Movie Review; Shogun's Ninja; Part One; Request
Alright. This is something I've been wanting to do for a while now, so I'm so glad I've finally gotten around to it. I hope those reading can enjoy it as much as I do.
It's my first-ever movie review! Naturally, I'll put it in two parts so as to not bombard everyone with an entire novel to read in one entry. Also: If you have any really horrible or really great movies you'd like me to do a review of, please feel free to contact me in whatever manner possible, and ask! I prefer Japanese films and presumptuous American films, but if it's low-budget and trite, anything will do.
For my very first review, however, I am choosing to do one of my all-time favourite movies. It is called "Ninja Bugeicho Momochi Sandayu", retitled as Shogun's Ninja. It is a favourite of mine for a number of reasons:
- The actors
- The horrible plot
- The horrible budget
- The beyond horrible music
- Ninpou!
So, let's get on with it, shall we?
Movie Review - 忍者武芸帳 百地三太夫 - Shogun's Ninja
The first thing that you need to know about this movie is that it was made in 1980. That should give you a good idea of just how awesome this movie is about to be.
The second thing that you should know would be the stars of this film. The most famous name, or shall I say, the man whose DVD box sets you will find this movie in, is Sonny Chiba. He's a really great actor. You've seen him in a movie, trust me. That guy is in everything. The "real" star of this movie, and, as vegeta_eyes would say, the person portraying my life in the 16th century, is Sanada Hiroyuki. That's right, Sanada Hiroyuki! No, he's not some awesome samurai as I imagined he would be, but at this point in his career, he might as well be. I'm sure most of the people reading my journal would know him better than Sonny. If you have seen Ringu, Onmyoji, or perhaps The Last Samurai and Speed Racer, then you know Sanada.
Yeah, that guy. He's an awesome and terrifying actor. But you might as well forget all about that now, because in this movie, he isn't anything like that. No, get used to this:
Yeah, this movie is that good. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The best thing about this movie is the music. I know very little about it, but know that I would trade my little sister for a copy of the soundtrack. It also is that good. It seems to have been composed by the troll of the Japanese composing scene at the time. The whole movie is a series of bizarre sound effects and some sort of jazz-pop backing. It's like this guy was watching the film and went, "Hey, this part of the movie is sad. They're killing off a major character in a very noble and touching way. Hmm... I seem to have this disco-beat left over from another movie that never got made. What if I layered it with some blues-funk? That would be killer." And then he did, and it was. No, seriously, that's not meant to be funny. That is what happens. So keep in mind that, even if I am not describing the music happening at any given time in the movie, it is definitely going to be some sort of wholly inappropriate dance-pop with some urban sound thrown in and then mangled all up for good measure. If you ever get a chance to see this movie, you really should, because the culmination of every part of it makes it so adorably awful/awesome. I'll try my best not to leave anything out, and briefly explain about historical or cultural knowledge that may be less familliar to those who don't live off of these movies like I do. Got it? Okay, let's begin movie time!
Right off the bat, the title screen is overlaid with this horror-movie-esque riff, quickly bleeding into some sort of opening song that tells me that football is coming on. It doesn't.
All the music stops, and we are suddenly jolted into a room with two very important-looking people. The man seated elevated seems to be some sort of daimyo. The guy closest to us is giving some sort of a report. He's name-dropping, a lot, things that get my inner dork all fired up. Iga ninja! Really? Behind him, two men are bowing, and the vassal explains that he has trained these two ninja; one cannot speak, the other cannot hear.
Awesome, right?
The elevated man speaks, naming the other as Kouga ninja Shogen Shiranui. And he himself is Toyotomi Hideyoshi! (At this point being Hashiba. Learn all about him here.) Long story short, Hideyoshi is the man, and a very important one at that.
As you can tell.
It goes on to describe a very popular story that you will hear often in ninja-type media. Kouga and Iga are two very well-known schools of ninpou, Hanzo Hattori being most notably from Iga. If you know of Basilisk, this is it. Basically, Oda Nobunaga (my favourite of warlords, the man who pretty much set the framework of unifying the country), attacked the Iga ninja, but lost. Being a very vengeful and prideful sort of guy, he then ordered a huge attack, outnumbering the Iga and pretty much slaughtering them without mercy, before pulling back and allowing a few to escape, probably to let them tell everybody else what they saw. That's what I'd do. Then he took their fortresses.
The film shows part of the battle, including the man being spoken of earlier, Momochi Sandayu. Shiranui assures him that they will be stronger with the help of the Kouga, and they and his two impaired bodyguards go inside to discuss their plans and generally laugh at Hideyoshi and his monkey-like stupidity. Shogen then proceeds to kill all of Sandayu's men. They then have an awesome slow-mo battle, accompanied by some easy listening Enya-type music, and Sandayu is murdered. His men rush in to help him, but are all taken down by Shogen's men, and Shogen smiles a devious smile. With his dying breath, Sandayu reaches for his sword and calls for Takamaru. Shogen's men search him and inform Shogen that one of Sandayu's swords is missing, a very important one. Shogen gets angry. He demands that they find it.
And now the movie stops being a historical ninja action film and becomes a few hours of awesome, awesome, nonsensical comedy gold.
A woman in a pure white robe is playing a flute for a small boy. Because dressing in pure white robes is a healthy thing to do, and doesn't symbolise death in any way, no. She begins crying.
Men rush in and inform her that their clan was betrayed by the Kouga and Shogen, and that the fortress has fallen and the lord is dead. The little boy is just sitting right there and doesn't seem all that concerned, but I'm sure that his acting abilities simply escape my uneducated perceptions.
Since she was already crying, she has nothing else to do but cry some more. She then hands her son a sword, explaining that the wolf on it is a symbol of their clan. She tells him to keep it, while he purses his lips and makes the same retarded face for about thirty seconds.
Then she proceeds to tell an old man to take the boy, and tells the boy to go with him. The boy says he doesn't want to, so she begins shaking him and telling him to leave. Happy Disney music plays as she explains to him that death is not as painful as living, but he must live.
So, crazy mother, big-headed lost kid... yeah, I guess I can see the similarities, too.
Of course, the kid just purses his lips and kind of smiles as he gets all jostled around. His mom then screams for the man and shoves the kid at him, and he is picked up like a sack of so many rotten potatoes and unceremoniously carried off.
Then the woman unsheathes her blade and plunges it into her throat, you know, like you do. A flower metaphorically falls to the ground, and enough blood to fill a bathtub shoots from her body. She must have hit the blood storage center of her neck, or something. Her flute falls into the pool (I guess she also was holding that under the blade she was holding with both hands somehow) and, I shit you not, splashes into the lake of her blood.
Little potato sack kid just runs on back, somehow having wrestled from the old man's grip, and gets a face full of this:
Naturally, he's devastated.
Her bloodsoaked hand reaches for her child, and she tries to speak, while the old man cries in pity. They splash some water on the kid's face, but he's still making the same expression, but the intricacies of his tears is just too much for me to process. He then awkwardly runs in and lands almost face-first in the blood, but the old man carries him off again.
Shogen and his men rush in, explaining that all must be killed, women and children included, along with her son who is still somewhere out there.
Running through the woods, the old man and little boy meet up with the surviving members of their clan, many girls and children in the bunch. I'm sure they'll be fine. Takamaru stares them all down with his patented glare, and some little girl is crying and holding her face with all the emotion of a four-speed blender. Takamaru steps up to her and nobly asks the girl (Otsu), not to cry anymore.
