Samurai Commando Mission 1549

Samurai Commando Mission 1549 (2005)
Japanese title: 戦国自衛隊1549
Translation: Sengoku Self-Defense Force 1549 (or Warring States Era Self-Defense Force 1549)

 

Starring: Yôsuke Eguchi, Kyôka Suzuki, Haruka Ayase, Masatô Ibu, Kazuki Kitamura, Kôji Matoba, Akiyoshi Nakao, Katsuhisa Namase, Tomoya Nanami, Daisuke Shima, Shin Takuma, Takeshi Kaga
Director: Masaaki Tezuka
Action Director: n/a

In 1999, Toho decided to revive their Godzilla series following the monstrous (heh) disappointment that was the Hollywood Godzilla movie. Thus was born the Millenium Godzilla series, which ran for six movies before being put out to pasture in 2004 with the equally-monstrous failure of Godzilla: Final Wars. The first movie in this new series was Godzilla 2000, which was directed by series veteran Takao Okawara (Godzilla and Mothra: Battle for Earth and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II). That film was a box-office disappointment—although it has developed a strong following among fans--and Okawara more or less retired for directing afterward.

The next film was Godzilla x Megaguirus: G Extermination Operation, which was directed by Masaaki Tezuka. Tezuka had already been working for Toho for a number of years, having served as Assistant Director on movies like Sayonara, Jupiter and Princess from the Moon. His venture into Godzilla filmmaking was his first solo directorial effort. GxM also underwhelmed at the box office and has garnered mixed reviews from fans: some criticize the film’s bad science and uneven special effects, while others praise the film’s score, fast pace and enjoyable monster battles.

After a more successful third film—Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (or GMK)—Toho brought Tezuka back for the fourth entry in this series: Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla. This film was a success with local audiences, thanks in part to being paired with a Hamtaro short film at the beginning. Fans have praised this movie for its strong female lead, an exceptionally good score, and an excellent final monster battle. Tezuka-san also directed the follow-up, Godzilla: Tokyo SOS, which was the only film in the Millenium series to establish a continuity with the previous film, as all the other movies take place in their own respective chronologies.

Following the close of the Millenium Godzilla series, the various directors went on to diverse projects. Shusuke Kaneko, who directed GMK, went on to direct the popular live-action Death Note films and the Azumi sequel, plus other movies of varying genres. Ryuhei Kitamura, who directed Godzilla: Final Wars, has jumped back and forth between violent horror films in Hollywood and more diverse projects in Japan. Tezuka-san, on the other hand, directed a few more projects before what would appear to him dropping out of the game. Samurai Commando Mission 1549 is his first big project following his third Godzilla movie and in a lot of ways, feels like an unrelated sequel to Godzilla x Megaguirus or Godzilla: Tokyo SOS.

In 2003, the Japanese Self-Defense Force is conducting experiments with a special magnetic shield meant to protect electronic devices from the EMP-like effects of plasma spikes on the Sun. The test goes awry and opens a rip in the time-space continuum, transporting a number of soldiers and vehicles back to the Sengoku Period, circa 1547. Before the rift closes, a samurai named Shichibe (Kazuki Kitamura of Godzilla Final Wars) is transported to modern times.

Two years later, the JSDF—represented by Rei Kanzaki (Kyôka Suzuki, who had a small role in Godzilla vs. Biollante)—shows up at the doorstep of retired soldier Yusuki Kashima (Yôsuke Eguchi, of the Rurouni Kenshin films) and asks him to join her for a visit to the site of the experiment. There she reveals to the fate of the soldiers from two years ago and something even more dire: apparently, intentionally or not, those soldiers are altering history. This has resulted in a number of “holes” opening in the world which now threaten to consume it and simply make this reality disappear as we know it. The military invites Kashima to accompany them on a mission to “rescue” the soldiers from the Sengoku era in order to save the world. For reasons that are never clear—at least not in the 87-minute international version—Kashima initially declines, but eventually relents.

The time travel is successful, bringing another JSDF garrison into the Sengoku Period. While conducting reconnaissance of the area, one of the helicopters is destroyed by a missile fired from a local castle(!). Meanwhile, an army of samurai fall upon the soldiers, causing them to flee. The next day, the samurai army, led by modern-day soldier Yoda (Devilman’s Kôji Matoba), show up and force Kashima and the others to surrender. Once in the castle, Kashima and the platoon discover that many of the soldiers from 2003 not only survived, but have set up shop as a powerful clan in 16^th century Japan. Moreover, their leader, Colonel Matoba (Takeshi Kaga of the Death Note films), has not only assumed the role as daimyo in this world, but he has assumed the name of Oda Nobunaga, the warlord known for beginning the unification of Japan. But pretending to a historical figure isn’t enough for him: he wants to change history and make Japan into a world superpower before that concept has even been invented.

It’s hard to rate this movie objectively, simply because the International Version available in Brazil runs a scant 87 minutes, compared to the 119-minute running time that shows up on the IMDB. I’m guessing a lot of character development was axed, because the people in this movie have almost no dimension whatsoever. Kashima’s character is probably two-dimensional, although the rest of the soldiers barely register as cyphers. It is interesting that both this and G.I. Samurai suffered the same fate of being heavily cut and butchered for overseas release. The latter’s DVD release rectified that problem, but I think I’d have to turn to grey market sources to watch the full version of this movie.

