My dad recently decided to add HBO Max to our limited paid streaming mostly due to the shows he used to watch on the various Discovery channel networks but also some of the older movies they got with TCM. I like some of those as well, but for me it’s the DC shows (since in his lack of wisdom, David Zaslav has opted to take out most of the kids shows, even from his own Discovery offerings, and license a handful to MeTV Toons despite having a poorly scheduled Cartoon Network and the Cartoon Rewind binge streaming channels at his disposal) I’m more excited for. I’ve been watching the Kids WB The Batman at lunch and it’s really underrated.
They also have the direct-to-video movies, some of which is also available on YouTube for me to make Saturday Night Showcase fodder out of. Oddly, while Batman Ninja Vs The Yakuza League is there, the original Batman Ninja is only up on YouTube and not HBO Max. As I prepare to watch the sequel I thought rewatching the original movie would be fun.
Batman Ninja finds a science experiment transporting the Batman Family and their villains to a feudal Japan world…or actual feudal Japan? I wasn’t quite clear, but these are people from the future of a comic book world. Now our heroes have to collect the villains and find a way back to modern day Gotham City. The odd thing is Batman takes on more of a samurai flavor than a ninja. Perhaps they’re following that one episode of Batman: The Animated Series that tried to say all ninja are dishonorable and the samurai were totally honorable, so Batman is more samurai than ninja. Truth is there were good ninja and evil samurai as well as the opposite. It depends on the clan. That’s really the only hiccup if you’re okay with the animation style.
Apparently the video is currently age-restricted, so by YouTube rules for some reason I can’t embed it here directly. The video as of this writing is more like a link than an actual video. Sorry about that. I don’t get it. It’s not porn, not graphically violent, and I’ve posted videos with more swearing than this movie has. Oh well. Enjoy anyway.
BW Media Spotlight 