(by whatdoes1know on 31 October 2001)

This old black and white movie is amazingly fast paced and entertaining once the assassins make their moves on the target, the future Japanese Shogun. The manhunt scene in the woods is just an amazing sequence of action--that stays on the ground, as opposed to Ang Lee's sense of action in the infamous Crouching Tiger and Dancing Ballerina. This movie also portrays the stricter sides of the code of men of endurance (literal translation of ninja). An exemplar scene shows a wounded ninja, silently and quickly wiping his blood off the spearhead that ran through the ceiling and his thigh in order to hide his presence. As Saizo matures, he grows out of his material attachments and sees what is essential to shinobi (the way of the ninja). The ruses that the target and the assassin use on each other make for good plot twists and the crucial question on what it means to live by the code--does the ninja die for the mission, or does he endure the failure?--is answered splendidly.