SHINOBI:
THREE FILMS BY SATSUO YAMAMOTO
& KAZUO MORI (1962-1963)
SHINOBI: BAND OF ASSASSINS (1962)
SHINOBI: REVENGE (1963)
SHINOBI: RESURRECTION (1963)
Label: Radiance Films
Region Code: A, B
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 104 Minutes 27 Seconds (Shinobi: Band of Assassins), 93 Minutes 19 Seconds (Shinobi: Revenge), 85 Minutes 56 Seconds (Shinobi: Resurrection)
Audio: Japanese 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.43:1)
Director: Satsuo Yamamoto & Kazuo Mori
Cast: Raizo Ichikawa, Tomisaburo Wakayama, Shiho Fujimura, Yûnosuke Itô, Katsuhiko Kobayashi, Yôko Uraji, Reiko Fujiwara, Chitose Maki, Kyôko Kishida, Takeshi Katô, Kô Nishimura, Yutaka Nakamura, Kuniichi Takami, Toshio Chiba, Jun Fujikawa, Gen Kimura, Akiko Inoue
Synopsis: 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, 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, 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. Starring "the Japanese James Dean" Raizo Ichikawa (Sleepy Eyes of Death, Conflagration) alongside Tomisaburo Wakayama (Lone Wolf and Cub, the Bounty Hunter trilogy) and Ayako Wakao (Elegant Beast, Red Angel), the Shinobi series was an epoch-making success and became a social phenomenon that left deep marks on Japan of the 1960s, from children's playgrounds to the leftist counter-culture. Packed with spectacular and oft-copied action scenes, it also established the ground rules for all ninja movies that followed, introducing such classic tropes as the shuriken throwing star and the iconic black mask and suit.
SHINOBI: BAND OF ASSASSINS (1962)
aka SHINOBI NO MONO
Label: Radiance Films
Region Code: A, B
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 104 Minutes 27 Seconds
Audio: Japanese 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.43:1)
Director: Satsuo Yamamoto
Cast: Raizo Ichikawa, Tomisaburo Wakayama, Shiho Fujimura, Yûnosuke Itô, Kyôko Kishida, Saburo Date
In the first film in the Shinobi series, directed by Satsuo Yamamoto, tyrannical warlord Oda Nobunaga (Tomisaburô Wakayama, Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance) is dead-set on unting the territories under his rule, in the process wiping out any provincial warlords and ninja-clans that might get in his way. One such threat is Sandayû Momochi (Yûnosuke Itô, Ikiru), whois no angel himself, a duplicitous leader secretly manipulating multiple ninja-clans from the shadows to secure his own power in the district. When Momocho discovers that one of his ninjas, Ishikawa Goemon (Raizō Ichikawa, Sleepy Eyes of Death), is having an affair with his wife, uh-oh, he murders his own wife with a well-placed poison dart to her neck, framing her lover Goemon for the murder, then holding the crime over the ninja's head, coercing him into assassinating the corrupt samurai warlord, as well as forcing him to become a thief to fund his master's warchest. Nobunaga proves to be almost supernaturally lucky in avoiding death, even surviving the "Tranquil Cessation" attack, wherein Goemon drills a hole in the ceiling above the sleeping Nobunaga and drips a lethal poison down a thread lowered from the ceiling into the warlord's mouth, which was later cribbed by the 007 series with You Only Live Twice. The film offers an interesting look into the inner-life of the fabled ninja, keeping things mostly human-based and realistic, the black-pajama assassins showing incredible stealth and skill using a variety of ninja weaponry, almost like like proto-007 spies. I was a bit surprised just how gruesome it gets in spots, with the warlord taking great pleasure in slicing off the ears of a captured ninja prisoner during an interrogation, and later when that same ninja frees himself, but realizing escape is impossible, he chooses to mutilate his own face with finger blades to make identification difficult before leaping from a high wall to his death. The film does good work setting up Goemon as a manipulated hero with a code of honor in his pursuit of the tyrannical warlord Nobunaga. There's also a love interest for the ninja by way of Maki (Shiho Fujimura, The Snow Woman) whom he rescues from a brothel. Well-shot with plenty of nighttime ninja action as well as larger more traditional battlefield sequences, this entry is a terrific start to thee series, setting up the warring factions of samurai warlords and competing ninja factions, with plenty of palace intrigue and in-fighting present on both sides, plus a terrific assault on the ninja stronghold during the finale as Nobunaga sends his well-armored samurai troops to eradicate the ninjas.
