The plight of irresistibly sexy Buddhist priests in ancient Japan—a subject too often avoided in contemporary cinema, and anywhere else—is finally given the attention it deserves in this wild Gateway Dragons & Tigers series entry. Ninko’s suffering in this case comes in the form of village women in heat, horny brothers in the monastery, and a nude, life-force-sucking succubus or two. Hardly surprising, since Ninko is a ringer for super-hot Japanese actor Tsujioka Masato. Director Niwatsukino Norhiro’s lively and very pretty film mixes animation with medieval raunch and a lot of nipples, not to mention a very agreeable visualization of the deep meditative state.

Georgia Straight, September 2016