What I can say about this movie is that it corrects some of the flaws of the first movie. This movie has actual female characters, mainly in the form of Tanzaki and Nobunaga’s wife, Princess No (a real historical personage, played by Ichi’s Haruka Ayase). We don’t spend enough time with either of them, but once again, more scenes involving them might have been lost in exportation. This movie also has a more focused story, an actual villain (with a tangible Eeeevil plot), and a sense of urgency. The evil scheme is pretty silly—the villain wants to cause an epic volcanic eruption that levels much of Japan so that he can rebuild it in his own image—but it’s there. The movie also brings up the flaw in Sonny Chiba’s schemes of power: he would eventually run out of bullets and fuel and thus would become fairly useless in that period. The soldiers in this movie actually build an oil refinery and (presumably) manufacture their own ammo.

This does bring up the burning question: how would normal soldiers (and a few officers) be able to build an oil refinery…in two years? And where would they pump oil from? Wasn’t Japan supplied with petroleum from Indonesia? Also, wouldn’t rebuilding a country from the ground up, especially in a modern fashion, be too big an undertaking for a single lifetime? Unless he trained and taught an entire generation about how to manufacture automatic weapons and explosives, all of his work would be for naught. I mean, apparently Afghan artisans were able to reconstruct an AK-47 after about ten years of study, so I guess it would be possible. But the finer details of the villain’s schemes are discussed in this version.

Tezuka-san directs Samurai Commando Mission 1549 is very workman-like manner. Although he had a natural knack for kaiju action sequences, I think that has as much to do with the special effects crew and suit actors as it did the director himself, who probably just oversaw everything and gave his OK for the fight choreography. The action sequences here are a little bland. Not necessarily incompetent, but nothing great. He should have asked Toho and Kadokawa to bring in a Stephen Tung Wai type to stage the swordfights and gun battles. I’m not a huge Tung Wai fan, but the man knows both battle sequences and gunfights, and would’ve certainly made the set pieces more interesting.

The early scenes of the military experiments going all wrong were very reminiscent of JDSF sequenes in Tezuka’s earlier Godzilla movies. In fact, it is easy to imagine Samurai Commando as a sequel to those films, especially Godzilla x Megaguirus, as imagining what would have happened in Japan after disposing of Godzilla. “Yeah, we defeated Godzilla with a black hole. And now we’ve caused time-destroying black holes all over the world while testing plasma shields.” That is very GxM in terms of military malfeasance and mad science. All this movie needed was better action sequences and a Michiru Oshima score in order to reach the levelof entertainment that was GxM.

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G.I. Samurai (1979)

G.I. Samurai (1979)
Aka: Time Slip; I Want To
Japanese Title: 戦国自衛隊
Translation: Sengoku Self-Defense Force (or Warring States Self-Defense Force)

 

Starring: Shin'ichi Chiba, Tsunehiko Watase, Isao Natsuyagi, Kenzô Kawarasaki, Shin Kishida, Asao Koike, Shinkoma Kokontei, Kentarô Kudô, Isao Kuraishi, Masao Kusakari, Shin'ichirô Mikami, Yoichi Miura, Kôji Naka, Hirohisa Nakata, Noboru Nakaya
Director: Kôsei Saitô
Action Director: n/a

The idea of modern man travelling back in time is an old one, something that all of us have often fantasized about. Although I’m pretty sure that modern shows like Game of Thrones and The Tudors have made times/places like Medieval Europe far less appetizing than we used to envision them, I think a lot of us at some point have imagined ourselves going back to a simpler time…and then using our modern smarts to get ahead and become important. Obviously, people today who spend all of their lives on their smart phones will probably discover that their abilities to contribute are limited…but send a mechanical engineer back in time and he’ll probably kick some major butt anywhere he goes!

On the same token, the idea of bringing modern weaponry and warfare into those “simpler” times is an interesting one. For example, what would happen to history if you taught certain Native American tribes on the East Coast to use AR-15s right as the Puritans or Huguenots were arriving? Or gave 50-caliber machine guns to the Chinese and Central Asian tribes when the Mongolians were expanding their empire? This idea occasionally comes up in movies. In The Iceman Cometh (1990), the climax is set against the backdrop of Yuen Wah trying to smuggle pistols and Uzis into the Ming Dynasty. The big baddie’s evil scheme in Tiger Claws II is to invade Ancient China with modern weaponry and establish himself as the supreme ruler.

Then there’s G.I. Samurai.

Based on a novel by Ryo Hanmura, this movie tells the story of group of Japanese Self-Defense Force reserve soldiers who are on a training mission when time portal opens and transports them back to the Sengoku Period during the 16^th century[1]. Their commanding officer is Lieutenant Yoshiaki Iba (Sonny Chiba, of The Street Fighter and Karate Warriors). In addition to the soldiers, all of their equipment comes with them, including a tank, a jeep with a machine gun mounted on it, an armored personel carrier, a couple of trucks, a boat, and a helicopter. Those last two are each manned by three soldiers of their respective branches of the JSDF. That makes about twenty some-odd soldiers, plus transportation and ammunition.

Lieutenant Iba befriends a local samurai warlord, Nagao Kagetora (Isao Natsuyaga, of Heaven and Earth and Ninja Warriors). Kagetora is fighting against the Kuroda Clan on behalf of his lord, whom he despises on account of the guy ordering everybody around while never leaving his castle. Iba helps Kategora defeat the Kuroda army, and the two strike up a bromance of sorts.

