Naruto and Yamato are engulfed by the light alongside Mukabe and that’s where the movie truly begins.
Mukabe unlocks the seal and a magnificent but maleficent light fills the underground ruins. Armed with chakra-enhanced blades, the team follows Mukabe into the ruins of an old city, there lies a sealed source of energy called the “Ley Line” that, once in the hands of a skilled Ninja like Mukabe, could mean ultimate power for him and major strife for the rest of the ninja world. Mukade is a master of puppet manipulation jutsu and uses it alongside the desert winds to temporarily get the best of the team. Team Seven whichm right now, consists of Naruto, Sakura, Sai and Yamato are out on a mission to hunt down the rogue, and highly dangerous, ninja named Mukade. The Lost Tower is set somewhere within the Naruto Shippuden story, I’m not too sure because they never really give an indication but that I don’t think that would’ve been necessary anyway. Naruto Shippuden Movie 4: The Lost Towerfits perfectly into this description it’s different, it’s thought-provoking and it’s slightly odd but does it do justice to the Naruto franchise? That’s the question I have to pose. I have to give it to the show-runners of these series’ because every time they branch off the storyline into something that is meant to fit into a movie they try their very best to make it different, unique or even slightly interesting, it doesn’t always land but when it does…it does it well.
Year after year we’re given movie after movie, some of them are actually pretty good, others seem more like extended episodes rather than full movies.
Not only does every Shonen series in circulation have an almost uncountable number of episodes under their belt, with more set to come, but they also have a handful of story-branching movies to go along with it, Naruto is one of those series’ and considering it’s been going for many years I can’t say any of us are really surprised by this.