Coppola no Mokushiroku

Military dictator Augusto Pinochet calls for a referendum to decide his permanence in power in 1988, the leaders of the opposition persuade a young daring advertising executive - René Saavedra - to head their campaign. With limited resources and under the constant scrutiny of the despot's watchmen, Saavedra and his team conceive of a bold plan to win the election and free their country from oppression.

Hong Kong's movie factories are ever churning out what amounts to an inordinate number of productions, a great many of which are blighted by puerile attempts at humour, manically cartoonish violence, and cardboard characters, bringing about a roll of a viewer's eyes as standard response to all of this; therefore, when a film furnishes some elements of creative value as in this instance, it becomes worth noticing. For what might easily serve as an exemplar of how an action film should be composed, Danny Lee fills a type of role for which he has often been cast within a Hong Kong cinema subgenre: The Conflicted Cop Film, here having to choose between his Job and his Family, the latter being a wife (Carol Cheng), and five-year-old son, with his occupation being captain of police, having supervision over a "special unit" composed of a sizable group of (invariably) undercover personnel deployed against those criminals engaged in the sale of narcotics and purloined designer watches, the officers therewith involved in a series of shootingfests.

I suppose many of us would have loved the romanticism associated with ninjas, with their famed skills of invisibility, swordsmanship, cunning and a whole host of weaponry and gadgets that add to their element of surprise. If you'd think you know a lot of their modus operandi, then perhaps The Ninjas, aka Shinobi No Mono, would contribute to that wealth of knowledge, and at the same time dispel some of the myths and stories that add to the stature of these masked assassins.
If you'd wonder what a ninja does when out of his mask, then the film would have painted a rather mundane picture of the practicing ninjas, who hone their skills in enclaves, and frankly look no more like your usual Samurais, except sans status, and honing their skills ala rebels in hiding at their fortified base, and being skilled assassins for hire to Samurais who need someone to do their dirty work for them (yes, even back then you can outsource your dirty laundry), as they themselves are bounded by the honor code of bushido.

After destroying the ninja schools, the evil despot Nobunaga Oda (Tomisaburo Yakayama) proceeds to track down and crucify the remaining ninja fighters. Goemon Ishikawa (Raizo Ichikawa) escapes with his new wife Maki (Shiho Fujimura) but is unable to remain neutral. He joins a rebel faction in a new province and sublimates his personal desire for vengeance to the will of its leader. Using stealth, false messages and other forms of trickery, Goemon plays three enemies off one another – Oda, another high born feudal leader and a warrior lord (So Yamamura) cruelly mistreated by Oda. The payoff comes when the warrior lord is maneuvered into attacking Oda. Goemon sneaks into the battle to finally extract his personal revenge. But disaster soon follows. The new feudal leader steps aside to let two warring lords fight over who will attack the rebel fortress. Goemon and Maki elect to stay with the rebels, as a siege forces them into starvation.