A bit late here, but Sunday was the 72nd birthday of Sonny Chiba, a man who doesn’t get nearly enough credit for maintaining the 80’s ninja craze. I really want to know what insidious anti-ninjite super villain blocked Kage no … Continued
Shinobi-esque jobbers in LAST HURRAH FOR CHIVALRY Ninja, and ninja-like, costuming affords a tremendous advantage to action directors – you can hide the stuntmen very easily. How many times per picture can an anonymous hooded fight double get killed? A … Continued
Takao Saito‘s rather fun manga Kage Gari was turned into a veeeery grim, nigh-emo film in 1972. Whereas the trio of vengeful “Shadow Hunters” in the books are sort of a jaunty, anti-shinobi three musketeers, in the film they are … Continued
Sangre Yakuza is an excellent Spanish-language blog full of Japanese gang-war movie posters, topless sukebans, tattoo’d girls in bondage (like the above kunoichi-esque bandit about to get abused), and karate-kickin’ honeys. And lo-and-behold some sword-slinging shinobi once in a while… There’s … Continued
I’m not especially familiar with the 1976/77 Toei tokustatsu property Ninja Captor, but I do like the character design. The elemental-themed costumes combined garishly decorated crash helmets, superhero utility belts and go-go boots with primary-colored mesh that evoked ancient armor. I … Continued
Well, folks. I TRIED. I really did try to write a fair, even, and generally supportive piece on KAMUI GAIDEN. But seriously… how can it possibly live up to the source? This is even more compounded by some terrible effects, … Continued
OK, so the Kamui Gaiden manga had a major pedigree in Japan, and its ground-breaking U.S. release separated the men from the boys of late-craze ninja fans. So why are we just getting a movie now? The “Island of Sugaru” … Continued
Just before the holiday, I got a screener of Funimation‘s 2-DVD release of Kamui Gaiden, allegedly the most expensive ninja movie ever made, and one that has received about as wide an array of responses as I’ve ever seen. Epic. … Continued
When you’re a niche geek within an already geeky niche you tend to do your own gift shopping. My session of retail therapy last holiday season was these: While I’m not the biggest tokusatsu fan out there, I do like … Continued