SAMURAI SPY – Use of Shadow (and Light) to Obscure Characters
The 2nd of a 4-part look at the visual qualities of Masahiro Shinoda’s Ibun Sarutobi Sasuke Last time we established the agenda of director Masahiro Shinoda and cinematographer Masao Kosugi to mirror the confusion and conflict of Sasuke with an equal … Continued
SAMURAI SPY – Geometry and Lines in Composition
The 1st of a 4-part look at the visual qualities of Masahiro Shinoda’s Ibun Sarutobi Sasuke It doesn’t take long to realize that director Masahiro Shinoda and cinematographer Masao Kosugi were up to something different in Samurai Spy. Different for … Continued
A visual breakdown of SAMURAI SPY (intro)
It was the Summer of 1984, the height and heat of the American craze. Revenge of the Ninja was running on HBO, Ninja III: The Domination was about to hit theaters, Spanish-dubbed episodes of Lone Wolf and Cub ran on … Continued
Color campaigns for B&W classics
When discussing 60’s B&W ninja flicks, the Shinobi-no-Mono series is THE genre-defining series. The movie posters, however, relied on strong reds, greens and blues to catch the consumers’ eye, and are some of the only color reference for the props … Continued
THIRD NINJA is first rate
More pretty B&W shinobi action today, courtesy of Toshikazu Kouno‘s 1964 Toei actioner Daisan no Ninja (The Third Ninja). Brief synopsis (anything longer would be spoiler-heavy): Two competing ninja, one an obedient servant, the other an upstart looking for a … Continued
Coming soon…
Falling behind where I wanted to be with various B&W Japanese film posts, but GREAT stuff to come! Here’s a preview of the post-a-day topic for next week in the meantime: And yes, there will be more various stuff this … Continued
Ninja Warfare in YAGYU BUGEICHO – Part 2
Last time we set things up for the Yagyu’s apocalyptic assault on a impregnable fortress. Yagyu Bugeicho: Katame no Ninja is an all too rare shinobi WAR movie. Unleash the dogs… Not exactly your feel-good action-comedy buddy pic here… Katame … Continued
Ninja warfare in YAGYU BUGEICHO – Part 1
Spent a lot of time on American and Chinese posters and packaging lately, so let’s take things back to where it really all starts with this site – 60’s Japanese films. This will be the first of several posts on … Continued
More FWAK!-tastic ninja…
More great Eddie Mort artwork up on the FWAK! blog from the in-development animated series Dead Ringo:
Joseph Lai shlock-o-rama
We started the week with the high-end of the 80’s craze, let’s wrap it up on the low end… There are some great scans of not-so-great posters from REALLY not great in the least movies over at Wrong Side of the … Continued