Raizo Ichikawa as the Son of the Black Mass
Balladeer’s Blog resumes my reviews of the Son of the Black Mass series of Samurai movies. This time around I will examine the fifth film with legendary Raizo Ichikawa. I will eventually cover the pre-Raizo and post-Raizo SOTBM flicks as well PLUS the original novels that the movies were based on.
Though the Son of the Black Mass series has also been released under alternate titles like The Full Moon Killer and Sleepy Eyes of Death (?) I go by the original title to the novel and movies. The recurring lead character is Kyoshiro Nemuri, a Ronin who is the product of the rape of a Japanese woman by a Portuguese Christian Missionary during a Black Mass.
Nemuri inherited his father’s red hair, marking him as a half-breed and leading to his disgrace. He wanders Japan of the 1780s, a time when Japanese Christians and the foreign Christian missionaries who converted them were being oppressed. As in imprisoned and told to renounce their faith or be executed through Crucifixion. Continue reading
Their view of American history is mind-boggling. This 1861 work of “J-History” if you will, features little-known events like JOHN ADAMS FACING A GIANT SNAKE (left) and George Washington fighting a tiger. It also corrects the mistaken assumption that Washington’s wife was named Martha when her real name was apparently “Carol.” (?) 
With the movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings trickling out, assorted readers have been asking me if I’ll do a blog post about the character. I did one back in June, but the release of the movie wound up getting delayed. Below is the link to that blog post in which I examined the first twelve Shang-Chi stories in the 1970s. 
WHAT IF NAPOLEON HAD WON AT WATERLOO? (June 18th 1815) – In 1907 G.M. Trevelyan penned an essay on this topic. In Trevelyan’s take, Napoleon had been chastened by his temporary exile to Elba before escaping and regaining control of France. 
EL MARIACHI (2014) – This Mexican television series directed by Salvador Cartas was loosely based on the 1992 Robert Rodriguez movie of the same name and its sequels, Desperado (1995) and Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003). It’s no secret that Rodriguez himself is not fond of this series. According to some sources Sony allegedly made a tentative notification of their plans to the writer/ director and then ran with it without further input from him. 
The series of movies certainly seemed to partially inspire the later Sicario films, but I much prefer Rodriguez’s flicks. The El Mariachi television program is, unfortunately, inferior to both franchises. That’s a shame because lead actor Ivan Arana certainly looks the part and Martha Higareda as the hero’s love interest Celeste is just the right mix of sultriness and butt-kicking badness. For some reason photos of Higareda don’t come close to capturing her full allure, but seen in motion she’s even more impressive.
WHAT IF? Vol 1 #1 (February 1977) 
KUNG FAUX (2003) – Created and crafted by Mic Neumann, this half-hour comedy series was basically a hip hop version of old movies and television shows that overdubbed non-comedies with comedic dialogue, music and sound effects. In Kung Faux‘s case it featured re-edited and highly stylized martial arts films from the 1970s overdubbed with contemporary music and a hip hop comedic sensibility. 
Though Kung Faux brands this treatment as “dubtitling” as a nod to dubbed and subtitled dialogue, the approach debuted on vintage television shows like Fractured Flickers (1963), in which celebrities would dub improvised comedic dialogue over old silent movies. 
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