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 three gloomy-as-fuck self-loathing exterminators of anything in a black hood. And the body count is staggering…
Not that the blood-letting in the books is any less, but the characters aren’t as clinically depressed and uber-morose as their celluloid counterparts.
Yeah, if you want to see some ninja slaughtered and stacked up like chord wood, any form of Kage Gari is for you.
