Samurai Spy (1965)
"Ibun Sarutobi Sasuke" (original title)

The legendary samurai Sasuke Sarutobi tracks the spy Nojiri, while a mysterious figure named Sakon leads a band of men on their own quest for the wily Nojiri. Soon no one knows just who is ... See full summary »

Director:

Masahiro Shinoda

Writers:

Yoshiyuki Fukuda, Koji Nakada (novel)

Stars:

Hiroshi Aoyama, Jun Hamamura, Osamu Hitomi

Cast

Credited cast:
Hiroshi Aoyama
Jun Hamamura	...	Joshin temple priest
Osamu Hitomi
Minoru Hodaka
Hisanobu Ichikawa
Kentaro Imai
Yasunori Irikawa	...	Yashiro Kobayashi
Shintarô Ishihara	...	Saizo Kirigakure
Taku Kido
Takeshi Kusaka	...	Narrator
Seiji Miyaguchi	...	Jinnai-Kazutaka Horikawa
Shin'ya Mizushima
Hideto Nakagawa
Eiji Okada	...	Tatewaki Koriyama
Shuichi Oki

Storyline

The legendary samurai Sasuke Sarutobi tracks the spy Nojiri, while a mysterious figure named Sakon leads a band of men on their own quest for the wily Nojiri. Soon no one knows just who is who and what side anyone is on.

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Plot Keywords:

samurai | bridge | bible | duel | deception | 

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Genres:

Action | Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Also Known As:

Samurai Spy

Company Credits

Production Co:

Shôchiku Eiga

Technical Specs

Runtime:

102 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

User Reviews

Silly

Muddled and extremely silly samurai film marred by artsy flourishes, goofy ninja outfits, martial-arts fantasy nonsense, and a stupid ending.

On the plus side, Shinoda has a good eye for composition, the production values are quite good, and it's got a meaty role for Seiji Miyaguchi (Kyuzo from SEVEN SAMURAI).

The most potentially interesting thing about the film is its treatment of the persecution of Christians in Tokugawa Japan. Unfortunately, it treats this aspect with the same superficiality that it treats the conflict between the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Toyotomi clan (and the film starts with a basic historical error: the Toyotomi clan did not lose at Sekigahara; they didn't even fight there, although the battle did result in the end of Toyotomi hegemony over Japan).