House of Ninjas (Netflix series, 2024)
House of Ninjas is a pretty great Japanese series that successfully mixes martial arts with family drama, and some mystery, romance and humor too.
I often tell you, dear readers, that I have a soft spot for a certain genre, like film noir, or anything that can be vaguely described as Hitchcockian.
To counter this,I’ve never really cared for the martial arts genre. I like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and perhaps some old Bruce Lee movies. But other than that, not so much. I did however notice the break-out success of the recent Netflix-hit The Brothers Sun, that mixes family drama with martial arts, and thought it was quite good.
House of Ninjas is made by a different team, but it follows a similar path of mixing martial arts with family drama. And I must say that I’m impressed.
Shinobi no le, as it is called in Japanese, tells the story of the highly disfunctional Tawara family, who are basically the last ninja (or: shinobi) clan around.
These proud warriors, who did their best (and often most murderous) work in the shadows of Japanese society, have given up the game after the tragic death in battle of the eldest son, Gaku (Kengo Kôra), reducing themselves to a life of mundane normalcy.
Second son, Haru (Kento Kaku), doesn’t want to be part of the family business anymore, choosing a life of loneliness for himself.
Haru’s father Souichi (Yôsuke Eguchi), a direct descendant to the legendary Hattori Hanzo, just wants to run the family sake brewery, while on the other hand, his mother Yoko (Tae Kimuri) takes her frustrations out on the local supermarket, stealing all she can. His sister Nagi (Aju Mikati) claims she is only good for one thing: being a shinobi. In a sense they all wish they had their old life back.
One of the comic traits of the series, which is often funnier than you might expect, is the role of the grandmother Taki (Nobuko Miyamoto), who moves through the family house unseen and knows how to communicate through silence.
The pacing is a bit slow in the beginning of the series. However, when the family is called back into action by the Bureau of Ninja Management, right when the country is in the middle of the biggest crisis it has ever encountered, they come back to life like only true ninjas can.
The action scenes are a lot of fun, while the family drama is strong, because the characters are convincingly drawn, so they don’t feel like cardboard cut-outs, but like real people that we start to care about over the course of the first few episodes.
The story also involves some detective work, by Haru and his new journalist friend (and potential love interest) Karen, while Nagi hones her skills as an art thief, Souichi hires a mysterious new employee based on a liking of a similar color green, and Mother Yoko is roped in as a field agent by the aforementioned Ninja Management Team. It all adds to the depth of this multi-layered series.
The music choices in the series are also quite unusual. The (violent) opening is set to the beatific sounds of Our House by Crosby, Stills and Nash, a contrast which some might find jarring, but which hooked me in immediately. I also like the way it is shot and the use of bright colors to liven up potentially dark scenes.
This eight-part drama series was developed and directed by Dave Boyle - an American filmmaker who has studied Japanese - working from a story by Kento Kaku, Yoshiaki Murao and Takafumi Imai.
If you enjoy series like Warrior and The Brothers Sun you will probably want to see this as well. If you didn’t, well, I think that like me, you could definitely give it a try!