LEGEND OF THE SHADOWY NINJA: THE NINJA DRAGON
(空想科学任侠伝 極道忍者ドス竜)
Dir. Go Nagai, 1990
Japan. 70 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 – 10PM
THURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 – 10PM
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 – 5PM
The secretive realm of the world’s deadliest ninja warriors is thrown into chaos as, one by one, ninja clan leaders are brutally assassinated by a supernatural assailant. Fearing for her safety, a yakuza princess and heir to a ninja bloodline summons three “Ninja Defenders” to protect her from this hidden enemy whose origins are far stranger than any of them could fathom.
The only live-action film directed by manga legend Go Nagai (DEVILMAN, CUTIE HONEY) is a little-seen DTV gem that packs a hell of a lot of ideas into 70 minutes. Ninjas, demons, yakuza, zombies, aliens, martial artists, and joshi wrestlers collide head on in an infectiously confounding byproduct of the 1980s “ninja craze” that delivers big on the action and special effects in spite of its dirt-cheap appearance.
“What is the legend of the shadowy ninja? Who or what is the ninja dragon? This movie offers no answers to these questions, but it does have a scene where a man tears the skin off another man’s face and licks the bloody exposed muscle and tissue, and it stops nearly dead in its tracks for a wrestling match between a [spoiler redacted] villainess and a ninja lady.” – Laird Jimenez, via Letterboxd