Then like five of them all get stabbed through the neck and head. All of the old ladies get cut down, and one even drops the crash dummy head she had been carrying.
I'm sorry, I mean she was beheaded. Tragic.
The old man, yes, the same one who couldn't wrangle a fat kid away from watching his mother die, runs slowly carrying the child and fighting off ninja with the katana he's carrying in his other hand. He is magical.
The little girl falls down and a ninja appears to kill her, but Takamaru, who has once again gotten free and is just standing there, throws a flute at him, which I believe kills him. Otsu picks up the flute and smiles as if she's just been gifted with an ugly sweater. Meanwhile, Takamaru is back in the arms of the old man as if he's never left, and I don't know what you mean when you say "poor editing", this is the best fight scene ever!
The old man leaps down a cliff and runs off. Also, the music sounds like the opening of Shaft. In case you were wondering. The old man, trailed by a few ninja, makes it to an actual cliff along the beach. This whole scene looks like it was filmed during the day and then gone over with a darker lens, but I'm no filmmaker.
Meanwhile, Takamaru has been petrified by his fear, quite literally. It's as if he were made of some sort of synthetic material!
Truly, many awards should be handed out to this film.
The old man, clearly well-versed in the art of fighting, tosses his sword gently at the ground several feet in front of the attacking ninja, and jumps off of the side of the cliff into the sea. It's like a five story drop or something, and the shore is right beside where they land, but I'm sure they're okay.
HOLY SHIT, IT'S MITSUHIDE AKECHI!
After that masterpiece of film work, we're back into history mode. Mitsuhide was one of Nobunaga's vassals, but he disapproved of the cruelty Nobunaga inflicted on the innocent and the weak, so he staged a coup at a temple and killed Nobunaga. He then went on to greater things, like dying a week later. I'm serious.
Hideyoshi used Nobunaga's death as an excuse to maneuver his way into battle with Mitsuhide, defeating him quickly and then actually killing him on his way home to his castle. This is all true.
According to the movie, Shogen and his two half-witted friends jump out of... mysteriously deep puddles that happen to be directly on either side of Mitsuhide's horse, and stab him through the neck, which I was unaware was the popular method of killing back then.
The end.
Really, no more of that. It's time for the opening credits.
Yeah, that was the greatest twelve minutes of my life, too. But it gets better!
The happiest and most beautiful 80's inspirational pop ballad begins, showing the ocean as the cast list rolls. On the ocean is the most pathetic-looking boat ever, being rowed by a shirtless man. Don't get too excited, ladies, it's just young Hiroyuki Sanada, doing his best impression of Atreyu from The Neverending Story.
Fun activities on this boat include looking at the SHARKS WHO SWIM RIGHT UP TO YOUR FUCKING STARBOARD SIDE
spearing a fish in the least convincing way possible, cutting its head off while it's obviously still alive (thanks, 80's animal rights activists!), and then just eating it raw, as happy as can be.
On this boat, shirtless man has a sword with a wolf on it.
What! omg no wei! It's damn TAKAMARU. Colour me surprised.
He keeps on rowing as if the oar is a part of his own anatomy, but then pauses in Concern as he spots a distant, blurry piece of land. He then shouts my ultimate favourite line of the movie.
「日本だ！！！」
It's Japan u guyz!
He is understandably enthusiastic.
I imagine this is the face of all Japanfans, were they able to procure a shoddy boat and row into the country on a whim. Then again, if I were overseas and forced to make my way home with nothing but a shoddy boat, an ugly sword, and some fish and sharks for company, I'd probably be pretty damn happy, too.
There's a shot of some pretty default Japanese buildings, and Hiroyuki Sanada, excuse me, Takamaru, walks in wearing a Chinese coat, looking around in subdued elation. So I guess that old man managed to hold onto the kid and swim all the way to China. HE IS A GOD.
The music fades away.
A sign from the Law Offices of Kyoto and Son (holy hell, did he walk from the ocean to Kyoto?) proclaims that any information leading to the capture of the thief Ishikawa Goemon will be met with a prize of gold. Peasants standing around reading the notice dramatically overact in anger to such a reward, seeing as Goemon was known for being a Robin Hood type. Old ladies complain about the sign, as old ladies do.
Two men wearing monkey masks begin advertising the tricks of their own actual trained monkey, named after Hideyoshi. (Hideyoshi was famous for looking ugly like a monkey and responded to that name better than his own.) The old ladies move on to complain that they monkey isn't doing any tricks, so one of the men does a backflip and acts like a monkey instead. vegeta_eyes (who is vacationing in fabulous Key West with all of his gay friends) reminds me that, as the man flips, the monkey gets afraid and honestly attacks a small child. Nobody edited that out. What the hell.
Takamaru is walking through the market and is stopped by a man advertising a kabuki dance. He is quite literally thrown inside by him to watch. The dance consists of several pretty young ladies re-enacting the greatest kabuki ever.
A few rowdy officers in front shout things like "Take it off!" and "Shake your ass!", while Sanada looks detached and slightly embarrassed. The officers rush the stage and try to rip the dancers' clothing off.
Sanada dutifully swaggers over and breaks one of the men's arms. They draw their swords and he proceeds to give them a demonstration of martial arts and kicks their asses. So... Hiroyuki Sanada was a pop star and kung fu master, I was not aware of that.
They go outside and the shinsengumi surround Takamaru. Some really hot light jazz music begins, and it is the wackiest-sounding thing you can imagine. The officers wait for him to show off a few styles with swords drawn, before he pretty much just bests them all. The monkey guys run up and watch, entertained. The officers all fall in a heap, and the kabuki girls beat at them. Everyone shares a good laugh at this, and Takamaru struts away. The monkey guys and kabuki promoter see the sword he has with him, saying that it is the treasure of the Momochi family, just in case you didn't know. More officers arrive, led by Shogen, who immediately recognises Takamaru. Takamaru stares blankly, so maybe that's why.
They begin chasing him over rooftops, and a man in a big hat appears in the crowd, looking up at the commotion.
IT'S HATTORI HANZO!!!!!
Oh man, this just keeps getting better and better. What is he planning? Is he about to put a scythe through someone's back and disappear into the wind? He must have, because a quick cut leads us to Takamaru sitting on some steps, as the two monkey guys and the kabuki promoter surround him and stare at him thoroughly. SUDDENLY, and I do mean suddenly, it dawns on him, and he calls them all by name. They have an extended scene of yelling and dancing for joy.
Later, Takamaru explains how they "fell" into the sea, and a ship from China rescued them. Sadly, the old man died several years ago. I like to think it was brought on by his being two hundred years old and falling into the sea again. They are all very sad. Takamaru asks after Otsu, and they all laugh about how she's a big annoying crier, and that they don't know if she's alive or dead. They go on to explain that, because they despise the Toyotomi so much, they all have been working under the pseudonym of Ishikawa Goemon, stealing and causing mischief. For plot points, they explain each of their special skills: One makes the plans, one can open any lock, and the other can move quicker than a monkey. Things do not bode well for them. They show Takamaru their loot, and another man enters, staring down Takamaru with a pronounced glare. He then makes fun of Takamaru's shirt. I'm sure he won't end up betraying them or anything. Ishibe challenges Takamaru to a fight, and they go outside.
Outside the temple, the two brawl while some catchy and bad music plays. They throw each other around with very slow, pronounced moves that are reduced to looking like simple training gestures. He rips Takamaru's foreign shirt off, gets angry, and loses. He decides that Takamaru is great and they become happy happy best friends.
