Shogun's Ninja (1980)

Ninja bugeicho momochi sandayu

Cast:

Hiroyuki " Ninja Wars" Sanada is Takamaru
Sonny "The one true STREETFIGTER" Chiba is Shiranui
Etsuko "Sister Streetfighter" Shihomi is Airen
Yuki Ninagawa is Otsuu
Tetsuro Tamba is Tozawa
Isao Natsuyagi is Hanzo Hattori

What the box says:

Bitter rivalry between two Ninja clans has left countless dead over the decades of fighting. During a critical point in their war with each other, one of the kings sends his commander in search of two mystical daggers.

Plot:

A group of men are ordered by the Shogun to kill all the Iga ninjas. The chief of the Koga ninjas leads his clan to wipe out their enemies. Random guys are whacked. The Kogas are to retrieve an Iga sword that has map which leads to a gold mine inscribed on the side.

Elsewhere, Lady Iga learns that most of the clan has been killed. She gives her child, Takamara, the sword. A servant takes Takamara away. Lady Iga hari karis herself.

Koga Chief wants Takamara killed.

Too dark to see, Koga attacks ensue. The servant jumps off a cliff with Takamara into the ocean.

Narration ensues about how the Koga chief supplants the Shogun and unifies the country.

Takamara who has grown up is sailing back to Japan.

In the marketplace, Kabuki or Noh play ensues. A group of guys try to get rowdy with the actresses. Takamara, defender of all that is good and protector of women, easily Kung fues them. A couple of guy recognize Takamara’s sword. When some soldiers arrive, Takamara is able to escape by the roofs.

The guys find Takamara later. They all recognize each other. Takamara went to China with the servant. They want to help the poor and overthrow the Shogun’s government. Ishima who can’t stand him still acknowledges him as master. The spider ninjas pay a visit.

Shogun’s castle, the Shogun and Sonny Chiba discuss the military invasion of Korea and need the hidden Mamoshi gold mine.

Airen’s brother wants her to take Takamara’s sword. He overhears the plan and realizes the sword only has half of the map.

Later, Takamara is training. Ninjas are skulking about before the fight breaks out: Samurai versus Tree ninjas. The goons surround Takamara who passes the sword off to Airen. Her Tarzaning vine swinging brother takes her to safety.

Takamara is tortured.

Elsewhere, Airen’s brother realizes that there must be another sword.

Takamara is able to escape and is attacked by a flock of geishas. He swans dives off the ocean side cliff.

One of the bandits, Takamara’s men, is going to be boiled alive in oil. As the villagers are forced to watch, the bandit claims that another will take his place. The guards keep the villagers from leaving. As he is started to be boiled, Takamara leads the men in a rescue attempt which includes burrowing ninjas to Takamara’s aid. The ninjas are easily wiped out. Koga Chief has the guards shoot at the villagers. The men drag Takamara to safety; they can’t keep up the fight without their leader.

That night, Takamara is training or doing an interpretive dance segment.

In the ruins of the Momochi castle, Takamara feels defeated until Hanzo Hattori arrives. He’ll train the head of the Iga ninjas. A Japanese pop song training montage sequence ensues.

Hanzo Hattori sword trains with Takamara. As Takamara and the men are still training, Hanzo gives Takamara the other sword he was to hold the sword in guardianship until Takamara was a man. Both swords show where the gold mine is located.

Takamara finds that Airen has tried to steal the sword. She refuses to tell him why her brother wants them. Hanzo demands that he kill her. Takamara lets her escape and must have to battle Hanzo.

As Hanzo and Takamara fight, Hanzo is finally mortally wounded. He instructs his pupil to use both swords and never show any mercy before expiring.

Airen’s brother slaps her around for failing and for falling in love with Takamara.

The Shogun is dying and talks with Koga Chief about delivering a letter and returning with the response. Sonny demands to be appointed the guardian of the Shogun’s son.

Takamara and the boys find Ilyne, palace girl. She wants to stay with them and shows them a map of the Shogun’s route. This will be Takamara’s best bet for revenge.

Procession heads down the road when they spot something. Takamara’s assault begins. Catapult fu ensues. Archers and riflemen cannot shoot Takamara who is spinning fast enough to deflect any projectiles. Sonny Chiba sends men in squads to hunt down Takamara. Forest fu. 2 sword wielding Takamara unleashes his vengeance on these goons.

Airen is fighting a group of ninjas.

Takamara and Airen are chased back.

Sonny Chiba chases down one of Takamara’s men. Forest trapezery ensues.

Airne’s brother arrives for the Ninja throwdown between Sonny Chiba and him.

Elsewhere Takamara is fighting when Airen is shot.

Sonny Chiba versus Airen’s brother and many cool poses are posed. Takamara arrives. Sonny rides away with Takamara in hot pursuit. Huh-Coo-Coo-Coo..(Sorry Dukes of Hazzard reference).

Airen’s brother finishes off the rest of the goons.

