Kamui Gaiden
2009
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About this movie
"Probably the best ninja movie ever made, Yoichi Sai's adaptation from the legendary manga blends folk-tale, action fantasy and parable; with hot young star Kenichi Matsuyama as the hero.
There hasn't been a decent ninja movie for decades, but Yoichi Sai's adaptation of a story from Sanpei Shirato's legendary, multi-volume manga Kamui bestrides the entire genre: this is probably the best ninja movie ever made. Ninja are all about secret servitude, quasi-magical martial-arts skills and issues of loyalty, betrayal and vengeance. Kamui delivers all of the above, minus the history lessons that are too often part of the deal. The Korean-Japanese director (current chair of the Directors' Guild of Japan) treats the story as a folk-tale, complete with the grizzled voice of Tsutomu Yamazaki as narrator. It's a kind of parable: Kamui (played by new star Kenichi Matsuyama, also in Bare Essence of Life) has escaped rural poverty and family ties by becoming a ninja, but now wants a kind of freedom not permitted in feudal Japan, the freedom to live his own life. The plot finds him in an area controlled by the corrupt and effete Lord Gunbei, allying himself with the fisherman Hanbei and his family and then all but press-ganged into a band of shark hunters. Treachery and triple-bluffs on all sides, and Kamui himself is often the prey...
Quoting Tony Rayns
There hasn't been a decent ninja movie for decades, but Yoichi Sai's adaptation of a story from Sanpei Shirato's legendary, multi-volume manga Kamui bestrides the entire genre: this is probably the best ninja movie ever made. Ninja are all about secret servitude, quasi-magical martial-arts skills and issues of loyalty, betrayal and vengeance. Kamui delivers all of the above, minus the history lessons that are too often part of the deal. The Korean-Japanese director (current chair of the Directors' Guild of Japan) treats the story as a folk-tale, complete with the grizzled voice of Tsutomu Yamazaki as narrator. It's a kind of parable: Kamui (played by new star Kenichi Matsuyama, also in Bare Essence of Life) has escaped rural poverty and family ties by becoming a ninja, but now wants a kind of freedom not permitted in feudal Japan, the freedom to live his own life. The plot finds him in an area controlled by the corrupt and effete Lord Gunbei, allying himself with the fisherman Hanbei and his family and then all but press-ganged into a band of shark hunters. Treachery and triple-bluffs on all sides, and Kamui himself is often the prey...
Quoting Tony Rayns