A lot of men in painfully obvious synthetic camo gear scale down from the trees. They are introduced as the Spider Clan. They vow to restore the Momochi clan to glory and overthrow Hideyoshi, taking the life of Shogen in the process.
Meanwhile, at Fushimi Castle...
Hideyoshi scolds Shogen for not arresting Goemon yet, but tells him that since his brother is in charge of the police, Shogen should stay by his side and protect him. They speak of other armies and their movements, and Hideyoshi expresses a need for more money. He then reminisces of his victory over the Iga. He says they are still around and they mustn't let their guard down because of the secret treasure he wants to get a hold of. The exposition is so subtle, it's astounding.
A big-headed little kid runs in, chasing a ball. He is revealed to be Hideyoshi's youngest son, whom, if you are instantly aware of your nuances of history, dies before he is even five years old. I thought he was played by the same kid who was little Takamaru, as evidenced by his enormously wigged head, but he smiles and seems to generally have emotions, so it can't be. Hideyoshi picks him up and hugs him and kisses him, oozing over the child and making a fool of himself, before a shrill woman shouts at him, and the pair freezes in sheer horror.
A woman and about ten of her handmaidens file in. The shrew fusses at them and calls their affection unsanitary. She seems like quite a catch.
Concubines, gotta get me some of those.
She ushers the child away and all of her women file out, as a browbeaten Hideyoshi stands looking after. Shogen laughs at Hideyoshi's utter incompetence regarding his family, and Hideyoshi asserts that he is the ruler of the world. His hubris is strangling me.
Meanwhile, Takamaru and Spider Clan Leader Yatoji meet in a graveyard. Takamaru apologizes for returning without the old man, and gives Yatoji a lock of the deceased's hair. Yatoji laments that the Momochi are disgraced and must bury him in a deserted grave, since they have no site of their own. Takamaru once more swears revenge for his parents, and how difficult it was being in China while thinking of them every day. Even though he went to a sex show upon returning, that was okay.
He recounts that he and the old man wandered from town to town, and when the old man died, he stole food to stay alive and was caught. A flashback shows us a fourteen year old Takamaru, looking painfully the same, except ruddier.
He is rescued by a girl with Chun-Li hair in a disturbingly pink silk ensemble that looks more like a nightgown and less like the film's take on what Chinese people wear. Someone just off camera tosses a chicken into the shot, because China is cool and chickens roam all about during fight scenes.
The girl was the only child of a Shaolin Dojo master. Her name is Airen, and she is the ugliest girl that I have ever seen.
She then proceeds to "comically" (and I use this term loosely) battle them while tacky softcore porn-like music plays, and just kicks a guy right in the balls. Then, during the battle, she kicks over Takamaru. She also rips her pants open, revealing her white granny panties directly in Takamaru's face. About eight times, she makes the same "Oopsie, did I do that?" face. It was annoying the first time, and goes downhill from there.
Oh, Chun-Li. You so wacky with your antics!
Meanwhile, at Suzukayama...
Perhaps after looking at Yodo and Airen, an oddly attractive girl sits in a small hut. Her brother enters and she rushes to him, and he gives her a present: a gaudy outfit. She flirtatiously models it for him.
Keiyuu looks good.
Her brother tells her she is becoming more like a lady, so she tells him she will cook something for him. I like her logic. Her brother tells her that he saw Takamaru, but she says not to bother, since she is no longer a part of that clan. She gives an extended, longing look at the camera at hearing his name, however. It's Otsu!!!!! It was hard to tell, because she wasn't crying. She says she's now a member of her brother's clan. HER BROTHER IS HANZO HATTORI.
Hanzo tells Otsu that, since she feels nothing for her former clan, she must go steal Takamaru's sword, because it contains the secret of the Momochi Clan's treasure. I'm thinking that if that was Hanzo's plan, he maybe should have selected a better outfit for her. She stares wistfully at the flute she has on display.
Meanwhile, just to drive the plot home, Yatoji tells Takamaru that they will never need for money because HIS SWORD CONTAINS THE SECRET OF THE MOMOCHI CLAN'S TREASURE AND HE MUST ALWAYS KEEP IT WITH HIM. Did you catch that? Sword contains secret of treasure. Did I mention that? Okay.
Takamaru looks confused, and a horrible ominous noise underlines it as he opens the sword. He mumbles thoughtfully to himself that there is only half of it there, and wonders where the other half could be.
On a completely unrelated note, he hears the sharp sounds of a flute, and Otsu just appears to be sitting in the middle of his yard, in the middle of some soundstage.
He watches her like a creepy stalker behind the bamboo for a few minutes, then calls out to her, saying that the sounds of his mother's flute led him to her. No shit, Takamaru? That's not awkward at all. He calls her a big cry baby, and she says that she hadn't cried since then, despite the fact that she is quite literally crying right now, and has been each time she appeared on screen.
Takamaru muses that he now has his mother's flute and his father's sword, each holding their regrets in them. Otsu remains crying at a distance. He tells her that their other friends are also alive and he will take her to see them, despite the fact that he just returned to the country and she had absolutely no trouble in locating him. She repeatedly says she does not want to go see them, and this isn't at all fucking rude and creepy to Takamaru, who asks her where she lives now. She says "someone" saved her and took her to Osaka (Insert joke here). She bows and runs off. Takamaru hands her the flute back, and she stares at it as if she has no idea what it is, before taking it, bowing again, and running off again. I am ashamed of Hanzo Hattori for allowing that to happen.
Meanwhile, one of Takamaru's friends is sharpening a sword. The most beautiful woman in the film (more beautiful than all others we've so far seen combined, and even if you took the inverse of their ugliness and declared it beauty, still more beautiful than that) steps in and tells him to sharpen her knife, for she wishes to kill someone for revenge. I'm sure she's a fine, nice, normal and sane woman.
Gosuke asks her what is the matter, and she stands ominously behind the curtains. She stares all wide-eyed and produces a bag filled with gold. She drops it to the ground with a horrible crash. She then, very calmly, explains to Gosuke that she has reported to the police that Takamaru and Goemon are his friends and she collected the reward. He asks her why she would do such a thing, and she rushes to him, soothingly petting him and telling him that he is safe, and she did not turn him in. I feel for Gosuke. I really do.
He screams at her and she begins screeching for him to kill her, begging for it in fact, and tells him that she is just a crazy bitch in love. Her words, not mine. Perhaps to help his friends, or get the fuck away, Gosuke drops his sword and runs for the door. She wrestles him to the ground, telling him not to leave her, because, you know, why would you leave a nice, sane, rational woman like that? He demands she let him go so he can go help the others, but she tells him that if he does, he will leave his child without a father. He pauses and, like all snake women, she gets all tender and makes him touch her stomach to feel their unborn baby. She sobs and hugs him, making noises rarely heard outside of a cat slaughter.
Godspeed, Gosuke. We're all right there with you, any one of us would have done the same. You never see it coming.
Meanwhile, Takamaru is pirouetting around and doing some frankly gay looking stretches outside, where the Spider Clan is resting. Yatoji sits lost in thought, while a big plastic spider drops down among them. Symbolism? Probably not. Atop a sacred tree, a Spider Clan member has been slain. Shogen's men surround him in other trees. Some rocking tribal drumbeats begin. They burst into the Spider Clan's hideout, but all seem to be gone. Shogen notices a false wall and stabs at it, and blood seeps out. It is revealed that they had somehow procured a chicken two feet off the ground against a wall, but hey, ninpou, right?
