Ninja Wars
Japanese Title: Iga ninpo-cho
Director: Mitsumasa Saito
Actors: Shinichi "Sonny" Chiba, Hiroyuki Sanada, Noriko Watanabe
Year Released: 1982
Genre: Action, Samurai
See Also: Shogun's Ninja, Legend of the Eight Samurai
With all of the other fantastical samurai/ninja movies Sonny Chiba made in the early '80s, you can be forgiven for thinking that Ninja Wars is yet another of these neon-hued katana operas. And while it does have elements of the fantastic in it, centering around a sorcerer and five black magicians, Ninja Wars is a lot closer to the gory, pump-blood extravaganzas of the '70s than the usual '80s Kadokawa seat-fillers.
Kashin Koji, a freaky sorcerer, appears before the power-hungry daimyo Danjo and tells him that if he can win the heart of the lady Ukyo, a relative of the shogun and wife of a neighboring daimyo, he will rule the world. Lady Ukyo (idol Noriko Watanabe) is super hot—who could pass up an offer like that? Of course, she thinks Danjo is disgusting, so a love potion is brewed up with the tears of her twin sister (and ninja in training), Kagaribi. OK, pay attention, because it's about to get confusing. Kagaribi cuts off her own head before the potion can be made. In response, one of the five magicians cuts off the head of Isaribi, one of Danjo's concubines, and the heads are swapped with the bodies. Although it's Isaribi's head that cries the tears, it's Kagaribi's body, so I guess in Japanese black magic, that's what counts.
Enter Jotaro (Japan Action Club regular and Sonny Chiba protégé Hiroyuki Sanada), Kagaribi's fiancé and fellow ninja badass. He's rightly confused by all the head-switching but figures it out in time to save (let's see if I can get this right) Kagaribi's head/Isaribi's body from a temple set on fire by marauding monks that may or may not have been bewitched by Kashin. They hide out inside the body of a decapitated giant Buddha and fall in love all over again, Kagaribi's head remembering her past with Jotaro. Pretty soon she's back to her evil ways, and Jotaro must save Ukyo from becoming Danjo's addle-brained love slave.
Although Ninja Wars could rightly be called a ninja film, actual black-clad spies are few and far between. Ninja style is in full effect though, with lots of thrown needles and crazy flying. (If you think kung-fu movies own the skies, you're sadly mistaken.) But where Ninja Wars stands out from its early '80s contemporaries like Legend of the Eight Samurai and Shogun's Ninja is in its raunchiness. Full-on arterial spray was rare in these big-budget fantasy epics, as was nudity—there's plenty of toplessness, including that of a rather heavy-set test subject for the love potion. And then there's the projectile vomit attack. Yes, projectile vomit. The magician in the afro wig shoots a stream of bile that suffocates its victims by hardening over their faces like Magic Shell. Brilliant!
Really, this is what movies are for. Where else are you going to get black magic head transplants, hot idols, and vomit all in the same film? And with ninjas, no less. More, please!
Otaku Alert: Director Mitsumasa Saito previously directed Sonny Chiba in G.I. Samurai. He was also assistant director to Yasuharu Hasebe on Black Tight Killers.
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