As time passes, some of the men venture away from the beach they’re camped out at and start interacting with the locals. Mimura (Kôji Naka, of the Sukeban Deka TV show), the platoon’s sniper, gets himself a girlfriend from among the villagers. Another soldier becomes the adopted brother of a couple of young boys and discharges himself from the outfit. A couple of guys are stalked through the forest and killed by samurai belonging to…you know…I’m not really sure who those guys were. Were they remnants of the Kuroda army? Were they spies from the Kagetora’s lord who’s all butthurt that Iba doesn’t want to show his technology to him?

The most pressing matter, however, is the mutiny led by Hayato Yano (Tsunehiko Watase, of the Taxi Driver Mystery Diaries films), one of Iba’s men. There is some bad blood between Yano and Iba, as the former was involved in some shady military business some years before and it was Iba who busted him (or his superiors). In any case, Yano and some of the men hijack the boat and become pirates, sailing up and down the coast, indiscriminately murdering villagers, stealing their food and raping their women. In fact, they transform the hull of the boat into one big 24-hour rape dungeon. As much as Iba doesn’t want to his own men, he has to step in and stop Yano.

Having resolved that, Iba and Kagetora team up again to overthrow the latter’s lord, who’s still cooped up in his castle. Iba’s initial reasoning is that the more mayhem he and his men cause, the more the so-called God of Time will want to send them back to the present just to keep things normal. Unfortunately, the more Iba fights, the more he feels that he could…and then should…overthrow the Shogun and rule Japan himself.

G.I. Samurai has an odd plot structure. The first thirty or forty minutes do a fine job of establishing the premise and setting up the relationship between Yoshiaki Iba and Nagao Kagetora, kindred spirits from different time periods. But then the subplot involving Yano pops up and the entire movie stops for almost a half hour just so Sonny Chiba can resolve the problem. Everything about Feudal Japan and the samurai is forgotten about during this part. Although Yano is established early on as having a violent streak, I thought the film would end up allying him with one of the rival armies. Instead, he gets his own story independent of everything else that’s going on.

For much of the film, I was complaining to myself about the lack of a defined villain. The raid on the castle in the early part of the second half doesn’t have much of a build up: there are no scenes of daimyo scheming against Kagetora or the modern-day soldiers. Nor are there scenes of him at least sending his men to spy on them. He just sort of shows up during the battle is killed. When Iba takes on the army of the neighboring lord, Shingen, the same happens. A big battle breaks out—the climax of the film, in fact—but Lord Shingen himself is treated like an afterthought.

So, who’s the villain of the piece? Although you can make an argument that it’s the Shogun and his retainers, I think the real villain is Yoshiaki Iba himself. As one reviewer pointed out, Sonny Chiba’s character represents the “masculine desire for power and domination.” At first, he wants to protect his soldiers and not kill any of the locals. However, the more time he spends with Kagetora, the more he identifies with the man’s ambitions for power. He loses sight of his men’s well-being in his quest to conquer Japan…and let’s be honest, even without the losses sustained in the battle against Shingen, he’d still run out of fuel and ammo at some point. Iba is initially a good man, but he gradually becomes bad as he sins against both his men and Time itself.

Sonny Chiba was always a Man’s man, and the guy had mojo to spare, especially in the 1970s. While not a complete sausage fest, this is very much a movie about men being macho. The women here are largely treated as sex objects and the only woman who gets a line is an old lady who says that one of the soldiers reminds her of her dead grandson. This film not only fails the infamous Bechdel Test, it triumphantly strides to the front of the classroom, tears the test to shreds, throws it away, pisses in the wastebasket, and then flips off the teacher.

The most striking example of that occurs right before the climactic battle. Lieutenant Iba informs his men that he made arrangements with the villagers for them to sleep with the local widow. Wait…what? Was this really a thing in Feudal Japan? That villages would set aside someone for soldiers to work off their “excess energies” on, presumably so as to not rape everybody else? So yeah, three of Chiba’s subordinates head to the woman’s house, strip down to their underwear, and then meet up with three soldiers (also in their undies-diaper thingies) from the opposing army who are there for the same purpose.

I think there’s some sort of commentary in this scene about how people are people, especially when it comes to armies in feudal societies, or where its conscripted. Where there are no ideologies involved, most people fighting a war don’t even want to be there and, under normal circumstances, could be friends. This was a theme of Tsui Hark’s Zu: Warriors of Magic Mountain, for example. But to explore this theme in a scene where six guys run a train on a widow is just…bizarre. Imagine a movie about WW2 in which American GIs and German soldiers, on the eve of the Battle of the Bulge, met at Stavelot to gangbang a willing Belgian woman. Hard to imagine, isn’t it?

The showstopper of G.I. Samurai is a thirty-minute battle sequence in which our soldiers take on hundreds of armed samurai, plus riflemen, archers, spearmen, etc. on an open plain. I’m sure that hundreds of stuntmen were employed for this epic sequence. It very much has a 300 of Sparta feel to it, with a small group taking on a much larger one. However, instead of benefitting from the local geography, our heroes have automatic weapons, grenades and military hardware to protect them. There is one sequence where one of the trucks is driven into a ditch, from which dozens of men in brown outfits (matching the dirt) emerge and start throwing shuriken at the soldiers. Oooh…Lord Shingen has ninja in his employ, too! Look for a young Hiroyuki Sanada as a ninja who holds onto bottom of the helicopter as it’s flying, and then jumps from it as it plummets to the earth. There are dozens of explosions followed by stuntmen performing somersaults, which by 1979, had become an art form in Japanese media with shows like Super Sentai and Kamen Rider.

