VN’s birthday look at AKAI KAGEBOSHI – Pt. 3

With all the sneaking around and sword thievery in Akai Kageboshi, there’s a need for some – literally – flashy escapes. Here’s where the 60′s style of cinematic ninjutsu takes over from what in the 50′s would have been magical illusions or disappearances via sorcery.

The smoking 'gasa' straw hat trick! Works great day or night...

The old 'flaming paper scroll while jumping over the wall' bit!

The phosphorous flash/smoke bomb - gets you out of a lady's bedroom scott free.

These are some serious caltrops, especially when the apex of foot wear is cotton socks and straw sandals.

Tomorrow, we wrap up AK week with a look at Hanzo and his men in grey…

VN’s birthday look at AKAI KAGEBOSHI – Pt. 2

Not only is Akai Kageboshi a great ninja movie that spans the colorful flamboyant 50′s and grimmer realistic 60′s, it’s also a damn nifty TOURNAMENT MOVIE!

The tournament is one of the strongest devices in martial arts cinema. It’s single location/single set format is cheap and easy for filmmakers, it’s a vehicle for a wide variety of performers and showcases all sorts of fighting choreography in one little neat package. With a tourney movie, you don’t so much tell a story as you do “book” an athletic drama – the scriptwriter can be part pro-wrestling promoter. You don’t need necessarily much more than the competition structure to make an engaging film.

AK, though, actually balances an intricate and emotional plot with the tourney device, taking the contest’s strengths and weaving them into the layered story. Best of all, you get all sorts of interesting characters with different styles and weapons.

RYUTARO OTOMO stars as Jubei Yagyu, whose presence is huge in both the tournament and the intrigue at large. Otomo plays the legendary figure with a simple shut eye rather than the iconic eyepatch, and he's a swordsman of superhuman stature. Too cool!

Off topic a bit – if you want another budo tournament movie, the same Ryutaro Otomo stars in Festival of Swordsmen, which is absolutely fantastic. Get both titles here!

Hey VN, It’s Ya BERFDAY!

Yes, indeedy! One year ago today, I posted the first content on Vintage Ninja. 200+ posts, hundreds of pictures and thousands of readers later, I’m pretty damn happy with where everything stands. I’m no web wizard, but the site is pretty functional and  has a rather distinctive look. Mainly, though, I wanted the site itself to stay out of the way of the CONTENT.

The sharing of that content was not only the original inspiration for starting VN, but is the fuel that keep it going, and as more and more of you give me feedback, the rewards of the effort grow exponentially. When you web publish, you end up e-meeting all sorts of same minded folk you weren’t sure were out there at all, and it is great to know there’s a population out there who remember the 80′s craze and are rabidly discovering the 60′s media that led to it.

We’ll celebrate our one-year anniversary with a week-long look at the first movie featured on VN – Akai Kageboshi – the other ‘Red Shadow,’ first seen here in the form of decaying and discoloring press kit photos contemporary with its 1961/62 release. Click here to go back to those amazing photos and a more complete rundown of this terrific movie.

Ninja movies of the 50′s were largely centered on colorful wizards and swashbuckers, while the 60′s saw an explosion of grimmer fare based on credible martial arts and espionage techniques. Akai Kageboshi is a perfect bridge between those, with plenty of glamorous characters mixed with all sorts of great fights and daring ninja escapes. And there’s a kick-ass tournament thrown in there, too!

HASHIZO OKAWA plays the title character, the bastard son of two ninja entangled in a multi-generational conflict.

If there's one thing decidedly 50's about this movie, it's the lush, colorful costuming. Here, mother and son are disguised as a traveling magic act.

Mom is a kunoichi who blew an important mission decades before. She's now obsessed with completing that mission using her son as the muscle.

This tattoo is half of the puzzle leading to secrets that could topple the Shogunate. The other half of the key is contained in one of ten prized sword blades being awarded in a martial arts tournament. Her son must defeat each winner and steal their trophy sword - a plot structure guaranteeing a pile of awesome fights!

And does the kid ever have the wardrobe to pull the whole thing off!