SHINOBI: REVENGE (1963)
aka SHINOBI NO MONO 2: VENGEANCE
Label: Radiance Films
Region Code: A, B
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 93 Minutes 19 Seconds
Audio: Japanese 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.43:1)
Director: Satsuo Yamamoto
Cast: Raizo Ichikawa, Tomisaburo Wakayama, Saburo Date, So Yamamura, Eijiro Tono, Shiho Fujimura
The fast-moving sequel, also directed Satsuo Yamamoto, picks up pretty much where the first left off, with the ninja sects pretty much destroyed by the Samurai warlord Nobunaga's forces, but the surviving Goeman flees to the countryside with his wife and attempts to foster a young family with the arrival of their infant son, only to have Nobunaga send men to hunt him down, and when they do they burn his son to death in a fire! Nobunaga manages to escape with his wife and sets again vows to kill the warlord. This time there are other factions vying for control of the territory with all manner of intriguing subplots, including the warlord's much put upon general Akechi Mitsuhide (So Yamamura, Gung Ho) turning against his master, and usurping power in a rebellion only to be dispatched himself fairly quickly. With Nobunaga gone his protégé Hideyoshi (Eijirô Tôno, Tora! Tora! Tora!) steps in to fill the void, crushing Mitsuhide's coup, and aligning himself with other factions to again destroy the would-be ninja rebel clans. There are numerous story threads at play, more intense, action-packed battlefield fighting and stealth ninja tactics, as the heroic Goeman makes his way to the warlord's palace, with the help of legendary ninja Hattori Hanzo (Saburo Date, Wolf Guy). This sequel also has its share of gruesome violence, it starts off with an infant thrown in the fire, and continues with several instances of seppuku with blood pouring from mouths, and another sequence of fifteen ninjas being mowed down by new-fangled gunfire, in the aftermath their decapitated heads then displayed on pikes, and another personal loss for our hero! The film ends on a bit of a cliffhanger with Goeman being apprehended during a failed assassination attempt being lead to his seemingly inevitable death at the hands of his captors to a vat of boiling oil!
SHINOBI: RESURRECTION (1963)
aka SHINOBI NO MONO 3: RESURRECTION
Label: Radiance Films
Region Code: A, B
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 85 Minutes 56 Seconds
Audio: Japanese 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.43:1)
Director: Kazuo Mori
Cast: Raizo Ichikawa, Saburo Date, Eijiro Tono, Junichiro Narita, Yoshiro Kitahara
In the third film, this time directed by Kazuo Mori, we again start right where we left off, with our tragic hero Goemon (Raizō Ichikawa, Sleepy Eyes of Death) about to be boiled alive in a vat of oil, but through ninja smoke-bomb trickery and a doomed stand-in he manages to evade death, with Hideyoshi (Eijirô Tôno, Tora! Tora! Tora!) believing he has been eliminated his tenacious foe once and for all. In this entry we get a lot of time with Hideyoshi, his concubine Lady Yodo (Ayako Wakao, Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo) gives birth to a son Hideyori, who he is quite a loving father to. He's obsessed with expanding his empire, to that end beginning a new campaign in Korea with his eyes on China. While away in Korea his nephew Hidetsugu (Junichiro Narita, Sleepy Eyes of Death: Sword of Adventure) is put charge, but realizing that he will someday be replaced by Hideyori he becomes increasingly agitated, and acts out in vicious ways, decapitating a elderly guest for no good reason during a performance. There's a lot of palace intrigue here, and we have both Goemon and Hatori teaming-up to create disruptions and complicating things for Hideyoshi, exacerbating existing tensions with propaganda, until at last Goeman catches up to Hideyoshi, and is shocked to find his ultimate foe in a such a pathetic, weakened state. I found this to be a terrific finale to the trilogy, it wraps up the Goemon vengeance story arc quite nicely, and while the cool ninja elements of it are toned down in comparison to the first two entries the drama of it is quite powerful and the wrap-up satisfying.
