Christopher Lambert is a name you don't see all that much nowadays, but in his heyday he was all over the place! And he looks a bit like Chris Cornell too, come to think of it...

This movie's like a homage to all things Japanese. Old and new. The art of the sword, love, and bullet trains. Honor. Loyalty. Courage. It's the one American take on the whole phenomena of this era of Asian culture that I've seen that doesn't manage to mess it up, but really brings in the American element to the Asian scene with humility. There's really no other way to do it properly.

That humble element is Paul (Christopher Lambert), who on a business trip runs into Krinia (Joan Chen), who is killed, and he just so happens to see the face of her killer: a face belonging to the leader of a secret cult of Ninja named Makoto.

He soon gets dragged into a century old blood feud between the Makoto and Takeda clans, and learns a little bit about the sword on the way.

It might sound generic, but it introduces each element in the best way, and with actors such as John Lone and Yoshio Harada on the Japanese side there's no lack of great talent, neither in English nor in sword. They don't force the English though. Yoshio Harada gets plenty of speak-time in his native tongue too, which gives him the right kind of introduction.

It's bloody, it's stubborn and it's beautiful. It's a successful Japanese/American hybrid of the nineties, a real rarity, a bit like The Last Samurai... but not really. This was better. Japanese scenery. History. Violence. Love. Loyalty. Honor. Arrogance. It has every element it needs to properly bring a Westerner into the Eastern world, and I'm surprised I hadn't even heard of it before. Great watch.