BLACK FOX: AGE OFTHE NINJA (2019)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

This live-action, Edo-period ninja-movie was made the same year as an anime titled BLACK FOX, and one of the non-animated movie's main characters is supposed to be the ancestor of the main anime character. I have not seen the anime.

While FOX is not any sort of gang-changer, it stands as an object lesson as to how a contemporary movie can be centered upon the relationship of two heroic women, without running all the male characters into the ground. And this is a signal accomplishment, given that one of the villains is the father to one of the heroines.

Young woman Miya (MamiYajima) is subjected to an arcane experiment by her father, one that fills her body with electrical energy. A marauding gang breaks into their home, and Miya flees, thinking they've slain her father. The woman wanders through a forest until she comes across a compound belonging to a ninja clan called Kitsune (fox). Miya encounters Rikka Isurugi (Chihiro Yamamoto), and though their meeting isn't entirely copacetic, Rikka becomes sympathetic to the frazzled young woman, despite witnessing her bizarre shock-powers. Rikka appears to her grandfather Hyoe (familiar face Yasuaki Kurata) to give Miya shelter from the gang, the Negoro. Hyoe does so briefly, but when the Negoro come calling, they launch a frontal attack against the Kitsune. Informed of the higher powers served by the gangsters, Hyoe backs down and turns Miya over to the Negoro and their masters. 

Rikka, having befriended the helpless fugitive, defies her grandfather's authority and swears to rescue Miya. To this end, Rikka dons a special costume far from the usual attire of the cinematic ninja, seen only briefly in the opening credits-- a fairly sporty outfit, crowned with a black fox-mask. She probably only wears the mask for about ten full minutes during the action-packed climax, but it looks good, and at least is a great improvement on the bizarre costumes worn by the so-called "ninjas" of the NARUTO manga.

The climax has a few too many irons in the fire, as we're quickly introduced to the bosses behind the Negoro, and the strange development that the Negoro, for reasons unclear to me, suddenly decide to throw in with Rikka against their former employers. Far less surprising is the revelation that Miya's father did not die in the raid, and that in truth he always planned to exploit his daughter as a living weapon. The shock of seeing her father alive again throws Miya into a fugue state, and he even manages to turn Miya against her own rescuer. However, in tried-and-true sentimental fashion, Rikka is able to appeal to female friendship to snap Miya back to normal.

Though few of the male characters are that important, only Miya's father is a flat-out villain. Hyoe compromises with the Negoro because he wants to save his clan, while one of the conspirators is openly disgusted at the father having turned his own daughter into a lab rat. Chihiro Yamamoto provides most of the physical action and the heavy emoting, but the script is noteworthy for including small bits of character-business that keep everything from seeming overly predictable.