The final showdown, Takamara versus Sonny Chiba. Unfortunately, villainous Sonny Chiba has a short shelf life as Takamara finishes him off.

The shogun dies, and his son became the greatest shogun.

Takamara is about to get rid of the swords when Airen’s brother demands them. Nevertheless, he throws them in the ocean. Airen’s brother walks off.

Takamara rides off with Ilyne off into the sunset to a J-pop song.

What I say:

We have ninjas and a not quite as insane ninja plot as say Ninja in the Killing Field. It has been quite a while since I've reviewed a martial arts movie. The past few months have had quite a few 50s sci-fi movies and made for TV movies from the 70s. Aren't I the lucky one? You may be asking SideOrderOfNinjas shouldn't you watch more marital arts movies? I review a wide variety of things and have ecleptic taste. Remember, ecleptic means really weird wide tastes. How else do I go from Adventures of Ford Fairlane to Zardoz.

It has been a couple of years since my FIRST theme month devoted to Sonny Chiba. While, I'm not planning on another one in the immediate future. Unfortunately, there is very little of Mr. Chiba in this movie and what makes it worse is that he's so obviously dubbed. Sometimes, truly bad dub can be funny like the Japanese dockworkers in Gamera Vs Monster X that sound like they stepped off the set of the Sopranos. The only way it could be worse would be if Jerry Lewis was doing his "Lady, nice lady" voice. Even after Sonny Chiba quit starring in movies like Streetfighter and the Bodyguard type of movies. He tried to do more of an ensemble movies like Legend of the 8 Samurai after starting the Japan Action Club, stunt man school. Remember this was pre-wire-fu.

Hanzo Hattori resembles a Japanese Gandalf. Sure, his descendent in Kill Bill for some strange reason resembled an older Sonny Chiba. I guess that is just a weird coincidence.

Foreign martial arts movies do pose something of a problem to a reviewer. How much detail do you include? Should you try and do a play-by-play commentary like Good Old JR? Or something more like a fight breaks out and there's some cool kung fu fighting according to Carl Douglas. Everybody was kung fu fighting... (dedededede-dede...) Well, several times, I looked at my notes and found that for a 10 minute span only have "a fight breaks out and Takamara unleashes sweet Kung Fu beatdown.." Not exactly high literature, I still made one reference to "Kung Fu fighting" song from the 70s that has to count for something.

The IMDB claims the movie is 117 minutes. However, my copy is only 112 minutes. I'm not sure what may have been cut out. Actually, my copy looks like it was pan and scanned because several scenes seem to have be missing some of the action. There is another version that is supposed to be widescreen for kung fu fanatics.

While nowhere as a ninja-normous movies as say Ninja in the Killing Field or Ninja Wars with its magical vomit fu. Shogun's Ninja is still the kind of martial arts movie that isn't made anymore. Sure, the past couple of years have given us a few martial arts epics from Jet Li like Hero and Fearless. However, the more epic with numerous characters who are martial arts experts just don't seem quite as prevalent. While nowhere as goofy as the Godfrey Ho movies from the 80s, it still has a few random funny bits and plenty of martial artistry, too.

For the rightful heir of the Iga ninjas who vanished 15 years before, he sure manages to run into quite a few survivors of the Iga ninja massacre right after returning to Japan especially since all the Igas were supposedly massacred when he was taken from the country. If the villains are so incompetent to miss approxiamately half of their enemies who just keep training and waiting to get their revenge, you know the villains will be regretting it by the end of the movie.

Normally, I leave out discussing the soundtrack of a movie. Scattered throughout the movie, there are a few Japanese pop songs. However, what is more interesting is the number of times the pseudo-70s porn music plays. Yes, the wakkkka-chicccccccccccken theme.

Foreign martial arts movies are always hard to keep track of who is who. Most of the time, the love interest looks identical to the doomed-to-die female character. Spend so much time with nicknames for each character just hoping by the end, you'll know who was who. Movies that don't tell who is who are bad enough but when there seem to be so many characters it almost seems like you've walked into a movie halfway through and are trying to guess who everyone is.

This is the kind of movie to kick back watching with the knowledge that in less than 10 minutes there will be another fight scene. While too often in American movies, we have the gun fights where bullets are sprayed all over the place. There is just something cooler about a sword fight or the martial arts battle scene which is more than stylized but seems more like poetry in motion.

Quotable Dialogue
"No quarter can be given in war."
"Feast your eyes on this monkey."
"I've trained these ninjas to act like spiders."
"If you wear blades on your arms, you could use them like swords."
"You are now the lord of the Momochi clan."
"Are they flying squirells I wonder."
Morals of the Story
Swords can be easily stood.
Dubbed evil overlord laugh is sheer joy.
Ninjas climb trees like spiders.
Ninjas carry grenades.
Evil overlords need to wear shoulder pads.
Ninjas wear camo jumpsuits.
Spinning fast enough will deflect arrows.
Death scenes are funnier when the dying character is upside down.
Flipping a horse is very difficult.