People looking for martial arts will not get very much of that. There is some limited swordplay here and there, mainly when Kagetora fights off his lord’s bodyguards. There is also a brief sword duel between Lt. Iba and Lord Shingen, too. However, most of the action is of the shooting variety, which may disappoint some viewers expecting a Street Fighter fix of fighting. Also, being a late 70s Japanese film, most of the soundtrack is made up of 70s Japanese folk rock ballads, which was the style of the time. They needed a more traditional composer for this movie, not the song “Endless Way.” There is enough large-scale action to satisfy, but G.I. Samurai is a uniquely Japanese film that definitely could not be made this way today.

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[1] - The Warring States period started in the 15th century, but as the armies already have riflemen in their ranks, it would have be set after 1543.

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Zatoichi (2003)

Zatoichi (2003)
Aka: The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi
Japanese title: 座頭市
Translation: Zatoichi

 

Starring: Takeshi Kitano, Tadanobu Asano, Yui Natsukawa, Michiyo Yasuda, Taka Guadalcanal, Daigorô Tachibana, Yûko Daike, Ittoku Kishibe, Saburô Ishikura, Akira Emoto, Ben Hiura
Director: “Beat” Takeshi Kitano
Action Director: Tatsumi Nikamoto

 

Takeshi Kitano’s take on Zatoichi is interesting in that it is neither a remake nor a reboot. It doesn’t attempt to retell the blind masseuse’s origin story, nor did it spawn a new series of 25 films within the span of a single decade. Maybe you could call it a remix—a term used by my fellow reviewer Scott Hamilton to describe an adaptation that has the familiar elements of an existing franchise, buoyed by a director’s personal obsessions. However, the Wikipedia article on the movie suggests that Kitano scaled back his own auteur sensibilities when making this, so even that approach is arguable. In a lot of ways, Zatoichi feels like just another entry in the original series, but with some modern special effects, top-grade sound effects and sound editing, and what many refer to as a tap dance climax(!).

The movie is set in a small town that is being overrun by the Ginzu Gang. Several parties show up at the town for differing reasons. First, we have Zatoichi (Kitano), who wanders into town because…well…wandering into town is what he does. Zatoichi takes up shelter in the house of a widow, Aunt O’ume (Michiyo Yasuda, of Zatoichi’s Pilgrimage and Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons). Our masseuse hero mainly hangs around doing chores and occasionally heading into town to gamble. There he befriends O’ume’s gambling-addict nephew, Shinkichi (Taka Guadalcanal, who worked with Kitano in Boiling Point).

Also new to town is a ronin named Hattori Genosuke (Tadanobu Asano, who has recently shown up in the Thor films and the Mortal Kombat reboot). Genosuke’s wife (Yui Natsukawa, of When the Last Sword is Drawn) is sick, probably with tuberculosis, and he needs to find work to pay for her medicine. Against her wishes, Hattori becomes a “bodyguard” for the Ginzu Gang. In this case, “bodyguard” is more like “mob enforcer” or “assassin,” as he mainly carries out hits against rivals gangs.

Finally, there is a geisha girl duo, comprised of siblings Okinu (Yûko Daite, of Kitano’s own Hana-Bi) and Osei (Daigorô Tachibana). These two have arrived in town looking for the men who slaughtered their family and stole the family fortune. One of the earliest scenes has them attending to a former family clerk before violently stabbing the man to death.

Like a lot of Zatoichi films, our hero spends the early part of the film gambling, drinking and making merry with geisha. Eventually, the paths of these parties will cross, although it will take a little while. We all know that Zatoichi will ultimately take up the Okinu and Osei’s cause, but not before we the viewer are treated to a few flashbacks explaining the duo’s tragic backstory, which involves crossdressing and attempted child molestation! One of the best things Kitano does about the movie is developing the stories of the supporting characters while keeping the Zatoichi character as enigmatic as he was in the earlier films. No revamped origin. No origin at all. Just a blind masseuse who happens to be capable of cutting down legions of foes with his cane sword.

On the same token, as far removed from the conflict as our hero is, it’s tough not to feel for the ronin and his wife. He loves his wife and he wants to take care of her. However, the tenets of samurai culture meant that the death of a master would guarantee “unemployment” for the samurai, often forcing him into banditry and other unsavory jobs. Hattori doesn’t want to be a hired killer, especially on the payroll of a bunch of no-good extortionists, but a mixture of bad luck and cultural quirks force him into that niche, at least if he wants any hope of his wife recovering from her illness.

The movie is often slow moving, with Zatoichi not really getting active until past the halfway mark. He does keep the story moving with both the characterizations and the occasional moments of humor. The humor ranges from quirky (i.e. villager who thinks he’s a samurai) to subtle (most of Shinkichi’s tomfoolery) and finally just goofy (i.e. the laugh-out-loud gag with the eyes). I never felt “bored” while watching this, but I did wonder how long it would be before Zatoichi became a more proactive character.

The answer is “not until the last half hour.” That isn’t to say that the first 80 minutes are completely bereft of action. The movie opens with a brief sword fight between Zatoichi and some sword-wielding bandits. There are several fight sequences involving Hattori cutting down his employers’ rivals, too. Around the halfway mark, there is an ultraviolent fight between Zatoichi and the employees of a gambling den. That is followed in short order by a flashback fight scene that has nothing to do with the narrative—I think the filmmakers thought that the script was light on Zatoichi action and needed an extra one.