All of the characters we know by name scramble out, falling and knocking over water and struggling between the officers' legs, before tossing some very sparkly smoke bombs at them. As they head out, all of the men in the trees shoot arrows at the ground several yards ahead of them. For a warning, I guess. Ninja fucking suck at archery. All the men surround the Spiders, but more of their clan appear in the trees, killing Shogen's men, and a battle ensues. Also included are the worst sound effects ever. I can't even describe half of them, but apparently, climbing up a tree sounds like a broken washing machine. And falling out of a tree sounds like the most dramatic "game over" music you have ever heard. And then you land on an enormous pile of soft, bouncy leaves that move like a trampoline. And then you spit about a litre of cherry Kool-Aid out of your mouth. I wish I was a ninja.
Anyway, I guess Shogen's men remember how to shoot a bow and arrow, and kill all of the men of the Spider Clan who don't matter. They grip the trees and since ninja have no gravity, drift to the ground in slow motion, leaving fingernail marks along the trunks.
Meanwhile, Takamaru has begun doing the loudest moves ever, tumbling around and with each movement of his body, sounding like his skin is being ripped off and beaten with a mallet. He then tumbles into confusion as he is surrounded by Shogen and his handi-capable ninja twins. Shogen laughs ominously and tells Takamaru to give him his knife. A Spider leaps out of the tree and lands on Shogen's weapon like some camo umbrella. The cool porno funk starts again and Shogen kills everybody while the ninja twins girlishly hit at Takamaru, who does some of his special ballerina princess moves for them.
Otsu rushes in out of nowhere, still wearing her same gaudy and really-obvious-to-see-in-a-forest bright kimono, and discreetly hides behind a tree half her size. She watches for a while, until Shogen gets Takamaru to the ground and prepares to stab him through the neck (yes!), and she cries out his name. If I were Shogen, I would have flinched and gutted the guy, but no such luck. He calls her name and throws her the sword, and she awkwardly and uncoordinatedly runs off with it. It's okay for Shogen, though, because now he knows her name, and maybe Takamaru will cry out her place of residence as well.
The ninja twins easily catch up to her, but then Hanzo swings in and carries her off on a rope that seems to be connected to the entire sky, since they swing through clearings and miles of forest without having to get a new one.
Meanwhile, Shogen has Takamaru all strung up and his shirt is off again so that he can be whipped with canes. He bleeds and bruises a brilliant Maybelline shade of purple. Shogen yells at him to reveal the secret of his tanto, and the remaining men (as in, everybody whose name we know who was his friend in childhood) blame Gosuke for not coming back and obviously selling them out. Shogen's men beat them as they sit there also.
Ninja 4 Dummies show up and don't check in and say they lost the sword or anything, but that's okay, because Shogen sees that they are preparing to hurt the hell out of Takamaru. So... let's torture the guy who knows only who he handed the sword to, instead of the two who failed to get it and have a better idea of where the sword is. Good plan.
They hurt his nipples in the worst possible way, and Shogen looks on in awe, though he supposedly trained them himself.
Then Shogen grabs Takamaru's manhood and turns it like a water faucet, and he passes out.
Meanwhile, Hanzo looks at the sword Otsu has brought back. Brilliant plan, Hanzo, have her run around a forest and hope she happens upon Takamaru in a fight, and hope he happens to throw the sword to her and not want it back. Genius!
He once again reiterates that the sword only contains half of the secret, and wonders where the other half could be, before telling Otsu to stop playing the flute since it represents her childhood crush on Takamaru. The Hanzo in this movie is an idiot, because even I know that if you tell a girl to stop liking something, she'll turn against you and do it harder just to prove an unknown point. She looks sadly around the dilapidated hut, and Hanzo tells her to remember that romance is a martial art. No shit, Hanzo? Give her a nicer kimono and a house with a door and stop turning her against you. Where the fuck is Ieyasu?
She mumbles sadly, clutches the sword, and runs away with it. Hattori just stands there, as if he is expecting all of it. Perhaps it is part of his master plan to sabotage himself somehow.
By now, Takamaru has been hung by his feet in the most stereotypical prison cell ever. There's like iron maidens and a solar panel in there or some shit. There is absolutely nobody around him but the blood hasn't rushed to his head yet, so I have no idea how long he's been down there. But I guess he knows that the camera is on him, because he decides to try to escape right then. There is a candle on a distant wall. Now, to you and me, this would be, "Fucking candle over there. Maybe I'll try to blow it out so that guy can't see me when he comes back in to beat the shit out of me." But not to Takamaru, no.
He swings back and forth, making noises like a slinky being thrown through the air. He manages to somehow catch the flickering candle in his mouth, which does not burn him like I expect it probably should, and he swings back, the candle not going out or anything. He then proceeds to lean over his own body and burn through the rope tying his feet to the ceiling, which burns with a sound like popcorn popping, for some reason.
Some other guy just strides right in and notices the heap of burned rope on the ground. He looks all around, but the open prison is (surprise!) empty. Takamaru leaps the fuck out from the only possible hiding space that the man did not think to check, and brains him. He then rushes over (arms still tied... I guess he was pressed for time, but what happened to that candle? Wouldn't it have been easier to reach your hands and untie them and then use them to burn the rope from your feet? I don't know.) and breaks the guy's neck with the elbow of his bound arm. That guy fucking sucks.
He then creeps up the stairs where three men who weigh as much as a can of soda stand guard. Hands still tied together, he tosses them all down the stairs, and they don't come after him because that would be too much work. He then steals something from one of them and runs off through the palace halls. He pauses, as what appears to be two women with weapons walk by, and he instead opts to rush into a mysterious room. Really, why didn't he just go down the hall after they walked by?
But no, he made a good choice, because this is what greets him in that room:
Yeah, like twelve handmaidens, that dead kid, the shrew and fucking Hideyoshi Toyotomi. I honestly can't think of a worse room to have walked into.
Hideyoshi looks at the shirtless, bleeding, tied up prisoner and casually asks him who he is. Takamaru tells Hideyoshi his name, his father's name, his clan's name, his place of birth, and his favourite colour. Hideyoshi, understandably, goes "Wha...?"
Without order or warning, the handmaidens then begin tumbling at him.
They spin all around and kick him through a wall. Yeah, that's always how it is, you take on the fucking Shinsengumi and their torturous ninja, but get undone by some lower-class women in coordinating dresses.
They then all rush out after him with naginata, which I didn't see any of in that room, but hey, maybe they're kept someplace secretive. He flips around them and holds his bound wrists out, and one brilliant woman hits at him with her blade, slicing the ropes off. Yes, this will surely make him easier to kill!
He flips over a wall and slides down the hallway as if it were greased with Crisco, slapping the legs out from underneath the ladies as he goes by. They all chase after him, and he runs up more stairs, because obviously the exit of the palace is on the top floor, and he puts his neatly folded shirt back on. Reaching the railing outside, he scales along the roof, and several competent men emerge after him, having transformed from the women, or just leaving their uselessness in their wake. Takamaru looks at the water about a mile below him, and does an Olympic dive off the roof.
His dive lasts for a full minute with the sounds of a whirlwind, before he hits the water, landing directly on his back in a tremendously painful-sounding flop.
Walking over a bridge in busy Kyoto is the ugliest girl I've ever seen. She is wearing a horrible turqoise top that looks less like Chinese garments, and more like the film's take on what a qipao-inspired foreign style top might be. Oh, damn it. It's Airen.
