"Naruto" was favorite show of mine growing up. It has great action, memorable characters, and intriguing storylines. I was 11 years old when this movie premiered on Cartoon Network. I fell in love with it and watched it multiple times. Re-watching this movie as an adult, I find that there is still a lot to like.I found the story to be fun and interesting, and it moved along at a good pace. Princess Yukie is a very sympathetic character, and the interactions between her and Naruto as he tries to make her come to her senses provide some nice drama.The animation is still spectacular 14 years after its release, and the direction and cinematography is hugely impressive and really lets the audience take in the gorgeous snowy scenery. They did a good job of making sure that the series' first theatrical outing doesn't feel like an extended episode.Doto doesn't necessarily raise the bar as far as villains go, but I still thought he was decent. He has an intimidating presence, and he is as evil as they come. I thought his three henchmen were cool, although I would have liked for them to be fleshed out a bit more. I really like the concept of using Chakra armor to make them more dangerous.This movie takes place during the time in the show when Sakura and Sasuke were Naruto's teammates. It was a treat to see Sasuke (my favorite character) in the good old days.The action scenes are great fun and really give every character a chance to do their stuff. Anime fans will be kept on the edge of their seats. The music is terrific and really adds to the movie's feel.Of course, the line Yukie yelled out to Naruto during the climax made me absolutely CRINGE, and it did take away from the climax just a little.I'm very glad that this movie holds up as well as it does. It starts the "Naruto" movie franchise on a pretty strong note, and I recommend it to all anime fans.RATING: A-

In this movie, we follow the adventures of a princess from a land of eternal winter. She was forced to flee her kingdom after her father wisely sealed up all the countries wealth in a vault somewhere, and her uncle cruelly took over to restore both economic and military prosperity as well as bring back springtime to the land (which was also somehow sealed away). It turns out that the key to the vault is a crystal the former king gave his daughter before she fled. She arrives in a nearby nation where she immediately goes into hiding by becoming the MOST FAMOUS MOVIE ACTRESS OF THE NATION. The villain pretty much immediately identifies her since it's the equivalent of finding out that Robert Downey Junior was really an exiled king in hiding.Her producer, who is actually a former servant of hers, decides to trick her into going back to her homeland by having a movie take place there. After she tries to flee so she doesn't have to risk certain death for the sake of cinematic art, he hires the main characters, a trio of ninjas and their teacher, to knock her out, kidnap her, and put her on a boat to her old country against her will. Also, the teacher steals the key to the wealth of her nation from her and replaces it with a fake he just happened to have lying about. After trying to escape from her ninja escorts, and literally being carried back against her will, she is then kidnapped by the villain who gives her food and wine, and even refuses to kill her after she freakin' stabs him in the chest. In fact, in the entire movie the only people the villain kills are a bunch of idiots who charge at his knife-shooting train wielding swords and screaming like idiots. Even the main character, having failed in an assassination attempt, is merely locked up. Anyways, at the end he releases springtime back into the land, turning the snow to grass, the sun to come out, and rainbows to shine. However, after releasing the effects but immediately before they came into effect, he is beaten up, and the princess takes all the credit for it. The heroes leave the princess in charge of the nation she wanted nothing to do with, and the villain is presumed dead, having saved them all from an endless winter. So, all things considered, it's a happy ending!In all seriousness though, this isn't that much of an exaggeration. The princess acts like a jerk the whole movie, and has legitimate reasons to do so (kidnapping, threat of assassination, nobody listening to her) but her complaints are completely unrelated to those. The main characters do every single thing I said. And while the villain DOES act like a jerk (he IS the villain after all), his overall goal seems to be bringing back spring to the land. I finished this movie very confused about what I just watched. A skilled director would have made this seem like a very moralistically gray movie, making us realize we might be following the villains after all, but they throw just enough clichés and drawn out mindless speeches about 'not giving up' that it's obvious who we are supposed to think the villain is... but from the beginning the 'good guys' do reprehensible things, and the villain even says at the beginning that the former king sealed away all the countries wealth in a vault. The fact that the same king apparently sealed away springtime as well (not an exaggeration, they bring it up several times) just makes him seem cruel and stupid. Yet we are meant to hate the guy trying to fix it. *sigh*

I saw this movie, and I hate it. It's full of ridiculously overused and predictable clichés. If you're above the age of 13, you will not enjoy this movie.I found myself sighing almost entirely throughout the movie; I guess one long sigh. That's how annoying it is to watch. OK; So there's a princess, SHE NEEDS TO BE RESCUED. NARUTO WILL TEACH HER BY BEATING SOMEONE USING RASENGAN BECAUSE THAT IS AWESOME AND THERE WILL BE USELESS SIDE CHARACTERS. Yeah, pretty much like every anime.Oh, and it has many pathetic 'tie-ins' that allude to the whole thing being a movie in and of itself, probably to give fan-boys a sticky wicket. tl;drIt's trash.

This movie is a theatrical side story of the acclaimed any TV show, Naruto. Naruto is the story of young ninjas training to become better at their skills. Each character has their own history and story to tell, main character amongst these is Naruto, the boy cursed with a demon sealed within his body and forced to live a bullied life because of the discrimination against him.However, Naruto is strong willed and determined to prove the towns people of Konoha wrong, quite often causing many other people to be enlightened by his fiery spirit. In this story, Naruto and his two team mates; Sasuke and Sakura along with their instructor, the famous master of over 1000 techniques, Kakashi have been assigned to be a bodyguard for a famous actress as she travels the world filming.However, there is trouble afoot when a band of dangerous and powerful ninjas attack the film crew claiming that the actress is in fact a princess of the land of forever snow where they have had the misfortune of arriving. The Ninjas are working for the actress' Uncle, who turned traitor to her father 10 years ago, who is after something called "The Hexagonal Crystal", claiming the princess knows where it is.The princess is as cold as the snow where she was born and refuses to be moved by anyone not even as those who protect her fall into more and more serious danger, Naruto knows she has the will to defeat her uncle if only she would stop running away from her fears. But can he convince her to change, and what will happen in the meantime, how many more innocent lives will be stolen by her vicious Uncle.This is a fun and exciting movie that acts well as a fun side story for the Naruto TV show. It harnesses nothing particularly amazing but is definitely a fun film that is greatly enjoyable with a good blend of emotions, action and special effects.