The fights were probably staged by Tatsumi Nikamoto, who worked on the super popular Ultraman Tyga series and Toho sci fi-horror film Mikadroid. Although Nikamoto’s contemporaries in 2003 were moving more in the direction of Hong Kong-flavored action, he sticks with more traditional chanbara carnage, in which opponents are taken out with one or two sword strokes, crumpling to the ground in a fountain of blood. Fight results are determined by a mixture of strategy and sheer speed, as opposed to drawn-out exchanges of blocks and strikes until one technique bests the other.

Nikamoto’s craft reaches its apex during Zatoichi’s assault on the Ginzu headquarters. The Geisha girls have failed in their assassination attempt and have been pushed back against the door, so to speak. Suddenly, a sword blade passed through the wood from the other side and moves upward to lift the crossbar and open the door. Zatoichi appears and proceeds to hack a couple of dozen armed ronin to pieces. It’s the longest fight in the film and by far the best in terms of staging and editing.

Much has been made of the climax, which is a long tap dance sequence featuring a troupe known as The Stripes. When I read about this sequence (prior to watching the movie), I wasn’t sure how to understand this. Dance sequence? Climax? What does that mean? Does Zatoichi and his buddies enage in a dance off with the Ginzu gang? That would certainly be an odd way to finish a violent chanbara film. Well, it’s not quite that. It’s mainly the a long and elaborately-choreographed village festival dance—mixing modern African-American dance techniques with traditional kabuki clog dancing—that is intercut with scenes of Zatoichi clearing up the loose ends of the Ginzu case. This is the first movie I’ve seen since Seven Step Pagoda in which the conflict resolution is intertwined with an elaborate dance. I never thought that a Taiwanese cheapie would have anything to do with a Beat Takeshi film, but there you go.

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Three Short Seiji Chiba Reviews

Rogue Ninja (2009, d: Seiji Chiba) – original title: Nukenin – C: Mika Hijii, Masayuki Izumi, Kentarô Shimazu.

 

The Iga ninja clan has more than its share of problems. Their rivals, the Koga clan, have allied themselves with the ambitious Nobunaga Oda and are threatening the Iga’s existence. Moreover, the current leadership has implemented a strict regime over its ninja, executing them for the slightest infraction. Finally, certain unknown assassins, probably within the clan itself, are murdering its strongest members one by one.

Ukagami (Mika Hijii) is a kunoichi is one of the strongest ninja in the clan, although she naturally feels looked down upon for being a woman. Compounding that is the fact that her immediate superior is not only more ambitious than the general leadership of the clan, but he’s a psycho rapist-woman murderer on the side, too. To make things worse, he has set his sights on Ukagami. Ukagami and her partner, Kamari, will find themselves caught between the varying internal conflicts that threaten to destroy the Iga from within.

Director Seiji Chiba can be depended upon to deliver in the martial arts action, which he does quite handily. Takahito Ôuchi, who also choreographed the Rurouni Kenshin films, handles the fight choreography here and delivers some solid fight sequences. The best scenes, unfortunately, are the first two fights, including Mika’s introductory scene against some Koga ninja. The other fights are good, but not as good as the openers. Kudos to Chiba for hiring Mika Hijii (whom Western viewers may recognize as Scott Adkins girlfriend/wife in the Isaac Florentine Ninja movies) on account of her martial skills and physicality and not her kawai factor or willingness to disrobe.

As most martial arts films coming out of Japan these days are low-budget affairs, you can expect this one to bear all the hallmarks of such a production: forest setting, lots of talking, limited action sequences, short running time. This movie has all of that. The movie feels like it grinds to a halt whenever the characters stop to spout out exposition. There is a lot that is talked about and not shown, like Nobunaga and the Koga plotting against the Iga, or even the supposed “Iron Grip” that the Iga leaders hold over their own. As far as we know, the only problems that the Iga have are the woman-killing chief and the inside assassins. I think the plot could have been scaled back to something more “intimate” and the non-fighting sequences would have become more compelling.

Alien vs. Ninja (2010, d: Seiji Chiba) – C: Masanori Mimoto, Shûji Kashiwabara, Donpei Tsuchihira, Mika Hijii, Yûki Ogoe, Ben Hiura.

I watched this at the same I watched the kitschy, hyper-gory The Machine Girl. So color me surprised when I actually had fun with this one, despite it having much of the same sensibilities as TMG. This one has more of a sense of humor about itself, and while some of these movies tend to be better when they are pretending that they are not absurd, this one plays well with our expectations and thus makes us laugh out of sheer surprise. My favorite scene is when the Odious Comic Relief finally bites it. The alien (which looks like a xenomorph with dolphin genes) cocks it is claw back, ready to deliver the death blow. It lingers for a few moments, making us think that the other ninjas will suddenly jump in and save him. Nope. His head goes flying off and lands on a decorative shrine, where a bird immediately starts pecking his eyes.

It is hard to explain the difference between this and TMG. The Machine Girl, while absurd and gory, treated the gore like an end in itself and felt like it introduced bizarre situations as an excuse to show more gore. This one is extremely gory, but it also follows a consistent internal logic in how the violence is portrayed and how the characters are affected. Moreover, the end is to be bizarre and fun, and the violence is one of the means to that end. The other means include well-choreographed fights courtesy of Yuji Shimomoura. There are lots of "ultimate ninja antics" and macho ninja posturing, like when a ninja throws a shuriken at the main protagonist from behind, and the latter slightly unsheathes the sword on his back, which deflects the iron star into the former's head. The climatic fight with the ninja zombies (shades of The Hidden here) has the best choreography and should leave most fight fans pleased.