Alright, that wraps up part one. I'm sorry it was so long, but I hope you read it, because I had a lot of fun "watching" my favourite movie with all of you. Please stay tuned for part two very soon!
It's my first-ever movie review! Naturally, I'll put it in two parts so as to not bombard everyone with an entire novel to read in one entry. Also: If you have any really horrible or really great movies you'd like me to do a review of, please feel free to contact me in whatever manner possible, and ask! I prefer Japanese films and presumptuous American films, but if it's low-budget and trite, anything will do.
For my very first review, however, I am choosing to do one of my all-time favourite movies. It is called "Ninja Bugeicho Momochi Sandayu", retitled as Shogun's Ninja. It is a favourite of mine for a number of reasons:
- The actors
- The horrible plot
- The horrible budget
- The beyond horrible music
- Ninpou!
So, let's get on with it, shall we?
Movie Review - 忍者武芸帳 百地三太夫 - Shogun's Ninja
The first thing that you need to know about this movie is that it was made in 1980. That should give you a good idea of just how awesome this movie is about to be.
The second thing that you should know would be the stars of this film. The most famous name, or shall I say, the man whose DVD box sets you will find this movie in, is Sonny Chiba. He's a really great actor. You've seen him in a movie, trust me. That guy is in everything. The "real" star of this movie, and, as vegeta_eyes would say, the person portraying my life in the 16th century, is Sanada Hiroyuki. That's right, Sanada Hiroyuki! No, he's not some awesome samurai as I imagined he would be, but at this point in his career, he might as well be. I'm sure most of the people reading my journal would know him better than Sonny. If you have seen Ringu, Onmyoji, or perhaps The Last Samurai and Speed Racer, then you know Sanada.
Yeah, that guy. He's an awesome and terrifying actor. But you might as well forget all about that now, because in this movie, he isn't anything like that. No, get used to this:
Yeah, this movie is that good. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The best thing about this movie is the music. I know very little about it, but know that I would trade my little sister for a copy of the soundtrack. It also is that good. It seems to have been composed by the troll of the Japanese composing scene at the time. The whole movie is a series of bizarre sound effects and some sort of jazz-pop backing. It's like this guy was watching the film and went, "Hey, this part of the movie is sad. They're killing off a major character in a very noble and touching way. Hmm... I seem to have this disco-beat left over from another movie that never got made. What if I layered it with some blues-funk? That would be killer." And then he did, and it was. No, seriously, that's not meant to be funny. That is what happens. So keep in mind that, even if I am not describing the music happening at any given time in the movie, it is definitely going to be some sort of wholly inappropriate dance-pop with some urban sound thrown in and then mangled all up for good measure. If you ever get a chance to see this movie, you really should, because the culmination of every part of it makes it so adorably awful/awesome. I'll try my best not to leave anything out, and briefly explain about historical or cultural knowledge that may be less familliar to those who don't live off of these movies like I do. Got it? Okay, let's begin movie time!
Right off the bat, the title screen is overlaid with this horror-movie-esque riff, quickly bleeding into some sort of opening song that tells me that football is coming on. It doesn't.
All the music stops, and we are suddenly jolted into a room with two very important-looking people. The man seated elevated seems to be some sort of daimyo. The guy closest to us is giving some sort of a report. He's name-dropping, a lot, things that get my inner dork all fired up. Iga ninja! Really? Behind him, two men are bowing, and the vassal explains that he has trained these two ninja; one cannot speak, the other cannot hear.
Awesome, right?
The elevated man speaks, naming the other as Kouga ninja Shogen Shiranui. And he himself is Toyotomi Hideyoshi! (At this point being Hashiba. Learn all about him here.) Long story short, Hideyoshi is the man, and a very important one at that.
As you can tell.
It goes on to describe a very popular story that you will hear often in ninja-type media. Kouga and Iga are two very well-known schools of ninpou, Hanzo Hattori being most notably from Iga. If you know of Basilisk, this is it. Basically, Oda Nobunaga (my favourite of warlords, the man who pretty much set the framework of unifying the country), attacked the Iga ninja, but lost. Being a very vengeful and prideful sort of guy, he then ordered a huge attack, outnumbering the Iga and pretty much slaughtering them without mercy, before pulling back and allowing a few to escape, probably to let them tell everybody else what they saw. That's what I'd do. Then he took their fortresses.
The film shows part of the battle, including the man being spoken of earlier, Momochi Sandayu. Shiranui assures him that they will be stronger with the help of the Kouga, and they and his two impaired bodyguards go inside to discuss their plans and generally laugh at Hideyoshi and his monkey-like stupidity. Shogen then proceeds to kill all of Sandayu's men. They then have an awesome slow-mo battle, accompanied by some easy listening Enya-type music, and Sandayu is murdered. His men rush in to help him, but are all taken down by Shogen's men, and Shogen smiles a devious smile. With his dying breath, Sandayu reaches for his sword and calls for Takamaru. Shogen's men search him and inform Shogen that one of Sandayu's swords is missing, a very important one. Shogen gets angry. He demands that they find it.
And now the movie stops being a historical ninja action film and becomes a few hours of awesome, awesome, nonsensical comedy gold.
A woman in a pure white robe is playing a flute for a small boy. Because dressing in pure white robes is a healthy thing to do, and doesn't symbolise death in any way, no. She begins crying.
Men rush in and inform her that their clan was betrayed by the Kouga and Shogen, and that the fortress has fallen and the lord is dead. The little boy is just sitting right there and doesn't seem all that concerned, but I'm sure that his acting abilities simply escape my uneducated perceptions.
Since she was already crying, she has nothing else to do but cry some more. She then hands her son a sword, explaining that the wolf on it is a symbol of their clan. She tells him to keep it, while he purses his lips and makes the same retarded face for about thirty seconds.
Then she proceeds to tell an old man to take the boy, and tells the boy to go with him. The boy says he doesn't want to, so she begins shaking him and telling him to leave. Happy Disney music plays as she explains to him that death is not as painful as living, but he must live.
So, crazy mother, big-headed lost kid... yeah, I guess I can see the similarities, too.
Of course, the kid just purses his lips and kind of smiles as he gets all jostled around. His mom then screams for the man and shoves the kid at him, and he is picked up like a sack of so many rotten potatoes and unceremoniously carried off.
Then the woman unsheathes her blade and plunges it into her throat, you know, like you do. A flower metaphorically falls to the ground, and enough blood to fill a bathtub shoots from her body. She must have hit the blood storage center of her neck, or something. Her flute falls into the pool (I guess she also was holding that under the blade she was holding with both hands somehow) and, I shit you not, splashes into the lake of her blood.
Little potato sack kid just runs on back, somehow having wrestled from the old man's grip, and gets a face full of this:
Naturally, he's devastated.
Her bloodsoaked hand reaches for her child, and she tries to speak, while the old man cries in pity. They splash some water on the kid's face, but he's still making the same expression, but the intricacies of his tears is just too much for me to process. He then awkwardly runs in and lands almost face-first in the blood, but the old man carries him off again.
Shogen and his men rush in, explaining that all must be killed, women and children included, along with her son who is still somewhere out there.
Running through the woods, the old man and little boy meet up with the surviving members of their clan, many girls and children in the bunch. I'm sure they'll be fine. Takamaru stares them all down with his patented glare, and some little girl is crying and holding her face with all the emotion of a four-speed blender. Takamaru steps up to her and nobly asks the girl (Otsu), not to cry anymore.
Then like five of them all get stabbed through the neck and head. All of the old ladies get cut down, and one even drops the crash dummy head she had been carrying.
