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The 1960s have been a decisive period for the arts in many cultures. While some were looking for different formal approaches to deal with the issues of the times, others were looking back in order to re-assess and evaluate their countries history, which, to this point, had not been done before. Director Yasuzo Masumura belongs to the latter category, especially when considering his output in 1966 alone with an impressive crime drama such as “Irezumi” dealing with misogyny and toxic power structures as well as “Red Angel”, a powerful narrative about war and what it takes from people. In between, you find “Nakano Spy School” (also known as “The School of Spies”), a feature about how the Imperial Japanese Army Nakano School was founded, but also about the indoctrination and emotional manipulation of people to make them follow ideological goals.

Nakano Spy School is screening at Camera Japan

Jiro (Raizo Ichikawa...

From the opening of Yamamoto Satsuo’s first entry in the Shinobi series, Band of Assassins, we’re thrust into a tangled web of battling clans, all vying to be the first to kill bloodthirsty warlord Oda Nobunaga (Wakayama Tomisaburô). Even within individual factions, duplicity reigns supreme, with all the double crosses and dual identities obfuscating and complicating the motives of every virtually every major character. The film tends toward convolution through the flurry of personal and clan names constantly being introduced, but this tactic of disorientation is ultimately a deliberate and effective one that’s very much in line with the tactics deployed by its ninjas.

Among all these embittered and embattled clans is Ishikawa Goemon (Raizo Ichikawa), a highly skilled young ninja looking to quickly rise through the ranks. Like many of the lower-level ninjas and samurai in Band of Assassins, he, too, falls victim to the Machiavellian...