Finally, some moments of subverting genre clichés help achieve a level of fun weirdness. Few people will argue that the facehuggers in the Alien films have a rape-y subtext to them. Future rip-offs like Galaxy of Terror and the Shaw Brothers' Inseminoid transformed that subtext into real text. So this movie subverts that by having a fight between the resident kunoichi (who's pretty hawt in her skin-tight ninja garb) and one of the aliens, who desperately wants to grope her boobs. The entire fight revolves around the girl using acrobatics and fisticuffs to avoid that scenario, ending with her defeating her attacker by stabbing it in the crotch. Ouch!

Kunoichi: Ninja Girl (2011, d: Seiji Chiba) – original title: Kunoichi – C: Rina Takeda, Mickey Koga, Masanori Mimoto, Yûichi Satô, Mayu Onomura, Shiho Fujisawa, Kotono.

No-budget ninja tomfoolery from Seiji Chiba, one of the few directors in Japan who still takes martial arts seriously. Sadly, this 64-minute potboiler has little to recommend it beyond Rina Takeda’s natural cuteness and a good fight sequence at the end. Three Koga ninja kidnap four girls with the intention of making them sex slaves for their clan. One of them is Kisaragi (Takeda), a female ninja (of the Iga Clan?) who escapes and fights off her captors, one by one.

The Kunoichi is mainly talk, talk, talk, occasionally broken up by a quick fight scene or torture sequence. In one scene, a sex slave is sodomized by the Sengoku Period equivalent to “The Gimp” from Pulp Fiction. The movie barely makes it to feature length and even then, it pads out the opening credits—which are set to synth music appropriate for a late 70s Italian horror film--just to cross the finish line.

The only saving grace is when Takeda faces off with one of the ninja, played by Mickey Koga. Koga has a strong action pedigree in Japan, having shown up in films like Ichi; Hard Revenge Milly; and the title character in the “Kamen Rider Kabuto” series. Godzilla fans will remember him as that asshole Akiba in Godzilla: Tokyo SOS. Anyway, their fight is the only sustained one in the film—there are two previous dust-ups that are rather quick. Under the action direction of Kensuke Sonomura (The Machine Girl; Hydra; the Gantz movies), the two have complex exchange of punches, blocks, joint locks, and throws. Takeda even does some muay thai-inspired clinching and knee smashes. In the second of the fight, the two have an elaborately choreographed sword fight, Hong Kong-style. The choreography here is top drawer, and it’s a shame that it’s the only moment in this movie that the filmmakers’ intentions are somewhat realized.

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The Princess Blade (2001)

The Princess Blade (2001)
Japanese title: 修羅雪姫
Translation: Lady Snowblood

 

Starring: Yumiko Shaku, Hideaki Itô, Yôichi Numata, Shirô Sano, Kyûsaku Shimada, Yôko Chôsokabe, Yôko Maki, Naomasa Musaka
Director: Shinsuke Sato
Action Director: Donnie Yen, Kenji Tanigaki

The Princess Blade was filmed during Donnie Yen’s “choreographer” period, in which he spent most of his time behind the camera directing fight scenes than as an actor. The period went from 1999 until 2004, after which the success of both Seven Swords and Sha Po Lang turned him into the Great White Hope of Hong Kong martial arts actors. The “choreographer period” had been preceded by Donnie’s “Indie Director” period, marked by movies like Legend of the Wolf and Ballistic Kiss[1].

Donnie’s first gig in this action director period was in the romance-cum-crime drama Moonlight Express, starring Leslie Cheung. Nobody ever talks about this movie anymore, so I can only imagine that the action was both limited and fairly negligible. The following year, Donnie went to the West for a pair of gigs. One was the choreographer for the German TV series “Der Puma,” starring martial artist Mickey Hardt. The second was on the Hollywood film Highlander: Endgame, for which he staged the fights and played legendary assassin Jin Ke, the same guy he essentially fought two years later in Hero. After going to Japan for this movie, he went back to Hollywood for Guillermo del Toro’s Blade II, once again choreographing the fights and playing a supporting a role as a katana-wielding vampire.

The year 2003 saw Donnie’s stock rise, as he choreographed the well-received action-horror-fantasy The Twins Effect, which earned him his first Hong Kong Film Award for Best Action Direction. He immediately went to work directing the action on the next Twins movie, Protégé de la Rose Noire. Most people these days try to pretend that movie doesn’t exist, which should give you an idea as to its quality. However, if you want to see Donnie’s younger sister in action, then there’s that. He also took an “important” supporting role in The Twins Effect 2 that same year (i.e. 2004), although the action duties were handed over to Corey Yuen this time.

The Princess Blade is based on the same source material, the manga Shurayuki Hime, that inspired the classic chanbara film Lady Snowblood. This film pushes the story into a dystopian future, in which the Meiji restoration never occurred, but Japan had remained closed for a good 500 years, placing the story around A.D. 2103. The Japanese did manage to push their technology forward, although much like the 1990s Japan in real life, this fictional Japan has suffered economic stagflation for long enough that you get the feeling that inertia is just killing the place—much like Mad Max.