I'm sorry, I mean she was beheaded. Tragic.
The old man, yes, the same one who couldn't wrangle a fat kid away from watching his mother die, runs slowly carrying the child and fighting off ninja with the katana he's carrying in his other hand. He is magical.
The little girl falls down and a ninja appears to kill her, but Takamaru, who has once again gotten free and is just standing there, throws a flute at him, which I believe kills him. Otsu picks up the flute and smiles as if she's just been gifted with an ugly sweater. Meanwhile, Takamaru is back in the arms of the old man as if he's never left, and I don't know what you mean when you say "poor editing", this is the best fight scene ever!
The old man leaps down a cliff and runs off. Also, the music sounds like the opening of Shaft. In case you were wondering. The old man, trailed by a few ninja, makes it to an actual cliff along the beach. This whole scene looks like it was filmed during the day and then gone over with a darker lens, but I'm no filmmaker.
Meanwhile, Takamaru has been petrified by his fear, quite literally. It's as if he were made of some sort of synthetic material!
Truly, many awards should be handed out to this film.
The old man, clearly well-versed in the art of fighting, tosses his sword gently at the ground several feet in front of the attacking ninja, and jumps off of the side of the cliff into the sea. It's like a five story drop or something, and the shore is right beside where they land, but I'm sure they're okay.
HOLY SHIT, IT'S MITSUHIDE AKECHI!
After that masterpiece of film work, we're back into history mode. Mitsuhide was one of Nobunaga's vassals, but he disapproved of the cruelty Nobunaga inflicted on the innocent and the weak, so he staged a coup at a temple and killed Nobunaga. He then went on to greater things, like dying a week later. I'm serious.
Hideyoshi used Nobunaga's death as an excuse to maneuver his way into battle with Mitsuhide, defeating him quickly and then actually killing him on his way home to his castle. This is all true.
According to the movie, Shogen and his two half-witted friends jump out of... mysteriously deep puddles that happen to be directly on either side of Mitsuhide's horse, and stab him through the neck, which I was unaware was the popular method of killing back then.
The end.
Really, no more of that. It's time for the opening credits.
Yeah, that was the greatest twelve minutes of my life, too. But it gets better!
The happiest and most beautiful 80's inspirational pop ballad begins, showing the ocean as the cast list rolls. On the ocean is the most pathetic-looking boat ever, being rowed by a shirtless man. Don't get too excited, ladies, it's just young Hiroyuki Sanada, doing his best impression of Atreyu from The Neverending Story.
Fun activities on this boat include looking at the SHARKS WHO SWIM RIGHT UP TO YOUR FUCKING STARBOARD SIDE
spearing a fish in the least convincing way possible, cutting its head off while it's obviously still alive (thanks, 80's animal rights activists!), and then just eating it raw, as happy as can be.
On this boat, shirtless man has a sword with a wolf on it.
What! omg no wei! It's damn TAKAMARU. Colour me surprised.
He keeps on rowing as if the oar is a part of his own anatomy, but then pauses in Concern as he spots a distant, blurry piece of land. He then shouts my ultimate favourite line of the movie.
「日本だ！！！」
It's Japan u guyz!
He is understandably enthusiastic.
I imagine this is the face of all Japanfans, were they able to procure a shoddy boat and row into the country on a whim. Then again, if I were overseas and forced to make my way home with nothing but a shoddy boat, an ugly sword, and some fish and sharks for company, I'd probably be pretty damn happy, too.
There's a shot of some pretty default Japanese buildings, and Hiroyuki Sanada, excuse me, Takamaru, walks in wearing a Chinese coat, looking around in subdued elation. So I guess that old man managed to hold onto the kid and swim all the way to China. HE IS A GOD.
The music fades away.
A sign from the Law Offices of Kyoto and Son (holy hell, did he walk from the ocean to Kyoto?) proclaims that any information leading to the capture of the thief Ishikawa Goemon will be met with a prize of gold. Peasants standing around reading the notice dramatically overact in anger to such a reward, seeing as Goemon was known for being a Robin Hood type. Old ladies complain about the sign, as old ladies do.
Two men wearing monkey masks begin advertising the tricks of their own actual trained monkey, named after Hideyoshi. (Hideyoshi was famous for looking ugly like a monkey and responded to that name better than his own.) The old ladies move on to complain that they monkey isn't doing any tricks, so one of the men does a backflip and acts like a monkey instead. vegeta_eyes (who is vacationing in fabulous Key West with all of his gay friends) reminds me that, as the man flips, the monkey gets afraid and honestly attacks a small child. Nobody edited that out. What the hell.
Takamaru is walking through the market and is stopped by a man advertising a kabuki dance. He is quite literally thrown inside by him to watch. The dance consists of several pretty young ladies re-enacting the greatest kabuki ever.
A few rowdy officers in front shout things like "Take it off!" and "Shake your ass!", while Sanada looks detached and slightly embarrassed. The officers rush the stage and try to rip the dancers' clothing off.
Sanada dutifully swaggers over and breaks one of the men's arms. They draw their swords and he proceeds to give them a demonstration of martial arts and kicks their asses. So... Hiroyuki Sanada was a pop star and kung fu master, I was not aware of that.
They go outside and the shinsengumi surround Takamaru. Some really hot light jazz music begins, and it is the wackiest-sounding thing you can imagine. The officers wait for him to show off a few styles with swords drawn, before he pretty much just bests them all. The monkey guys run up and watch, entertained. The officers all fall in a heap, and the kabuki girls beat at them. Everyone shares a good laugh at this, and Takamaru struts away. The monkey guys and kabuki promoter see the sword he has with him, saying that it is the treasure of the Momochi family, just in case you didn't know. More officers arrive, led by Shogen, who immediately recognises Takamaru. Takamaru stares blankly, so maybe that's why.
They begin chasing him over rooftops, and a man in a big hat appears in the crowd, looking up at the commotion.
IT'S HATTORI HANZO!!!!!
Oh man, this just keeps getting better and better. What is he planning? Is he about to put a scythe through someone's back and disappear into the wind? He must have, because a quick cut leads us to Takamaru sitting on some steps, as the two monkey guys and the kabuki promoter surround him and stare at him thoroughly. SUDDENLY, and I do mean suddenly, it dawns on him, and he calls them all by name. They have an extended scene of yelling and dancing for joy.
Later, Takamaru explains how they "fell" into the sea, and a ship from China rescued them. Sadly, the old man died several years ago. I like to think it was brought on by his being two hundred years old and falling into the sea again. They are all very sad. Takamaru asks after Otsu, and they all laugh about how she's a big annoying crier, and that they don't know if she's alive or dead. They go on to explain that, because they despise the Toyotomi so much, they all have been working under the pseudonym of Ishikawa Goemon, stealing and causing mischief. For plot points, they explain each of their special skills: One makes the plans, one can open any lock, and the other can move quicker than a monkey. Things do not bode well for them. They show Takamaru their loot, and another man enters, staring down Takamaru with a pronounced glare. He then makes fun of Takamaru's shirt. I'm sure he won't end up betraying them or anything. Ishibe challenges Takamaru to a fight, and they go outside.
Outside the temple, the two brawl while some catchy and bad music plays. They throw each other around with very slow, pronounced moves that are reduced to looking like simple training gestures. He rips Takamaru's foreign shirt off, gets angry, and loses. He decides that Takamaru is great and they become happy happy best friends.
