What's the last ninja movie you've watched?

[Jet_Jaguar]

The last ninja movie I've watched was 1981's Shogun's Ninja. It has some fairly silly moments, and I got tired of the inappropriate 70s smooth jazz score fairly quickly (I've had the main theme song stuck in my head for the last few days, which is annoying), but overall, it's a pretty enjoyable movie, and anything with Sonny Chiba, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Etsuko Shiomi in the cast is usually worth seeing. One somewhat interesting aspect of the movie is that it portrayed the Robin Hood-like folk hero Goemon Ishikawa not as a single person but as a group pretending to be one person.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goemon_Ishikawa

I got this movie in a box set called "The Shogun Collection" for about $12 from Amazon.com, not a bad price for two good movies and two mediocre-but-watchable ones (My favorite movie in the set is Kinji Fukasaku's Shogun's Samurai.)

[Steve Hubbell]

NINJA HUNT
"Ninja Gari" - 1982 - Color - Fullscreen - Extras

It's a rare occasion when a noted filmmaker like Yamauchi Tetsuya gets to re-visit a previous film, and in this re-make of NINJA GARI, he not only does that, but has created an even better piece. While the original from 1964 starred the great old-time actor Konoe Jushiro, this version is perfectly cast with his son Matsukata Hiroki in the lead as Wadakuro, one of four ronin hired to fight against the Shogunate's plot to abolish the Gamo Clan, who are struggling to reinstate their young heir Tanemaru as their Lord.
Facing the threat of the Koga Ninja, Wadakuro shows his own cruelty while on a personal vendetta. This is a very brutal film, with lots of realistic ninja action, violent deaths, a dark story line and is completely without any light-hearted 'humor' elements that Toei used to incorperate back in the golden era. And with Matsukata Hiroki's outstanding martial skills, the swordplay is even better in this one. This is definitely one of the best ninja movies ever made!

Directed by: YAMAUCHI Tetsuya
Cast: MATSUKATA Hiroki, MORITA Kensaku, ABE Shizue, NARITA Mikio, SATO Mitsuru

I have the 1964 b/w original version on order.

[go]

Dear Readers,
I just watched The Betrayal (Daisatsujin Orochi).
A samurai who is a great fighter wants to marry.
His future father in law says ok if you will take the fall for our clan.
The father in law says disappear for 2 years and I will let everyone know you are innocent.
The father dies and now everyone thinks our hero is a bad guy.
They send a few samurai to kill him.
He kills them all.
They keep sending people to kill him and he keeps on killing them all.
Our hero is building his skills and stamina for the last scene when 100 fighters are sent to kill him.
Excellent fight scenes and plot.
Best wishes to all!
go

[Steve Hubbell]

The Betrayal is a fantastic movie featuring Raizo Ichikawa.

To expand on go's description, Raizo is asked to take the blame for the murder of a samurai from another clan, killed by the punk kid of a high ranking member of his own clan.

After Raizo learns that he is not going to be exonerated, he ends up becoming a hired bodygaurd for a lowlife yakuza boss, who would sell his own mother for a 1 ryu reward.

At the end of the film, Raizo ends up fighting the yakuza gang who have sold him out, the swordsmen from his own clan who do not want him telling who really commited the murder, and finaly the swordsmen from the other clan who have realized that he is too skillful of a swordsman to have needed to backstab someone in the first place but who are still honor-bound to kill him because of all their previous attempts were defeated.

I read somewhere that the final fight scene took up the whole second reel of the film.

Here is a great review by Jessica Amanda Salmonson for it:
http://www.weirdwildrealm.com/f-daisatsujin-orochi.html

[ethanextravaganza]

The last ninja movie I saw was Ninja Scroll, deffinetly a good ninja anime. Ninjas killing each other with cool powers, quite enjoyable.

[ethanextravaganza]

The last ninja movie I saw was Ninja Scroll, deffinetly a good ninja anime. Ninjas killing each other with cool powers, quite enjoyable.

[Thomas Froehling]

I take it that you've seen the film twice in a row, eh?