The main characters in this film belong to a clan known as the Takemikazuchi. The clan were originally the bodyguards for the royal family, but eventually one of the later kings turned on them. Most of them were hunted and killed. Many had their swords confiscated and/or were physically mutilated so as to prevent them from using martial arts. Those who escaped went underground and became paid assassins, sort of the ninja of their day. One of their number is Yuki (Yumiko Shaku, of Sky High and Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla), whose deceased mother had been the former “princess” of the clan. These days, however, the clan is run by the bass-voiced Byakurai (Kyûsaku Shimada, of Shin Godzilla and Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis).

One day, Yuki is out in the forest to kill a deserter when she runs into Kuka (Yôichi Numata, of Ringu and The Golden Bat), a former servant of her mother’s. Kuka informs her that her mother wasn’t killed in combat, but was actually murdered by Byakurai. When Yuki returns, she confronts her chief about the matter and he responds by trying to kill her. Yuki gets the heck out of dodge and takes refuge in a rundown gas station run by Takashi (Hideaki Itô, of the Onmyoji movies), a former dissident and terrorist, and his mute sister, Aya (Yôko Maki, of The Grudge and The Vanished). After recovering, Yuki takes leave and meets Kuka at the abandoned industrial district for more information about what happened to her mother. Unfortunately, the other Takemikazuchi assassins have figured out that the two would be meeting again. Yuki isn’t go to get away so easily this time…

The only real similarities between this and Lady Snowblood is the general theme about a woman who grew up being trained to kill seeking vengeance against those who killed her parents. Otherwise, they are completely different films, and this goes beyond the sci-fi trappings of this movie’s setting. While Lady Snowblood  had a lot of historical politics in the context of its story, the politics here are relegated to a limited subplot involving Takashi and his former dissident buddies. Cue a cameo by the ubiquitous Shirô Sano, of Godzilla 2000; Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack; and Godzilla: Final Wars.

Lady Snowblood’s Yuki also didn’t have much a character arc in her two movies. She’s has been taught since childhood that the entire reason for her existence is to get revenge, and that’s what she dutifully does. At no point does ever really stop to question her purpose or lot in life, or even ponder the morality of killing people, especially the henchmen of her enemies who had nothing to do with their original sins. Lady Snowblood is resigned to killing and that’s that. Princess Blade’s version of Yuki, as played by Yumiko Shaku (who was a big thing in the early 2000s), is a lot more introspective. While Shaku lacks the beauty and charisma of Meiko Kaji—a tall order to fill, although Shaku has her own following thanks her role as the tortured Akane Yashiro in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla—her character has a complete arc. From unfeeling killing machine to reluctant warrior to a human being that embraces her emotions, Yuki is definitely a different person at the end than she was at the beginning.

The character development does have a bit of a cost in that the second act slows down a lot. You do start feeling for the characters by the time the third acts sets in and Yuki has to face her past once and for all, but a lot of viewers will probably be getting antsy by the hour mark. Said Phil Mills of Far East Films:

 

“The main problem is the lack of a significant story, as the film seems to play all of its cards early on and we’re left meandering around as the main character contemplates how to deal with her predicament. This ultimately means that the film becomes somewhat dull in places and you’ll regularly find yourself looking at your watch, just praying for something meaningful to occur[2].”

When something meaningful does occur, it is usually a pretty good swordfight courtesy of Donnie Yen and his protégé, Kenji Tanigaki. While Donnie needs no introduction, Mr. Tanigaki has had an impressive career, especially in recent years. Tanigaki joined Donnie’s stunt team around 1998 for Ballistic Kiss and has stuck by the man’s side until this very day. But he has also worked on various non-Donnie films, too. In his native Japan, Tanigaki did the action direction for the Rurouni Kenshin films, the first of which is said to have one of the best sword fights of all time. He won a Taiwan Golden Horse Award for his action in the film Hidden Man. Tanigaki has also worked in Hollywood on G.I. Joe Origins: Snake Eyes.

There are a handful of fights, most of which are in the first act. The movie opens with the Takemikazuchi assassins ambushing some cars on a highway and killing the men inside. Donnie and Kenji go for the stylish, with slow motion aerial attacks, some wire-enhanced acrobatics, and rapid-fire editing (mainly to hide the fact that actress Yumiko Shaku is often doubled by Yuji Shimomoura, another Donnie Yen collaborator). Yuki’s brief fight with Byakurai is mainly notable for its hard-hitting falls and throws.

Even better is the brief fight with the Takemikazuchi assassins in the abandoned factory, which features a lot of dynamic camerawork and one-versus-many sword choreography. In this fight, the result looks like a 1990s Ching Siu-Tung film, or the machete fight at the beginning of Donnie’s own Legend of the Wolf. That fight ends on a very graphic note involving torture and impaling.

The best choreography is saved for the finale, which is an eclectic mix of the sort of bootwork that Donnie Yen is most known for and swordplay that looks more like Western fencing than Japanese kenjutsu. While some may consider that inappropriate for a Japanese movie, the fact that Shaku (and Shimomoura) are fighting off half a dozen men at the same time makes the choreography that much more impressive. There are some nice slow-motion flips, wire-assisted jump kicks, and a neat way to neutralize her opponent’s sword techniques. Although action is infrequent and sometimes a little chaotic, it is good enough that, combined with Yumiko Shaku’s performance, it makes this a must for a single viewing…at the very least.

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[1] - It technically started in 1995 with the film High Voltage. Donnie apparently did most of the directing after the director walked off the set.