A lot of men in painfully obvious synthetic camo gear scale down from the trees. They are introduced as the Spider Clan. They vow to restore the Momochi clan to glory and overthrow Hideyoshi, taking the life of Shogen in the process.
Meanwhile, at Fushimi Castle...
Hideyoshi scolds Shogen for not arresting Goemon yet, but tells him that since his brother is in charge of the police, Shogen should stay by his side and protect him. They speak of other armies and their movements, and Hideyoshi expresses a need for more money. He then reminisces of his victory over the Iga. He says they are still around and they mustn't let their guard down because of the secret treasure he wants to get a hold of. The exposition is so subtle, it's astounding.
A big-headed little kid runs in, chasing a ball. He is revealed to be Hideyoshi's youngest son, whom, if you are instantly aware of your nuances of history, dies before he is even five years old. I thought he was played by the same kid who was little Takamaru, as evidenced by his enormously wigged head, but he smiles and seems to generally have emotions, so it can't be. Hideyoshi picks him up and hugs him and kisses him, oozing over the child and making a fool of himself, before a shrill woman shouts at him, and the pair freezes in sheer horror.
A woman and about ten of her handmaidens file in. The shrew fusses at them and calls their affection unsanitary. She seems like quite a catch.
Concubines, gotta get me some of those.
She ushers the child away and all of her women file out, as a browbeaten Hideyoshi stands looking after. Shogen laughs at Hideyoshi's utter incompetence regarding his family, and Hideyoshi asserts that he is the ruler of the world. His hubris is strangling me.
Meanwhile, Takamaru and Spider Clan Leader Yatoji meet in a graveyard. Takamaru apologizes for returning without the old man, and gives Yatoji a lock of the deceased's hair. Yatoji laments that the Momochi are disgraced and must bury him in a deserted grave, since they have no site of their own. Takamaru once more swears revenge for his parents, and how difficult it was being in China while thinking of them every day. Even though he went to a sex show upon returning, that was okay.
He recounts that he and the old man wandered from town to town, and when the old man died, he stole food to stay alive and was caught. A flashback shows us a fourteen year old Takamaru, looking painfully the same, except ruddier.
He is rescued by a girl with Chun-Li hair in a disturbingly pink silk ensemble that looks more like a nightgown and less like the film's take on what Chinese people wear. Someone just off camera tosses a chicken into the shot, because China is cool and chickens roam all about during fight scenes.
The girl was the only child of a Shaolin Dojo master. Her name is Airen, and she is the ugliest girl that I have ever seen.
She then proceeds to "comically" (and I use this term loosely) battle them while tacky softcore porn-like music plays, and just kicks a guy right in the balls. Then, during the battle, she kicks over Takamaru. She also rips her pants open, revealing her white granny panties directly in Takamaru's face. About eight times, she makes the same "Oopsie, did I do that?" face. It was annoying the first time, and goes downhill from there.
Oh, Chun-Li. You so wacky with your antics!
Meanwhile, at Suzukayama...
Perhaps after looking at Yodo and Airen, an oddly attractive girl sits in a small hut. Her brother enters and she rushes to him, and he gives her a present: a gaudy outfit. She flirtatiously models it for him.
Keiyuu looks good.
Her brother tells her she is becoming more like a lady, so she tells him she will cook something for him. I like her logic. Her brother tells her that he saw Takamaru, but she says not to bother, since she is no longer a part of that clan. She gives an extended, longing look at the camera at hearing his name, however. It's Otsu!!!!! It was hard to tell, because she wasn't crying. She says she's now a member of her brother's clan. HER BROTHER IS HANZO HATTORI.
Hanzo tells Otsu that, since she feels nothing for her former clan, she must go steal Takamaru's sword, because it contains the secret of the Momochi Clan's treasure. I'm thinking that if that was Hanzo's plan, he maybe should have selected a better outfit for her. She stares wistfully at the flute she has on display.
Meanwhile, just to drive the plot home, Yatoji tells Takamaru that they will never need for money because HIS SWORD CONTAINS THE SECRET OF THE MOMOCHI CLAN'S TREASURE AND HE MUST ALWAYS KEEP IT WITH HIM. Did you catch that? Sword contains secret of treasure. Did I mention that? Okay.
Takamaru looks confused, and a horrible ominous noise underlines it as he opens the sword. He mumbles thoughtfully to himself that there is only half of it there, and wonders where the other half could be.
On a completely unrelated note, he hears the sharp sounds of a flute, and Otsu just appears to be sitting in the middle of his yard, in the middle of some soundstage.
He watches her like a creepy stalker behind the bamboo for a few minutes, then calls out to her, saying that the sounds of his mother's flute led him to her. No shit, Takamaru? That's not awkward at all. He calls her a big cry baby, and she says that she hadn't cried since then, despite the fact that she is quite literally crying right now, and has been each time she appeared on screen.
Takamaru muses that he now has his mother's flute and his father's sword, each holding their regrets in them. Otsu remains crying at a distance. He tells her that their other friends are also alive and he will take her to see them, despite the fact that he just returned to the country and she had absolutely no trouble in locating him. She repeatedly says she does not want to go see them, and this isn't at all fucking rude and creepy to Takamaru, who asks her where she lives now. She says "someone" saved her and took her to Osaka (Insert joke here). She bows and runs off. Takamaru hands her the flute back, and she stares at it as if she has no idea what it is, before taking it, bowing again, and running off again. I am ashamed of Hanzo Hattori for allowing that to happen.
Meanwhile, one of Takamaru's friends is sharpening a sword. The most beautiful woman in the film (more beautiful than all others we've so far seen combined, and even if you took the inverse of their ugliness and declared it beauty, still more beautiful than that) steps in and tells him to sharpen her knife, for she wishes to kill someone for revenge. I'm sure she's a fine, nice, normal and sane woman.
Gosuke asks her what is the matter, and she stands ominously behind the curtains. She stares all wide-eyed and produces a bag filled with gold. She drops it to the ground with a horrible crash. She then, very calmly, explains to Gosuke that she has reported to the police that Takamaru and Goemon are his friends and she collected the reward. He asks her why she would do such a thing, and she rushes to him, soothingly petting him and telling him that he is safe, and she did not turn him in. I feel for Gosuke. I really do.
He screams at her and she begins screeching for him to kill her, begging for it in fact, and tells him that she is just a crazy bitch in love. Her words, not mine. Perhaps to help his friends, or get the fuck away, Gosuke drops his sword and runs for the door. She wrestles him to the ground, telling him not to leave her, because, you know, why would you leave a nice, sane, rational woman like that? He demands she let him go so he can go help the others, but she tells him that if he does, he will leave his child without a father. He pauses and, like all snake women, she gets all tender and makes him touch her stomach to feel their unborn baby. She sobs and hugs him, making noises rarely heard outside of a cat slaughter.
Godspeed, Gosuke. We're all right there with you, any one of us would have done the same. You never see it coming.
Meanwhile, Takamaru is pirouetting around and doing some frankly gay looking stretches outside, where the Spider Clan is resting. Yatoji sits lost in thought, while a big plastic spider drops down among them. Symbolism? Probably not. Atop a sacred tree, a Spider Clan member has been slain. Shogen's men surround him in other trees. Some rocking tribal drumbeats begin. They burst into the Spider Clan's hideout, but all seem to be gone. Shogen notices a false wall and stabs at it, and blood seeps out. It is revealed that they had somehow procured a chicken two feet off the ground against a wall, but hey, ninpou, right?
