Radiance Films
Blu-ray Release: May 28, 2024
Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Black & White
Audio: Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono
Subtitles: English
Run Time: 104:27, 93:19, 85:56
Director: Satsuo Yamamoto, Eiichi Kudo
If you grew up in America during the 1980s, you’d be forgiven for assuming that ninjas were an omnipresent piece of world pop culture. In truth, samurai fiction dominated what western audiences knew of Japanese culture for most of the decades leading up to the unprecedented explosion that included the likes of American Ninja (1985), Ninja Gaiden video games, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. While not the first Japanese film to center around a ninja protagonist by a long shot (you can trace that tradition back to the silent era), the popularity of Satsuo Yamamoto’s Band of Assassins and the subsequent films in the Shinobi no mono (sometimes Goemon) series certainly helped boost the ninja as an important pop culture figure in Japan, eventually leading to outside recognition and media dominance in North America.
Shinobi: Band of Assassins (Japanese: Shinobi no mono; aka: Ninja: Band of Assassins, 1962)
It’s the 16th century and Japan is in chaos. Samurai clans engage each other in battle over who gets to rule the nation, while warlords call upon the ninja to spy on and assassinate their rivals. Goemon (Raizo Ichikawa), an ambitious young member of a ninja family, is thrown into the turmoil of Japanese history when his village is wiped out by the forces of leading warlord Oda Nobunaga (Tomisaburo Wakayama), who has sworn to eradicate the ninja in his quest for absolute power. Fueled by vengeance, Goemon uses every weapon in his arsenal to bring down Oda and to prove that a ninja is an army of one. (From Radiance’s official synopsis)
The Shinobi series, which technically constitutes eight films from 1962 to 1966, was based on the exploits of historical figure Ishikawa Goemon, whose life, like that of many similar folk heroes, is largely lost to time, making it impossible to separate the fact from the legend. Over literal centuries of stories, kabuki performances, movies, and comics, Goemon has been a protagonist and villain, but the most enduring portrayal – in part due to the popularity of the Shinobi films – is that of a Robin Hood-like thief and man of the people (not to be confused with Nezumi Kozō, a different folk hero who stole from the rich and gave to the poor). Band of Assassins follows the ninja outlaw route, amplifies the vengeful side of his back story, and entangles him in enough political intrigue to stump even the most proficient spy.
Despite its black & white photography, Band of Assassins shares a post-war spirit of adventure and antihero worship with Italy’s spaghetti western movement, which kicked off en force while the Shinobi series was gaining in popularity. The characters are larger than life and capable of near-supernatural feats of combat, yet grounded by the harsh reality that surrounds them, creating a well-tuned power fantasy that offers the hero enough adversity to balance out the spectacle of his skill. It’s similar to Hong Kong’s early kung-fu movement, but with a darker edge, closer to nihilistic samurai pictures of the ‘60s, like Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri (Japanese: Seppuku, 1962) and Kihachi Okamoto’s Sword of Doom (Japanese: Dai-bosatsu Tōge, 1966).
Also, like Italian western directors Sergio Corbucci, Sergio Sollima, and Damiano Damiani, Yamamoto was a left-wing filmmaker and apparently an avowed Communist who used pulp fiction, spectacular violence, and a wartime backdrop as a framing device for his political message. Novelist Tomoyoshi Murayama, whose book (books?) the Shinobi movies were based on, claimed to have written the series in part as a response to the bitter irony that, prewar, police had infiltrated and, in some ways, subversively maintained the Japanese Communist Party.
Content warning: There is a scene where an assassin’s dart misses its target and hits a cat. I don’t believe that the production would actually kill a cat, but they definitely dropped it from a height with a prop dart attached to its fur.
Shinobi: Revenge (Japanese: Zoku shinobi no mono, 1963)
When his arch enemy, warlord Oda Nobunaga’s (Tomisaburo Wakayama) forces attack his home, a now peaceful Ishikawa Goemon (Raizo Ichikawa) must come out of retirement to oppose him.
Yamamoto returned to direct the first sequel, which is basically the second half of the character’s story, picking up directly after the events of Band of Assassins (including several moments of footage recycled from the climax). It must have been planned as a two-parter, because, if anything is lacking from the original film, it is a sense of closure, as we don’t really know what has happens to the big bad guy or Goemon’s romantic partner, Maki (Shiho Fujimura), and newborn child after the big battle (there are other dangling plot threads, too, such as the gathering of Portuguese firearms). I’m also assuming that audiences would have been savvy to Goemon’s story, which typically ends, rather suddenly, in tragedy.
Revenge’s pacing is breakneck compared to the already pretty hasty Band of Assassins. It barrels through exposition and new character introductions, again, likely because it assumes that its audience is somewhat familiar with the legend. It’s not difficult to follow and the pace helps reduce the doldrums of repeating too many beats from the first film. On the other hand, a lot of the limited space is spent with characters feverishly explaining their elaborate plans within plans to each other, leaving the audience with little time to contemplate the tone or meaning of some scenes. This might be an advantage, considering how overwhelmingly bleak Revenge can be, but I think the push for plot over tone can diminish the emotional impact. Overall, it’s a more entertaining, exciting, and far bloodier film that only really suffers for the fact that it doesn’t work without Band of Assassins setting the stage.
