Les Tueurs noirs de l'empereur fou

This is truly one of the coolest Ninja movies of all times. The stunts are top-notch and the action is non-stop. As usual in these films it gets pretty campy indeed, but on a whole it´s out standing. Watch out for hilarious stunts when our hero blocks arrows, Ninjas climb trees as vigorously as Spiderman and digging through the ground as moles. This is the film that made me want to become a Ninja as a kid and it leaves Sho Kosugi way behind. A must-see for any lover of martial arts and action!

After watching Shogun's Ninja, I must conclude that this is the strangest movie I've ever seen, and I say this after watching numerous Ching Siu Tung movies. This movie is just straight-up weird.

The plot takes place during the reign of Emperor Hideyoshi and there are historical references throughout (Ieyasu, the attempt to invade Korea, etc.) The conflict exists between the last survivors of the Momochi clan led by Henry Sanada (that Japanese guy from Royal Warriors with Michelle Yeoh) and Shogun (Sonny Chiba from the infamous Streetfighter series) and his ninja army. Sanada learns Chinese kung fu and comes back to avenge his clan, does some fighting, learns Japanese ninjitsu, and does some more fighting. The movie ends with a large battle between Chiba and his warriors (which are many) and Sanada and his pals (which are few).

The fighting in this movie is pretty good sometimes, and unexciting other times. Sanada is fairly impressive, he is one of the few characters that actually does any hand-to-combat (everyone else uses swords, guns, or other weapons). His kicks are fairly fun to watch. Sometimes, the swordplay is done bad in the sense that no excitement exists in watching them swing swords clumsily at each other. Unfortunately, Sonny Chiba doesn't do anything too interesting. Neither does Sue Shiomi (she appeared in Sister Street Fighter I believe). There was a female Chinese fighter who could bust out a good boot and the nunchaku, though.

When I say this movie is strange, I don't mean the strange in the Ching Siu Tung-style of bombard the viewer with bizarre, yet beautiful visual image style of being strange. This movie is strange in the sense that its level of camp is off the charts. For one thing, with the exception of some flute playing, most of the music in the movie is of the contemporary jazz/1970's elevator music variety with the occasional Japanese pop tune thrown in. The sounds effects are silly to the point where I wonder if this movie was actually a spoof. There are underground ninja, spider-like ninja (you can see the wires), and a nice little army of ninja at the end (although the third group doesn't do anything). There is a fair amount of wire-work in this, although none of it is really imaginative. Some of the stunts in this movie is just straight-up screwy (watch Sanada block the archers). Well, whether or not one enjoys this depends on his/her tolerance to high-camp.

After almost 9000 of them, it's hard to come up with new ones. Anyway, the movie:

The evil warlord has destroyed the Momochi clan. His minions are running down the last few survivors. He particularly wants the Momochi's legendary gold mine. A map leading to it is on two swords. Will he get them? Or will Sonny Chiba, who has just returned from China to lead the Momochi, win?

It's non-stop action, with many backflips and ninjas swinging on ropes from trees. There are some subplots, like Yuki Ninagawa, who is a member of the Momichi clan, but has been raised by the chief villain, Hiroyuki Sanada, as his sister. However, none of that interferes with Chiba fighting bare-chested against dozens of ninjas at one time.

First time i saw it i didn't like it,since that time i was a kid who was into Kung Fu movies where there are fighting all the time which in this film there aren't so much hand to hand fighting scenes(just a few).

But years later i digged this movie just to watch it again since it was long time ago and i experienced a great film with nice story and nice stunts and Henry Sanada is great in that movie,seeing him is like seeing Bruce Lee.

Please see it its great,japanese ninja films rules!

Over the years there have been several adaptations of the works of manga legend Sanpei Shirato, none of them fully successful, so here's another one to get in line.

Ninja Bugeicho was a highly influential ninja-themed manga originally released in the late fifties, early sixties, of which this is a rather mediocre version. The problem right off the bat in adapting such an influential work is that so many of its defining elements had already crept into every other form of ninja media over the years. Viewed on their own they seem rather stock. Stock might be the best word to describe this film in general. If this is your first samurai film you might enjoy this a bit more, but for 1980 this feels incredibly outdated, barely on par with the better movies that came out in the late sixties. At this point you really had to add something unique to the formula.

There is some fun silly ninja-y stuff here and there and the fight scenes as choreographed by the under-utilized main antagonist Sonny Chiba himself are mostly good but they are both denied their impact by the sluggish, uneven pacing and the distractingly unfitting score. Having watched some of director's Norifumi Suzuki's other films, mainly Shorinji Kempo, the Truck Yaro series and some of his pinky violence stuff I can safely put the blame of the former on him, as they all shared that exact weakness. Only his early Ocho films seemed to have escaped that curse mostly unscathed.

It's a shame that a film with this much promise ended up being so boring and uninvolving. Looking at trailers from back then this was obviously meant to kickstart the movie career of Hiroyuki Sanada (who is so crazy underrated still it's just saddening) by showcasing all of his many talents. There's also some pleasant synergy with Hong Kong action movies of the time that I appreciate. Fittingly enough Sanada would get his real claim to fame through Hong Kong director Corey Yuen soon after in the infinitely superior Ninja in the dragon's den, that you should watch instead.

If you really feel like you have to watch this just skip to the fight scenes, although you can easily skip most of the finale without missing out on anything.