While the Sonny Chiba / Japan Action Club TV series is more widely known, it was the really strange 1979/80 film Kage no Gundan: Hattori Hanzo by Eiichi Kudo that started the Shadow Warriors ball rolling.
Yeah… strange… a real head scratcher. Damn weird even. Sometimes stunning, sometimes baffling, sometimes laughable in an uncomfortable way that makes you nervous you’re missing something profound, and not chucking at the prolonged fucking FOOTBALL game the rival ninjas clans have in the middle of this thing. Or the inexplicable tar-covered monster ninja. There’s all sorts of stuff that just makes no sense, but then again, maybe it’s genius. I dunno…
The marketing was equally strange. Check out the poster above. Yeah, that crumpled tin foil as a the background. Those costumes, with the football shoulder pads, are right out of the movie, but the hockey or drama masks are never worn. These phantom-y figures, though, are the primary icons of the campaign.
Football. NOT making that up. Find it and see for yourself…