As someone who is not well-versed in ninja flicks I thought this Shinobi trilogy was quite engrossing, we get plenty of black-suited ninja action with all the awesome gadgetry, well-staged samurai vs ninja battles, and it's surprisingly vicious in spots, plus the dramatic elements are top-notch, and the whole trilogy looks phenomenal, it's very well shot.
Audio/Video: The first three Shinobi films arrives on region A,B locked Blu-ray from Radiance Films in 1080p HD framed in the original 2.43:1 widescreen aspect ratios, these are sourced from digital masters supplied to Radiance by the Kadokawa Corporation. The black and white flicks looks solid in HD, the sources show very little in the way of blemish, grayscale and shadow detail look fine, it's crisp and well-defined, and the darker scenes of ninja stealth looks terrific. Audio on all three films comes by way of Japanese DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles. There's some age related hiss and minor distortions in spots, but nothing I found to be too distracting.
Extras include the 15-min Interview with Shozo Ichiyama, artistic director of the Tokyo International Film Festival, about director Satsuo Yamamoto - in Japanese with English subtitles; the 18-min Visual essay on the ninja in Japanese cinema by film scholar Mance Thompson; the 14-min Interview with film critic Toshiaki Sato on star Raizo Ichikawa - in Japanese with English subtitles, plus a selection of Trailers and an Easter Egg that explores the 007/Shinobi connection.
The Limited Edition (of 3000) 3-film, 2-disc set arrives in a sturdy Rigid Slipbox with the oversized Removable Obi Strip on the spine, the 2-disc housing three films arrive in two clear full-height keepcases with Reversible Sleeves of Artwork. The first disc features the first twi film with the third film getting it's own dedicated disc. Tucked away inside the keepcase is a 49-page Limited Edition Illustrated Booklet featuring new writing by Jonathan Clements on the Shinobi no mono series and Diane Wei Lewis on writer Tomoyoshi Murayama, as well as cast and crew info and notes about the transfer, plus Six Art Cards featuring monochromatic images from the films.
Special Features:
- High-Definition digital transfer of each film presented on two discs, made available on Blu-ray (1080p) for the first time outside of Japan
- Interview with Shozo Ichiyama, artistic director of the Tokyo International Film Festival, about director Satsuo Yamamoto - in Japanese with English Subtitles (15 min:)
- High-Definition digital transfer of each film presented on two discs, made available on Blu-ray (1080p) for the first time outside of Japan
- Interview with Shozo Ichiyama, artistic director of the Tokyo International Film Festival, about director Satsuo Yamamoto - in Japanese with English Subtitles (15 min:)
- Visual essay on the ninja in Japanese cinema by film scholar Mance Thompson (18 min)
- Interview with film critic Toshiaki Sato on star Raizo Ichikawa (14 min)
- Easter Egg: Shinobi: The Bond Connection: Interview with film critic Toshiaki Sato on star Raizo Ichikawa
- Trailers: Shinobi: Band of Assassins (2 min), Shinobi: Revenge (2 min), Shinobi: Resurrection (3 min)
- Trailers: Shinobi: Band of Assassins (2 min), Shinobi: Revenge (2 min), Shinobi: Resurrection (3 min)
- Six postcards of promotional material from the films
- Reversible sleeves featuring artwork based on original promotional materials
- Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Jonathan Clements on the Shinobi no mono series and Diane Wei Lewis on writer Tomoyoshi Murayama
- Limited Edition of 3000 copies, presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
- Reversible sleeves featuring artwork based on original promotional materials
- Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Jonathan Clements on the Shinobi no mono series and Diane Wei Lewis on writer Tomoyoshi Murayama
- Limited Edition of 3000 copies, presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
Buy it!
Screenshots from the Radiance Films Blu-rays:
SHINOBI: BAND OF ASSASSINS (1962)
SHINOBI: REVENGE (1963)
SHINOBI: RESURRECTION (1963)
