Ibun Sarutobi Sasuke 異聞猿飛佐助 (1965) Samurai Spy

Samurai Spy is a lesser work by director Masahiro Shinoda, but an entertaining chambara nonetheless. Shinoda was a prime mover in the Japanese New Wave, making often bleak little pictures in which characters choose love over custom and suffer annihilation as a consequence. There's no better example of Shinoda's personal aesthetic and thematic fixations than, Double Suicide, his heavily stylized live-action adaptation of a Bunraku puppet play. Those hoping Samurai Spy delivers a similarly self-conscious and arty experience will be sorely disappointed. It is stylish, though. Not only is the picture's plot a labyrinth of intrigue, but it offers acrobatic ninja action, and a swinging '60s score by Toru Takemitsu (Ran). Its outlandishness is entirely appropriate to a story about the legendary Sasuke Sarutobi. The spy is a highly-skilled ninja who may or may not have been an actual historical figure, but has become a legend in Japan based on his many appearances in simple, action-packed tales designed mostly for consumption by children.


Shinoda's movie is breezy and entertaining, but not specifically designed for kids. The plot is a tangle of political maneuvering bound to lose anyone who doesn't have at least a modicum of knowledge about the political landscape of early 17th-century Japan. The good news, though, is that one need not pay close attention to the many turns of plot to have a good time.


It's enough to know that loyalties among all the characters are in continual flux, and everyone has an ulterior motive. Through this complexity the film earns its place in the Rebel Samurai box, as well as Shinoda's oeuvre: The romance of feudal Japan's honor and duty is exposed as a sham in the director's tale of subterfuge, deceit, and murderous self-interest.


Samurai Spy opens on the gloriously epic scene of the Battle of Sekigahara as the picture's political landscape is established in voice-over narration. The scene is staged and shot impressively, samurai clashing on foot and horseback in the foreground and stretching all the way to distant hills on the horizon.


Though the rest of the film is more intimate, focusing our attention on the adventures of a relatively small group of characters, it never quite gets intimate enough. This is likely attributable to Sasuke's legendary status: As in movies about Robin Hood or the Lone Ranger here in the West, Sasuke's acts of derring-do play out with little revelation of our hero as anything but an archetype. That doesn't prevent the movie from entertaining, but it does relegate it to the status of a straight genre piece, and a bit of a disappointment in light of the personal idiosyncrasies that define Shinoda's best work.


Shinoda builds a very expressionistic landscape for the story and his commentary to play out. Those shadows of the alleyways also find themselves in the houses, brothels and rooftops of just about everywhere the characters go. Usually only portions of their faces get bathed in light, so these spies are mostly living, not just lurking, in the shadows.


This environment also lends itself to the slightly surreal battle scenes that take place throughout the film. Be wary - these are not typical action filled sword fights. Shinoda seems less interested here in who actually wins or the skill of the fighters than in the feeling of the battles. Several fights contain leaping samurai in slow motion with a total drop out of the soundtrack. As well, high angles, rapid pans and long distance shots are all used to separate these conflicts from the rest of the story. It's very effective in putting you a bit off balance.


Samurai Spy is available on DVD from The Criterion Collection (spine number 312) both as a stand-alone disc and as part of the four-disc Rebel Samurai: Sixties Swordplay Classics boxed set. According to Criterion's liner notes, the disc's 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer comes directly from a 35mm fine-grain master, digitally remastered.


It's a nearly flawless transfer. Shot in black-and-white, the picture is beautifully detailed. The transfer offers a rich and natural range of grays, as well as solid blacks and pure whites. Criterion's restoration work has left almost no evidence of damage or other source flaws.Audio has also been restored, and is a simple but clean center-speaker presentation of the original mono track. The punchy score sounds great, with only isolated instances of distortion from the source.


So if you aren't looking solely for samurai slicing and dicing (not that there's anything wrong with that), Samurai Spy offers a great deal of beauty. commentary and shear entertainment.


A character gallery, includes biographical information for 11 of the film's characters and is helpful in making sense of the convoluted plot. The fold-out insert booklet contains a lengthy essay by Alain Silver, author of Samurai Film, that covers not only Samurai Spy, but also the general cultural landscape of the Japanese film industry in the '60s, and the central role directors like Shinoda, Hideo Gosha (Sword of the Beast), and Kihachi Okamoto (Kill!) played in reinventing genre films in order to maintain their relevance in Japan's postwar society.


The feature is accompanied by a decent array of extras considering the movie's quality. A video interview with Shinoda—shot in 2005, exclusively for Criterion—runs 16 minutes, is indexed into six chapters, and covers not only information specific to the film, but the filmmaker's style in general.


Thanks to Cereal Ripper for the DVD9.