The Gamo clan is one of the few powers outside the Shogunate. Naturally, the powers in Edo are trying to eliminate them. The old clan head is dying, but the young child who is to succeed him meets all the criteria, so a letter of approval has been sent. However, if the letter is destroyed before the Emperor's representative can arrives, the clan will be dissolved. Therefore the clan's chamberlain has hired half a dozen ronin, survivors of other outlawed clans, to stop that. They are facing not only dozens of ninjas sent by the Shogun under the command of Bin Amatsu, but agents already in place within the clan's halls.
It's a cat-and-mouse game, but who are the cats and who are the mice? As the days tick by, and individuals are eliminated like pieces from a chessboard, desperation grows on both sides.
The players are largely unfamiliar to me; we're not dealing with the old-line studios here, but Toei, which largely worked in cheaper productions, children's movies and television. Writer Kôji Takada's earlier works had largely been in the cheaper Toei series. It's Tetsuya Yamanouchi's debut as director. Likewise, Shigeru Akatsuka had never been the cinematographer of a story film before. They needed to make their bones with this movie, and they do, with a dark, tense effort.
