KAOS: Shinobi: Band of Assassins

F i l m S k o o l

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It’s the 16th century and Japan is in chaos. Samurai clans engage each other in battle over who gets to rule the nation, while warlords call upon the ninja to spy on and assassinate their rivals. Goemon, an ambitious young member of a ninja family, is thrown into the turmoil of Japanese history when his village is wiped out by the forces of leading warlord Oda Nobunaga, who has sworn to eradicate the ninja in his quest for absolute power. Fueled by vengeance, Goemon uses every weapon in his arsenal to bring down Oda and to prove that a ninja is an army of one.

Starring “the Japanese James Dean” Raizo Ichikawa (Sleepy Eyes of Death, Conflagration) alongside Tomisaburo Wakayama (Lone Wolf and Cub, the Bounty Hunter trilogy) and Ayako Wakao (Elegant Beast, Red Angel), the Shinobi series was an epoch-making success and became a social phenomenon that left deep marks on Japan of the 1960s, from children’s playgrounds to the leftist counter-culture. Packed with spectacular and oft-copied action scenes, it also established the ground rules for all ninja movies that followed, introducing such classic tropes as the shuriken throwing star and the iconic black mask and suit.

Shinobi: Band of Assassins, a film by Satsuo Yamamoto.

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