Shogun's Ninja

Sometime ago, I purchased a cheapo DVD collection, The Ten Faces of Sonny Chiba, for about $10. This is a no-frills DVD set. The only extra on every single disc is a Sonny Chiba Filmography. The ten movies are reasonably well transferred to DVD. They are also a good cross-section of the feature length films made by Chiba in the '70's and '80's. Included is his famous Street Fighter series, and one appearance by Chiba as Yagyu Jubei, one of his most famous roles.


These are chanbara movies -- the swashbuckling, blood-and-thunder films of Japan. The casual viewer may not realize there are really two kinds of samurai movies: the jidai-geki, which are "period movies" and chanbara. What's the difference? Seven Samurai is a jidai-geki. Chiba's Shogun's Ninja is chanbara. Now imagine the comparison was: Unforgiven is a historical movie, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is a "Western." Or maybe this anaology, 2001: A Space Odyssey is hard science fiction. Star Wars Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back is Space Opera. All of these examples are films in the same vein, but the gap between them is enormous.

I watched Shogun's Ninja, made in 1982, the other night and I enjoyed it immensely. It wasn't a Kurosawa movie, but it was good. Best of all, it included those quirky moments Japanese cinema is famous for: actions that are meant to be stirring to the original audience, but are only squirm inducing to Americans. May two favorites? The torture scene which culminates with Chiba (who was playing the villain in this movie) stoically grabbing the hero's testicles. Also, in the aftermath of a daring prison escape which left half of his friends dead, the hero builds a bonfire and then does a kung fu routine that turns into a disco dance. No, I'm not making this up. (And as a bonus, the "Spider Ninja" troupe dressed in leopard spot camoflage almost made this list.) These are the kinds of things that make most Americans vow never to watch a foreign-made B-movie ever again.

Shogun's Ninja has another distinction of importance to many of my readers. While it is very much fictional, many of the main characters (and the incidents propelling their lives) were real live ninja from the Sengoku (Warring States) period of Japan. The plot has Shogun, in this case the name (not the title) of a villainous Koga Ryu ninja, wiping out the Momochi ninja Clan in order to steal the secret of the family's hidden gold mine. Shogun personally kills the clan chief, Momochi Sandayu, assisted by his adopted sons -- one deaf, the other mute, both trained as acrobatic ninja. Sandayu's son, Takamaru, is sent into hiding in China, where he learns Kung Fu to defend himself. A decade later, Takamaru returns to Japan. There he finds the remnant's of the Momochi clan living in hiding as street performers, and moonlighting as a group behind the charade of the Japanese Robin Hood-figure, Ishikawa Goemon. Meanwhile, Hattori Hanzo is working to keep the Momochi gold mine secret from Shogun and his master, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. This is a virtual Who's Who of famous ninja. Only Shogun is fictional. (Although Momochi "Takamaru" is probably meant to be the second Momochi Sandayu that appears in the historical records.)

Although this is chanbara, the movie incorporates some actual historical events. The Momochi Clan is killed during the Iga no Ran, a purge of the Iga Province of the ninja and ji-samurai families carried out by Oda Nobunaga. Toyotomi is desperate to find the Momochi gold mine because he needs the money to finance his invasion of Korea, which actually, and tragically, happened. Ishikawa Goemon appears in Japanese folklore of the period as a single character, but his ninja training is indeed credited to Momochi Sandayu, and several historians theorize that Goemon was a corporate identity for a bandit gang of ninja put out by the Iga no Ran -- so this too matches up. Momochi Sandayu is an important figure to modern ninjutsu practitioners because he is credited as the head of both the Gyokko Ryu and Koto Ryu schools that make-up the backbone of the "Takamatsu-den" traditions, principally the Bujinkan Dojo Budo Taijutsu. It caused me to smirk a little when the Momochi secret "Spider ninja" were equipped with Shuko and Ashiko, steel claws for hands and feet. While many ninja-fiction savvy readers may believe these were common weapons among the feudal age ninja clans, they were in fact the secret weapon of the Togakure Ryu, an off shoot of the Gyokko Ryu practiced by the Momochi.

I wish I could say the fighting techniques were authentic ninjutsu. Sadly, the most noteworthy martial arts techniques in the Japanese made film appear to be Kung Fu. There is even a scene in which a jujutsu-trained Momochi challenges Takamaru to a bout and is soundly beaten by the acrobatic Kung Fu. Even the claws of the Spide Ninja are used for climbing trees, which is possible, but no where near as easy as the books would make you think. The Shuko were instead used as an adjunct to Gyokko Ryu strikes and throws.

However, if you just enjoy watching ninja movies, this one is better than most, and seems much more reverential to ninjutsu history than anything Sho Kosugi ever did.