[2] - https://www.fareastfilms.com/?review_post_type=the-princess-blade

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Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance (1974)

Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance (1974)
Aka: Web of Treachery
Japanese Title: 修羅雪姫 怨み恋歌
Translation: Lady Snowblood – Grudge Love Song

 

Starring: Meiko Kaji, Jûzô Itami, Ransui Tokunaga, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Yoshio Harada, Yoshio Harada, Shin Kishida, Tôru Abe, Rin'ichi Yamamoto, Kôji Nanbara
Director: Toshiya Fujita
Action Director: Kunishirô Hayashi

 

In a review of the first movie that I read many years ago, online film critic Scott Hamilton mentioned that one detail he thought should have been touched upon in Lady Snowblood was the question of: “What does a person who has literally been raised as tool of vengeance do with their lives once their mission is accomplished?”

The question is sort of answered in Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance.

The initial answer is: “Not much.” The movie opens with Yuki Kashima (Meiko Kaji) on the lam from the police and different assassins trying to collect a bounty on her head. While other movies gloss over the legal ramifications of vicious, martial arts-fueled vengeance, the police in the Meiji Period of Japan simply cannot overlook the murder of 37 people, including important arms dealers and policemen, too. Yuki has been a fugitive for a decade or so by this point, but she’s getting worn down, both physically and psychologically. It isn’t long before one police ambush results in her simply throwing down her sword and letting herself get captured. Considering the numbers of dead bodies that she has accumulated over the years, it isn’t surprising that she gets the death penalty.

As Yuki is on her way to her hanging, the police carriage she’s in is attacked by a bunch of masked men, led by a sai-wielding mute named Toad (Kôji Nanbara, of The Bloody Shuriken and The Resurrection of Golden Wolf). Toad works for the head of the Japanese Secret Police, Kikui (Shin Kishida, of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla and Evil of Dracula). Kikui wants to employ Yuki’s services as a spy. Specifically, he wants her to infiltrate the home of a known anarchist, Ransui Tokunaga (Jûzô Itami, the director best known for Tampopo and A Taxing Woman) and get a secret document in his possession.

Yuki reluctantly accepts and is able to enter the Tokunaga household as a maid. It doesn’t take long for Ransui to figure out who she is. But instead of killing her, he leads her to the pet cemetery where his fellow anarchist buddies are buried, treated like mere animals by the authorities. There, he reveals the document to her, which is a letter consisting of recorded conversations between Kikui and high-ranking official Terauchi Kendo (Tôru Abe, of Shogun and Girl Boss Guerilla). The nature of these conversations is enough to bring down the entire Meiji government, it would seem. However, Yuki is swayed to Ransui’s side, bringing the ire of the Secret Police down on her and the Tokunaga family. And to put it bluntly, the Secret Police do not screw around.

Like the first movie, there is a historical context to this film, which mainly serves as background info, but ultimately makes the film more political than it might have been otherwise. Whereas the first movie dealt with the early tax rebellions of the Meiji Restoration and those who sought to profit from it, this movie is set after the Russo-Japanese War, which is referenced in the opening narration. The war itself is mentioned in several scenes, but the narration points out that the war more or less cemented Capitalism as the replacement for Feudalism, with there once again being a class of winners and losers, the latter being devastated by post-War inflation (gosh, was this movie made today?). There is a lot made about people who worked in menial jobs being forced to live in slums, none of whom the government ever gave a flying rat’s a** about. It isn’t directly related to Yuki and her mission, but it helps set the stage to showing us the Japan that Lady Snowblood was living in.

The general criticism levied against this film—which I agree with to an extent—is the pacing. It starts out promising, with Meiko Kaji getting in three different fights in the first 15 minutes. But, after she gets arrested, the action is toned down for the next hour or so. There is also a prolonged sequence where Lady Snowblood is incapacitated and we focus on the love triangle between Ransui, his wife Aya (Empire of Passion’s Kazuko Yoshiyuki), and the former’s brother, a slum-based doctor named Shusuke (Yoshio Harada, of Yagyu Clan Conspiracy). There is a lot of bad blood between them, plus a conflict of motives and goals. There is also an extended subplot involving the Bubonic Plague, which is very Camp 731 in its atrociousness.

Also, while there are some great moments of bloodshed—like one character stabbing a police inspector in the eye with a hairpin—it feels like the geysers of blood are saved for the last swordfight or so. A lot of the early sword duels are surprisingly bloodless, making me wonder if the film’s make-up effects budget was smaller than that of the first film. Once the action gets going again at the end, there are some nice moments of red paint splattering all over the film’s “canvas,” plus a few severed limbs, too. You’ll just have to wait a while to get there.

The action is once again staged by Kunishirô Hayashi. He doesn’t do quite a good job as he did in the first film, and the fight scenes are ultimately saved by the film’s marvelous cinematography. The first fight is filmed a single continuous shot of Meiki Kaji walking toward the camera as it draws back at the same pace. All the while, sword-wielding assassins are running around her, occasionally mustering up the courage to charge her, only to get cut down in a brief moment. The bravura camerawork and Meiko Kaji’s beauty ultimately stand as the main reasons to watch this movie. The beautiful bloodshed and gorgeous scene compositions are toned down too much and the second act is a bit too slow more my tastes. I can’t call this movie a waste of time, but it certainly does not live up to the standards of its predecessor.

This review is part of the "Oh, the Insanity! Oh, the Japanity!" series (click the "banner" below):