformation Jutsu is a thing.

In the next scene, Tsunade is telling all this to Naruto in front of all his teammates. The attack was "last night." She says the Hidden Cloud lost three jonin, and the Hidden Stone lost two. Then she brings out a pair of sketches sent out by "the Hidden Mist and Stone."

I'm quoting from the subs, just so you know, the ones on the YouTube copy of this movie. But do you already see the first problem? Okay, so the attack on the Hidden Cloud was the day before. Fine.

But was the attack on the Hidden Stone also the day before? I'm not sure. I'd hope not, since the Hidden Stone and Hidden Cloud are extremely far apart and there's no way you could get between them in one night, even with ninja speed. Also, the subs goofed up by saying Hidden Mist.

Anyway, Tsunade says she has no choice but to send Naruto to Hozuki Castle, which is an international prison run by the Hidden Grass for the Five Great Nations to house ninja criminals. Nobody seems to believe Naruto and it all comes off like they've betrayed him. Oh no!

Gee, that sort of thing should get Naruto really upset and have a moment of angst. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. There is no angst. Because who wants actual emotions in this thing beyond generic Shonen stories? That would distract from the fights and stuff.

And, no, no one brought up the Transformation Jutsu as a defense at all.

When I did my geography analysis of the country housing the Hidden Grass, I went into a lengthy deconstruction on how Hozuki Castle can't be on the sea like it is presented. I also mentioned how the movie ignores time, too. So I won't repeat that here.

Instead, I'd like to point out the bizarreness of the prison's design, starting with the guards.

When Naruto arrives there via being carried in a box on foot…are there really no horses in this place?—we see guards at the back of the room. It was a blink and you miss it thing, but the guards appeared to be holding actual rifles. That made me do a double take. In that moment I thought perhaps they were poorly drawn crossbows, but no, a different shot confirmed they were indeed rifles.

Then there’s the clothing. The guards are wearing pickelhaubes. That’s the spiked helmet common to German soldiers in the era of World War I, though it was also worn by Prussian soldiers and many other types of officers. Variants exist today in some countries, but it is most commonly associated with Imperial Germany.

Mui’s uniform is also a more modern military style, complete with epaulettes, those tasseled shoulder decorations. Epaulettes are used in a variety of uniform types, even in dress uniforms for policemen. But given the German helmets…I have to wonder if they were going for German military, for whatever bizarre reason.

And to top it all off, just past a cell block—cells made out of wood— is what I guess is a check-in desk. The prisoners were all made to go through a physical exam. But behind that desk was a statue. Specifically, an extremely accurate copy of the The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.

….What?

Why in the hell is there a copy of an Baroque Italian sculpture in a prison for a Japanese ninja series? Why? What point does it serve? Is this symbolic? Did someone on the art team want to share their trip to Rome?

Ah, wait, it is used as a symbol. The sculpture is supposed to be an image of the divine coming down to interact with an earthly body. When Mui opens up the Box of Paradise in an attempt to get his son back, the movie flashes back to the sculpture. So the box is meant to be divine and he's supplicating it.

One, the angel that visited Saint Teresa did so in a vision, and that resulted in religious ecstasy, which is an altered state of consciousness. The angel was not asked for anything, let alone wishes, so your symbolism is pretty loose. Two, that box is more infernal than divine.

But even with those two things in mind, the loose symbolism is not an excuse to have this sculpture here. Because look at it like this:

Does Christianity exist now? I suppose the shrine with Nagato and Yakihiko's bodies had angels on it and Konan was called an angel, but...seriously, does it exist? Does Rome exist? Does Saint Teresa exist? Or did you remove all real world context from this sculpture? You'd better not have done that, because if you did, that's plagiarism.

You know, I recall the movie The Lost Tower and how the Kingdom of Roran—I’ll get to that eventually—had stained glass windows. I could be wrong, but I don’t recall them being of any particular design. And that’s fine. When I make suggestions for worldbuilding based on history and culture from beyond Japan, I do so to give inspiration. That doesn’t mean flat out stealing a piece of 17th Century Italy.

The art team could have created a piece of art unique to the lore they were building for the movie. They could have taken the time to build the story with cool images of their own within their own context. Instead, they took time and effort to painstakingly reproduce a Bernini sculpture completely out of context.

Great priorities, guys. Great priorities.

But, hey, I suppose it's good to have the sculpture there. It really classes up the place while they strip search you, you know?

That's enough for now. More later.

CORRECTION: I remembered later about the movie Will of Fire. That one was good. Maybe not the most sophisticated plot, but it worked. Sorry about that.

[cheezvt]

Tonight, we head back into Konohagakure for some Naruto Ultimate Ninja! 2!! Sponsored by Naruto The Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow (not really.) Come watch!