All of the characters we know by name scramble out, falling and knocking over water and struggling between the officers' legs, before tossing some very sparkly smoke bombs at them. As they head out, all of the men in the trees shoot arrows at the ground several yards ahead of them. For a warning, I guess. Ninja fucking suck at archery. All the men surround the Spiders, but more of their clan appear in the trees, killing Shogen's men, and a battle ensues. Also included are the worst sound effects ever. I can't even describe half of them, but apparently, climbing up a tree sounds like a broken washing machine. And falling out of a tree sounds like the most dramatic "game over" music you have ever heard. And then you land on an enormous pile of soft, bouncy leaves that move like a trampoline. And then you spit about a litre of cherry Kool-Aid out of your mouth. I wish I was a ninja.
Anyway, I guess Shogen's men remember how to shoot a bow and arrow, and kill all of the men of the Spider Clan who don't matter. They grip the trees and since ninja have no gravity, drift to the ground in slow motion, leaving fingernail marks along the trunks.
Meanwhile, Takamaru has begun doing the loudest moves ever, tumbling around and with each movement of his body, sounding like his skin is being ripped off and beaten with a mallet. He then tumbles into confusion as he is surrounded by Shogen and his handi-capable ninja twins. Shogen laughs ominously and tells Takamaru to give him his knife. A Spider leaps out of the tree and lands on Shogen's weapon like some camo umbrella. The cool porno funk starts again and Shogen kills everybody while the ninja twins girlishly hit at Takamaru, who does some of his special ballerina princess moves for them.
Otsu rushes in out of nowhere, still wearing her same gaudy and really-obvious-to-see-in-a-forest bright kimono, and discreetly hides behind a tree half her size. She watches for a while, until Shogen gets Takamaru to the ground and prepares to stab him through the neck (yes!), and she cries out his name. If I were Shogen, I would have flinched and gutted the guy, but no such luck. He calls her name and throws her the sword, and she awkwardly and uncoordinatedly runs off with it. It's okay for Shogen, though, because now he knows her name, and maybe Takamaru will cry out her place of residence as well.
The ninja twins easily catch up to her, but then Hanzo swings in and carries her off on a rope that seems to be connected to the entire sky, since they swing through clearings and miles of forest without having to get a new one.
Meanwhile, Shogen has Takamaru all strung up and his shirt is off again so that he can be whipped with canes. He bleeds and bruises a brilliant Maybelline shade of purple. Shogen yells at him to reveal the secret of his tanto, and the remaining men (as in, everybody whose name we know who was his friend in childhood) blame Gosuke for not coming back and obviously selling them out. Shogen's men beat them as they sit there also.
Ninja 4 Dummies show up and don't check in and say they lost the sword or anything, but that's okay, because Shogen sees that they are preparing to hurt the hell out of Takamaru. So... let's torture the guy who knows only who he handed the sword to, instead of the two who failed to get it and have a better idea of where the sword is. Good plan.
They hurt his nipples in the worst possible way, and Shogen looks on in awe, though he supposedly trained them himself.
Then Shogen grabs Takamaru's manhood and turns it like a water faucet, and he passes out.
Meanwhile, Hanzo looks at the sword Otsu has brought back. Brilliant plan, Hanzo, have her run around a forest and hope she happens upon Takamaru in a fight, and hope he happens to throw the sword to her and not want it back. Genius!
He once again reiterates that the sword only contains half of the secret, and wonders where the other half could be, before telling Otsu to stop playing the flute since it represents her childhood crush on Takamaru. The Hanzo in this movie is an idiot, because even I know that if you tell a girl to stop liking something, she'll turn against you and do it harder just to prove an unknown point. She looks sadly around the dilapidated hut, and Hanzo tells her to remember that romance is a martial art. No shit, Hanzo? Give her a nicer kimono and a house with a door and stop turning her against you. Where the fuck is Ieyasu?
She mumbles sadly, clutches the sword, and runs away with it. Hattori just stands there, as if he is expecting all of it. Perhaps it is part of his master plan to sabotage himself somehow.
By now, Takamaru has been hung by his feet in the most stereotypical prison cell ever. There's like iron maidens and a solar panel in there or some shit. There is absolutely nobody around him but the blood hasn't rushed to his head yet, so I have no idea how long he's been down there. But I guess he knows that the camera is on him, because he decides to try to escape right then. There is a candle on a distant wall. Now, to you and me, this would be, "Fucking candle over there. Maybe I'll try to blow it out so that guy can't see me when he comes back in to beat the shit out of me." But not to Takamaru, no.
He swings back and forth, making noises like a slinky being thrown through the air. He manages to somehow catch the flickering candle in his mouth, which does not burn him like I expect it probably should, and he swings back, the candle not going out or anything. He then proceeds to lean over his own body and burn through the rope tying his feet to the ceiling, which burns with a sound like popcorn popping, for some reason.
Some other guy just strides right in and notices the heap of burned rope on the ground. He looks all around, but the open prison is (surprise!) empty. Takamaru leaps the fuck out from the only possible hiding space that the man did not think to check, and brains him. He then rushes over (arms still tied... I guess he was pressed for time, but what happened to that candle? Wouldn't it have been easier to reach your hands and untie them and then use them to burn the rope from your feet? I don't know.) and breaks the guy's neck with the elbow of his bound arm. That guy fucking sucks.
He then creeps up the stairs where three men who weigh as much as a can of soda stand guard. Hands still tied together, he tosses them all down the stairs, and they don't come after him because that would be too much work. He then steals something from one of them and runs off through the palace halls. He pauses, as what appears to be two women with weapons walk by, and he instead opts to rush into a mysterious room. Really, why didn't he just go down the hall after they walked by?
But no, he made a good choice, because this is what greets him in that room:
Yeah, like twelve handmaidens, that dead kid, the shrew and fucking Hideyoshi Toyotomi. I honestly can't think of a worse room to have walked into.
Hideyoshi looks at the shirtless, bleeding, tied up prisoner and casually asks him who he is. Takamaru tells Hideyoshi his name, his father's name, his clan's name, his place of birth, and his favourite colour. Hideyoshi, understandably, goes "Wha...?"
Without order or warning, the handmaidens then begin tumbling at him.
They spin all around and kick him through a wall. Yeah, that's always how it is, you take on the fucking Shinsengumi and their torturous ninja, but get undone by some lower-class women in coordinating dresses.
They then all rush out after him with naginata, which I didn't see any of in that room, but hey, maybe they're kept someplace secretive. He flips around them and holds his bound wrists out, and one brilliant woman hits at him with her blade, slicing the ropes off. Yes, this will surely make him easier to kill!
He flips over a wall and slides down the hallway as if it were greased with Crisco, slapping the legs out from underneath the ladies as he goes by. They all chase after him, and he runs up more stairs, because obviously the exit of the palace is on the top floor, and he puts his neatly folded shirt back on. Reaching the railing outside, he scales along the roof, and several competent men emerge after him, having transformed from the women, or just leaving their uselessness in their wake. Takamaru looks at the water about a mile below him, and does an Olympic dive off the roof.
His dive lasts for a full minute with the sounds of a whirlwind, before he hits the water, landing directly on his back in a tremendously painful-sounding flop.
Walking over a bridge in busy Kyoto is the ugliest girl I've ever seen. She is wearing a horrible turqoise top that looks less like Chinese garments, and more like the film's take on what a qipao-inspired foreign style top might be. Oh, damn it. It's Airen.
Alright, that wraps up part one. I'm sorry it was so long, but I hope you read it, because I had a lot of fun "watching" my favourite movie with all of you. Please stay tuned for part two very soon!