Challenging as it is, the Red Shadow’s mission seems pretty straight forward. But throw in Hattori Hanzo – charged with his pursuit, Jubei Yagyu – a contestant in the tourney who isn’t about to give up his trophy to some masked punk, the crushing reveal of who his father is, and a chance meeting with a gorgeous spear-weilding deb who may turn out to be the love of his life, and things get real busy for our hero.

Tomorrow, a look at the tournament. Wednesday, some nifty ninjutsu. Thursday, a look at Hanzo’s grey-clad commando force. A nice week ahead with a great movie.

And, you can always buy it from Kurotokagi-gumi‘s ‘Ninja Collection.’

Shinobi-no-Mono posters

Looked at some Taiwanese / HK stuff last time, and people get testy when I stray to the Chinese side of shinobi cinema, so I’ll boomerang things right back with some tried and true Raizo Ichikawa.

Speaking of Raizo, I’ve been drooling over the Sleepy Eyes of Death box set from Animeigo, which I’m late in picking up. I haven’t seen these films since the inky VHS bootleg days, and man do they look and sound tremendous here. Plenty of slaughtered ninja around, too…

Taiwanese Ninja en Espanol

Two pub stills / lobby cards from the Spanish market release of the Taiwanse Wu Tang vs. Ninja or Ninja Hunter as it is know here.

This is a pretty good piece of Mandarin ninjasploitation, with lots of colorful characters, good fights and plenty of kung-fu ninja action. So why isn’t ANY of that reflected in these images?

Awesome ninja from OZ… again!

Ukido Ninja Warriors is a nice new line of well-researched and superbly executed ninja collectibles distributed out of Australia. Pictured here is the assortment of 3.5″ figures, but the same designs are available as keychains, and imprinted on wallets, journals and bags.

The figures are halfway between vinyl boutique fare and ancient Japanese wooden folkdolls. GREAT paint jobs and designs allow a simple mold to represent all sorts of different personalities and costume styles. Love these…

There are a couple of sellers on eBay with these right now, starting around $15 AUD. Really hoping they get distro in North America somewhere…

Swift, Silent and… CHEESY!

Thanks to Roy Ware of the awesome Black Sun blog for sending me this:

Yes, shinobi cheezy-poofs! Getting my ass down to Little Tokyo grocers right f’n now!

Meanwhile, check out Roy’s great feature on Gekko Kamen up right now, complete with a theme song to die for.

And hey, WOW! According to my count – this is VN’s 200th post!!! In less than a year, too. You’d think I was obsessed with ninja or something…

Hanzo Socks!

My pal Lili Chin is the bomb! She bought these for me on a recent vacation to Japan.

Obviously “inspired by” Sonny Chiba’s Hattori Hanzo in Kage no Gundan. I was shocked when these actually fit my gaijin yeti feet.

Now to master some monkey-style foot-flinging shuriken skils!

Thanks Lili! You’ve earned a completely gratuitous plug for Doggie Drawings – an effort to not only immortalize your pets but to help rescue Boston Terriers in need.

OK, now get back to work on Dead Ringo!

Awesome ninja collage

Have seen this posted on a few blogs, but wanted to credit back to the source before I passed it along.  Afrodisiac artist Jim Rugg did some ninja illustrations for McSweeny’s that were sadly cut. Check them out at his blog.

Can you identify all the ninja here. To be honest, there’s a couple that stump me! Who’s in the upper left corner, and who’s the dude with the pony tail and viking sword? Not sure I’d consider GI Joe’s “Firefly” a ninja, either. Otherwise, this thing is THE SHIT!!!

GARO exhibit in NYC!

The highly regarded alt-manga blog Same Hat! Same Hat! has some photos up of the amazing GARO exhibition at the Center for Book Arts in NYC.

I haven’t studied up much on GARO, but it seems to me (from a publisher’s perspective) that the presence of Shirato Sanpei’s “Kamui” was the financial tent pole that enabled all sorts of other experimental and daring work that was not necessarily sellable on its own. I’m planning on ordering one of the exhibition catalogs to learn more.

Previous VN posts on this period of manga brilliance here and here.