• 異聞猿飛佐助 (Samurai Spy)

6/25/23 (Sun), home, 4:30-6:15p

Shinoda Masahiro’s 1965 Ibun Sarutobi Sasuke (literally The Extraordinary Tale of Sarutobi Sasuke) revolves around the fictional ninja character who had already been a staple of manga, film and television for decades. Supposedly inspired by a real person (or persons), Sasuke is the most famous member of an invented group of ten ninja who sided with the Toyotomi clan in its unsuccessful battle against the Shogun. He is often portrayed with magical powers and is sometimes said to have been raised by apes – Sarutobi means “leaping monkey” or “flying monkey”. The English title is misleading in that respect since the subject is really ninja, but it falls in line with the predilection for the word “samurai” those days in other drastically renamed Japanese period films (Samurai Rebellion, Samurai Vendetta, Vendetta for a Samurai). That’s Hollywood, I guess.

The film is a convoluted story of ever-shifting alliances and betrayals, not an uncommon theme in the 60s but rarely as confused and confusing as presented here. The film is set in 1614, when the Toyotomi clan is planning along with dissatisfied allies to regain power from the Shogunate after their decisive loss fourteen years earlier. We know in hindsight that their efforts ended in total failure the following year, setting the stage for two-and-a-half centuries of Tokugawa rule. At the time, however, these Osaka-based forces were the one serious threat to the ruling power in Edo. In a bare outline of the plot, Sasuke was working for a Toyotomi ally but had become disillusioned with the constant intrigue and meaningless deaths. Nevertheless, he is drawn unwillingly into the conflict when a friend begs for help, setting off a mind-spinning series of back-stabbings, misunderstandings, rumors, creative murders, religious persecution, and lots of blood and flying body parts.

It was impossible to keep up with who was who and what side they were on at what time. That may have been a deliberate strategy on the director’s part in some kind of comment on the chaos of war. But there were too many people and names to keep it all straight. The director himself seemed to have problems by the end, wrapping it up with a silly deus ex machina involving a cameo by trendy author (and later Tokyo governor) Ishihara Shintaro.

The fighting relied on unrealistic touches like vertical leaps up to the second floor, precisely aimed shuriken hitting their mark from long distances, and odd weapons that may or may not have existed. Realism was clearly not a priority for Shinoda, making the film impossible to take seriously. I got the impression that the director was showing off, though the final fight in the fog was at least imaginative. Sasuke was never fully developed as a character and came across as robotic rather than suffering in any way from the violence that he was sucked into. Whatever message this film intended to send (Shinoda was reportedly inspired by the Cold War conflict between the US and USSR) was lost in the silliness. It suffers from a poorly thought out script that mixes sensationalism for profundity. Shinoda is very much an on-and-off director, and this was an off.