Fukurô no shiro

Shiba Rytoaro is a historic novelist. The reason why ninjas in this movie don't make use of James Bond gadgets to make their way through booby-trap castles and end the story in a big explosion is because this movie isn't the 2001 ninja-flop Aka Kage, and those things never happened. Don't give me the They-totally-messed-up-history-in-the-Gladiator-but-still-made-a-Russel-Cro we-movie-out-of-it look, Shiba Ryotaro's work is interesting because it is historically plausible. That said, the amount of action they did manage to put in the movie is realistically good. Realistic is the key word, because ninjas really did exist, so why don't you give them a break for once and try to look at them for what they were. This isn't about turtles living in the gutters, nor kids left home alone. I know it's hard to imagine, but these people were real, and that's why this movie deserves to be watched. The color palette of the movie is really beautiful, and the action is shot seriously--they actually had a mercenary choreograph the hand to hand combat scenes, he wasn't a fancy martial arts expert, but he did know how to kill people. Nakai Kiitsu is adequately stoic as the survivor of a clan, determined to assassinate Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Mako's cunning eyes and sneer recreate the crafty strategist who unified Japan.