Mission: Iron Castle (1970)
The Shinobi-no-Mono series was so successful that Daiei Studios dipped into the well one more time, making the best 60′s B&W ninja movie ever seen in the otherwise color-dominated year of 1970. Issei Mori directs Hiroki Matsukata as the reluctant leader of a small band of spies charged with kidnapping a noblewoman from a heavily ninja-proofed castle. The finality of the air slowly began to fill like smoke, and in all that had become dark the loyalty of the Ninja who dared to go shone like light as they entered a world shrouded in mystery. Things do not go as planned in what is possibly the darkest and most fatalistic of the already noir-ish 60′s fare. Both the decade and it’s distinctive style of shinobi cinema went out on a high note with Mission Iron Castle.
Director:
Kazuo Mori
Writer:
Yamada Takayuki
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Hiroki Matsukata as Yoshiro |
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Toru Minegishi as |
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Kōjirō Hongō as |
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Michiyo Yasuda as |
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Yôko Namikawa as |
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Shiho Fujimura as |
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Taketoshi Naitō as |
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Rokkō Toura as |
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Saburo Date as |
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Asao Uchida as |
| Directing | Kazuo Mori | Director |
| Writing | Yamada Takayuki | Screenplay |
| Sound | Hajime Kaburagi | Original Music Composer |
| Writing | Ryōtarō Shiba | Original Story |
| Art | Shigenori Shimoishizaka | Art Direction |
| Camera | Fujio Morita | Director of Photography |
| Lighting | Reijiro Yamashita | Lighting Director |
| Editing | Toshio Taniguchi | Editor |
| Sound | Iwao Ōtani | Sound |
