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The first popular ninja movie. This is an exacting and entertaining action film, showing the reality of ninja activities and abilities as a result of training and experience rather than the near-magical abilities shown in more recent ninja fare. As much of a character study as an action film, the movie focuses on Goemon, a newly trained but not completely competent ninja whose assignment proves to be a duplicitous one with all manner of betrayals, including one or more of his own. Interesting and likable drama. | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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The movie that brought the world of the ninja to the cinema. Now many will watch this today and be rather bored by the fact that these ninjas are in no way supernatural as many ninjas are portrayed in film today. But they are much more real ninjas, and that in itself makes this movie special. It moves like an early 60s movie, that is not very fast, but with a little patience you will find this to be a very enjoyable movie. My only complaint is that this movie really could have used a couple of extra lights. The world of the ninja is one cloaked in shadows, and unfortunately so are many scenes in the movie, which can make it a little confusing at times when all you see is black and hear shouting. All in all an excellent real world ninja movie and should please fans of Kurosawa and early samurai movies. | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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| [Note: This review refers to the US DVD by AnimEigo.]
The reason that "SHINOBI NO MONO" (part 1 of 9!) might not have felt like "a movie" as such to my respected (and bloody good!) fellow Ninja Flix fan and amateur armchair critic known as "John" is because it was indeed an incomplete experience for him as presented here by the once cool, independant "little guys" turned greedy, self-serving "swine", AnimEigo! And it's been presented this way to most Westerners for years with only two volumes released in an ongoing, epic, and true story of the Iga and the Koga people, (aka "Ninja"), detailing in a fast-paced and entertaining way, Warlord Oda Nobunaga's and first Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu's use of, and fear of, and and attempted "genocide" of both mysterious tribes of "shadow warriors". It's all told by the same great actor, Raizo Ichikawa, with the help of many other greats from the DAIEI Studio, including LONE WOLF AND CUB's Tomisaburo Wakayama playing Lord Oda in "THE GOEMON TRILOGY" (SNM 1-3), and Shogun Ieyasu's enemy Lord Sanada in "SAIZO OF THE MIST" (SNM 4-5), and it's all done very fairly by showing the series from both sides of the story, and over generations of the "GOEMON/MIST SAIZO" heirs to their Ninja skills. It's the same story touched upon in nearly all of the recent "Ninja" films, (OWL CASTLE, SHINOBI: HEART UNDER BLADE), and the series influence can be seen clearly in the films of the "New Breed" of Chambara/Jidai-Geki filmmakers, as well as the O.G.'s, like Sonny Chiba's KAGE NO GUNDAN, even all the classic, coolest, and newest great "Anime", (BASILISK 1-6, NINJA SCROLL, ETC.)...
...This truly classic and great "Old School" HQ film series...really does get even better as it goes on, just like DAIEI's other series ZATOICHI and SON OF THE BLACK MASS! (Not "SLEEPY EYES OF DEATH" which the shmucks over there at AnimEigo "redubbed" before they screwed the first 6 (of 12) of those up too!) And even Steve McQueen's NEVADA SMITH and Corbucci's DJANGO! ripped off SNM 8! Not really, but it sounded kinda' cool to say that, didn't it? |
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| The confusion level is very high for the story, but so is the entertainment quotient. This is good fun, in a fast-paced, light drama; but without any of the goofball humour that mars later 1970s Japan samurai pulp films. The elderly leaders of two Ninja clans are actually the same person in disguise. The old man frequently changes disguises and travels to the other hideout during the night to give commands and play his role as the clan leader in each place. In one clan, he enlists and inspires one young ninja aspirant to fight for him in trying to overcome a powerful warlord who is trying to kill off all the ninjas in Japan. The young man ends up being seduced by the old man's young wife. The old man catches him and blackmails the young ninja into asassinating the warlord. One of the most interesting things about this film is watching all the now well-worn cliches of ninja behaviour and methods being introduced in this story: The old man climbs up his walls and in his attic almost like a monkey; the old string and poison assasination trick is used in one place, and some mild humour is added when one adept young ninja keeps accidentally killing small birds when trying to hit various assasination targets with his little star wheels. By the end, most of the confusion is cleared up, and I even found myself wanting to watch it again to understand more of the details. Both the evil old nina leader and the young, ambitious ninja warrior are very convincing in their roles, and are just really fun to watch. On the downside, this movie is too well-made to rate as a good B-movie, but is not really good enough quality to rate it as an "A" movie, either. So the overall feeling is that of a slightly better than mediocre grade A movie. Also, the action is spread a little thin and far between longish drama scenes. Since the drama is on the light side, there is no mesmirising effect as with a good Kurosawa yarn. Overall, however, it is still an entertaining and satisfying movie to watch from an early 1960s ninja filmmaking master. |
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