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| Images courtesy of Toy Robot Video |
Toy Robot Video, that new subsidiary of Arrow Video
following in the footsteps of Radiance Films with their OBI spines and
oscillation between Blu-ray and 4K-disc format releases, picked up where Arrow’s
disc of Shogun’s Ninja left off with their disc for Roaring Fire. Both from director Norifumi Suzuki and
prominently featuring a young Hiroyuki Sanada alongside Sonny Chiba in a series
of offbeat action-comedies, they tapped into a screen pairing in which Chiba
was able to sort of mentor Sanada towards his own ascension to the hall of fame
of great contemporary Japanese actors.
Continuing in the trend of Arrow Video and Toy Robot Video’s plans to
release all the Chiba/Sanada pairings is the 1982 Tokusatsu driven supernatural
jidaigeki actioner Ninja Wars while reverting duties to G.I. Samurai director
Kōsei Saitō. While admittedly a
bit darker than the prior Chiba/Sanada offerings, Toy Robot’s new digitally
restored rerelease nevertheless is an integral package for fans of edgier adult
oriented fantasy horror.
A wandering ninja named Jotaro (Hiroyuki Sanada) is thrust
into a battle between rival clans in feudal Japan involving a sinister plot by
Danjo Matsunaga (Akira Nakao) to win the heart of Lady Ukyo (Noriko Watanabe in
one of three roles) through dark magic rituals and thus gain rulership of the
world. The problem is they need a virgin’s
tears for it to work, so they kidnap Jotaro’s lover Kagaribi (Watanabe again) who
also happens to be Ukyo’s biological sister for a head-swapping supernatural
magic trick that change’s Ukyo’s head with Kagaribi’s body. Following a brief but still shocking sexual
assault, the tears are collected and the next step is taken to garner
supernatural abilities. It doesn’t take
long for Jotaro to catch up with Kagaribi’s abductors and begin plotting his
revenge with the help of another mysterious woman (Watanabe once again) and world
famous and feared samurai Yagyū Shinzaemon (Sonny Chiba) to take on metaphysical
superhuman forces all tying to the nefarious magician Kashin (Mikio Narita).
Produced by Haruki Kadokawa just a couple of years after financing
Virus (the most expensive Japanese film at the time) and based on the
novel by Futaro Yamada, it represents a violent, gory body-count heavy mixture
of medieval warfare and fantasy horror with a rock-infused score by Toshiaki
Yokota. Thrilling and fun but with the
dark violent edge of a comic book for adult readership with less of the humor
of Shogun’s Ninja or Roaring Fire and more of a fiery, somewhat
bleaker outlook, it utilizes a wide range of effects including some water tank
rendered shots of unnatural cloud formations.
Monofilament wires come heavily into play for flying effects while pyrotechnics
come almost as dangerously close to burning its principal cast members alive as
Akira Kurosawa’s Ran did.
Performances from Sanada and Chiba are naturally good though
Chiba’s presence in the saga is dialed down somewhat compared to their last two
together. Sanada’s youthful vigor and
vengeful rage glimpsed in the Suzuki efforts carries over here and he doesn’t
make one misstep. The one who shoulders
all of the film’s weight, let’s be honest, is Noriko Watanabe. From taking on three roles to enduring some
difficult responsibilities along the way such as portraying a gang rape in the
film’s most notorious moment to maintaining a consistently integral presence
onscreen that most certainly outshines Sonny Chiba despite that actor having
higher billing, Noriko Watanabe doesn’t act in this film so much as she takes
an angry violent bull by the horns and triumphantly survives the
encounter. Most viewers will probably be
put off by this bit (I was too) but kudos to Watanabe for not backing down from
it. Mikio Narita and Akira Nakao both
make terrific villains you love to hate for a variety of reasons but most of
the main drama of the story is trained on Sanada and Watanabe, if you can keep
up with which version of Watanabe’s character we’re watching.
Making its domestic Blu-ray disc debut in the United States
for the first time via Toy Robot Video, the 1982 Kōsei Saitō directed Tokusatsu jidaigeki
Ninja Wars comes housed with reversible sleeve art and a handful of
special features including an audio commentary by Jonathan Clements, two video
essays by Matt Alt and Daisuke Miyao on the film’s place in the Japanese ninja
subgenre, theatrical trailers and a bonus complete VHS version of the film offered
in standard definition. Featuring a 1.85:1
widescreen transfer with uncompressed 2.0 sound, Ninja Wars won’t be for
everyone but those who love their fantasy fiction to be darker and more
realistic, particularly in a post-Game of Thrones landscape which seemed
to revel in the controversial aspects.
Fans who have kept up on the Chiba/Sanada releases from Arrow Video and
Toy Robot will naturally want to add this to their libraries while lovers of
the effects-heavy supernatural period thriller will have a feast for the senses. Not all will take to the film’s cocktail of imaginary
and real-world brutality but not everything has to play nice or gentle
either. Another hit for Toy Robot!
--Andrew Kotwicki