Yamamoto had been making movies since the 1930s and was conscripted into making government propaganda during WWII. During the ‘50s, he established himself as an independent anti-authoritan filmmaker of note, railing against war, corruption, the oppression of women, and corporate greed. His union ties and leftist beliefs were initially what led him away from major studio work, but Band of Assassins and Revenge were among the commercial projects he made later in his career, alongside Ivory Tower (Japanese: Shiroi Kyotō, 1965), also produced by Daiei Films, Nikkatsu’s Men and War trilogy (Japanese: Sensō to ningen, 1970, ‘71, ‘73), and the 16th film in the Zatoichi series, Zatoichi the Outlaw (Japanese: Zatôichi rôyaburi, 1967).
Shinobi: Resurrection (Japanese: Shin shinobi no mono, 1963)
After narrowly escaping the grisly fate of being boiled alive, Goemon (Raizo Ichikawa) once again teams up with famed swordsman Hattori Hanzo (Saburo Date) to stop Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Jun'ichirô Narita).
The third film included with this collection – which, again, wasn’t the final movie in the series or last to star Ichikawa as Goemon – was directed by Kazuo Mori, another Daiei veteran and all-around workhorse whose long career includes Vendetta of a Samurai (Japanese: Araki Mataemon: Kettô kagiya no tsuji, 1952) – not to be confused with Samurai Vendetta (Japanese: Hakuôki, 1959), which he also directed – the second, sixth, seventh, eleventh, fourteenth, and twenty-third Zatoichi movies, the sixth, seventh, and eighth Shinobi movies (more than any other director), and the underrated third film in the Daimajin trilogy, Wrath of Daimajin (Japanese: Daimajin gyakushû, 1966).
Resurrection hits the ground running after a bit of historical revisionism from Mori and screenwriter Hajime Takaiwa, who also veer from Murayama’s book by having Goemon survive his execution. He emerges as a more cynical character, but also picks up a rascally demeanor, lighting the tone a bit, reiterating the Robin Hood angle, and emphasizing Goemon’s proficiency as a ninja. It’s not exactly a swashbuckler – there’s still a lot of time spent with feudal lords and their underlings plotting hostile politics – but, with the public interest apparently hinging on ninja gimmicks and Ichikawa’s star power, Resurrection ends up falling more in line with what international audiences would come to know as a ninja movie. Despite representing a departure into more episodic territory, it’s probably the most entertaining film in the trilogy, making me curious as to where Mori and fellow Zatoichi director Tokuzô Tanaka took the franchise throughout its other five official entries.
Bibliography:
Outlaw Masters of Japanese Cinema by Chris D. (I.B. Tauris, 2005)
Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema (Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts) by Jasper Sharp (Scarecrow Press, 2011)
Excerpts from Yasumitsu Onishi’s MEI University lecture on Tomoyoshi Murayama
Video
All three of the films included in this collection were originally made available on anamorphic North American DVD by AnimEigo. The first HD home release came from Kadokawa Entertainment in Japan and the included booklet verifies that Radiance used the exact same 1080p, 2.35:1 (maybe actually 2.40:1), black & white transfers. Band of Assassins cinematographer Yasukazu Takemura helps set the precedent with his stark, high contrast photography. Interior and night scenes are often shot with a limited number of light sources (sometimes just one) that burn fine highlight detail and make the black levels appear all the harsher (the second film was shot by Senkichirô Takeda and the third by Hiroshi Imai). The outdoor sequences are extreme in the other direction with their blazing white levels. This is all done on purpose and leads to some intense diffusion effects that should be considered normal, alongside the occasionally snowy grain levels. As far as actual print damage, there are hints of horizontal frame wiggle, pulsing (though this is often an effect of the light sources being flames), and the occasional scratch.
Audio
All three films are presented in their original Japanese mono in uncompressed DTS-HD Master Audio. The sound design is about as stark as the visual design, mostly consisting of dialogue and a din of music over sound effects. The dialogue has its share of inconsistencies, but the slight muffled quality is in keeping with films of this type and vintage. There are occasional touches of buzz and hard consonant hiss throughout, especially during the second film, which must have been in worse shape than the other two. The simple effects we do get follow suit, though environmental ambiance (wind, dogs howling in the distance, birds flapping across the sky) can be quite effective. Akira Naitô was composer on the first film and Chumei Watanabe on the second two.
Extras
2024 interview with Shozo Ichiyama (14:05, HD, Disc 1) – The artistic director of the Tokyo International Film Interview talks about Satsuo Yamamoto with focus on the director’s period films. The discussion covers Yamamoto’s early work, the importance of his left wing beliefs, how the Toho strike shaped his later career (apparently, the US Army was brought in to break the strike), the popularity of television redirecting the tone and subject matter of motion pictures, and the making of the Shinobi films.
A Brief History of Ninja Films (18:11, HD, Disc 2) – A new visual essay by film scholar Mance Thompson on the Shinobi series’ innovations and impact on pop culture, the largely lost silent era of ninja movies, the fall of ninja films during WWII, the ‘50s-‘60s ninja ‘boom,’ Yamamoto and Onishi’s politics, women in ninja movies, and post-Shinobi Hong Kong and American ninja booms.
Toshiaki Sato on Raizo Ichikawa (14:18, HD, Disc 2) – The critic and historian explores Ichikawa’s early life, career in kabuki theater, turn to film, comparisons to James Dean, and similar idol status.
Trailers for all three films
The images on this page are taken from the BDs and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.
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