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Puchon Choice: Features

Owl's Castle

Masahiro Shinoda

Japan1999 138min 35mm Color

Synopsis

In 1581, Japan’s most powerful warlord, Nobunaga Oda wages war against the province of lga.
Nobunaga was concerned that the Ninjas of Oda were gaining too much power thus causing disorder among the other clans. Ten years later, Hideyoshii Toyotomi, Nobunaga’s successor, unifies the country as shogun.
Juzo, one of the few survivors of the war, is a skilled Ninja. He lives a hermit-like exstence until his former master bids him to go to Kyoto to assassinate Hideyoshi. This will also give him a chance to avenge the massacre of his family by Nobunaga.
On his way to Kyoto, Juzo is approached by a young woman, Kohagi. Although he knows she’s spy for Hideyoshi, they become lovers. A former student of Juzo’s master, Gohei, is determined to stop Juzo. He believes that if he stops Juzo, he will be reinstated as a samurai, Although Juzo has successfully dealt with Gohei’s interference, he begins to have second thoughts when he finally reaches the private rooms of Hideyoshi.

Diretor

Masahiro Shinoda

After he graduated from the Waseda University in 1953, he learned film directing from Yasujiro Ozu at Shochiku Studio. By his films about youth such as < One Way Ticket To Love >,< Youth in Fury > and < assassination >, he was considered as leader of the “New Wave” movement at Shochiku Concentrating on his childhood before and after the WWII, he has been seeking a genuine universal method of expression through the construction of Japanese history via film.