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Owls' Castle (梟の城　 Fukurō no Shiro) is a 1999 Japanese ninja-themed film written by Masahiro Shinoda and Katsuo Naruse and directed by Masahiro Shinoda. It is a remake of the 1963 film Castle of Owls, based on Ryotaro Shiba's 1959 novel under the same name. The film starred Kiichi Nakai, Takaya Kamikawa, Mayu Tsuruta and Riona Hazuki in the main roles. The music for the film was composed by Jōji Yuasa.

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Summary

As the great military commander Nobunaga Oda was consolidating his power across Japan, one of his actions was to wipe out a clan of assassins, killing every man, woman and child he found in the village. Years later, one of the survivors has hired a young but skilled assassin to avenge the deaths of his friends and family. His mission: To sneak into the most heavily guarded castle in Japan, and kill the supreme ruler of the country.
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Cast

Kiichi Nakai as Jūzō Tsuzura
Takaya Kamikawa as Gohei Kazama
Mayu Tsuruta as Kohagi
Riona Hazuki as Kisaru
Mako Iwamatsu as Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Jinpachi Nezu as Hattori Hanzō
Kinnosuke Hannayagi as Ishida Mitsunari

Owls' Castle (1999) - Full cast and crew (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275362/fullcredits#cast)

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Awards

Nikkan Sports Film Awards: Ishihara Yujiro Award (1999).
Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival: Best Director - Masahiro Shinoda (2000).
Japanese Academy Awards: Best Art Direction - Yoshinobu Nishioka (2000). The film also received nine Japanese Academy Award nominations.
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Speaking of the film, I found this interesting and accurate analysis on IMDb:

Shiba Rytoaro is a historic novelist. The reason why ninjas in this movie don't make use of James Bond gadgets to make their way through booby-trap castles and end the story in a big explosion is because this movie isn't the 2001 ninja-flop Aka Kage, and those things never happened. Don't give me the They-totally-messed-up-history-in-the-Gladiator-but-still-made-a-Russel-Cro we-movie-out-of-it look, Shiba Ryotaro's work is interesting because it is historically plausible. That said, the amount of action they did manage to put in the movie is realistically good. Realistic is the key word, because ninjas really did exist, so why don't you give them a break for once and try to look at them for what they were. This isn't about turtles living in the gutters, nor kids left home alone. I know it's hard to imagine, but these people were real, and that's why this movie deserves to be watched. The color palette of the movie is really beautiful, and the action is shot seriously--they actually had a mercenary choreograph the hand to hand combat scenes, he wasn't a fancy martial arts expert, but he did know how to kill people. Nakai Kiitsu is adequately stoic as the survivor of a clan, determined to assassinate Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Mako's cunning eyes and sneer recreate the crafty strategist who unified Japan.

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And finally I found another good view of the film, check out:

Stop My Suffering: Owl's Castle (http://xmonsterhunter.blogspot.mx/2010/12/owls-castle.html)

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For me this film is an excellent representative of the ninja theme because it presents the mysterious figure of the shinobi to us without exaggerations and very realistic in its historical context. I widely recommend you this movie, because it belongs to historical film, in addition to having other good details, as the mixture of colors and background music. Here you can look at a scene from the movie showing the true Ninjutsu:

Owl's castle 1999 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su_k0GxWBtg)

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Talking about the soundtrack, since I watched the movie I realized its particular beauty and when I looked for the original soundtrack I found that it has not been published yet. So I made the extraction and edition of the sound, looking for the balance, as to narrate in sound the plot of the movie. Fortunately thanks to the suitable material provided to me by a friend, the treatment of the music was successful, and the result was that I got a good unreleased soundtrack, that now I can share with all of you for the first time on the Internet, because this work has not been published till now.

This soundtrack is a rarity because the film is little known in America, and still more his composer Jōji Yuasa. In addition to that the movie belongs to the art cinema, characteristic the last one that turns it not so commercially. In conclusion, in my opinion the best musical themes are: The Castle of Owls, Displays of loyalty, Cross destinies, Acrobats' circus, Song of the stranger, Allies of the night, Master of illusions, Silent mind, Dark demon (One of the best for me), Promise of life and The Goemon execution. Well, I leave you with the soundtrack.

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42 tracks - mp3 (320 kbps) - Size (159.74 MB)

DepositFiles (http://depositfiles.org/files/ls2atpwvj)

Track List

01 Camouflage
02 The Castle of Owls
03 Displays of loyalty
04 Hidden plans
05 The lost ninja (Tsuzura Juzo)
06 Blood memories
07 Malignant augury
08 Forest (FX)
09 Village (FX)
10 Crossed destinations
11 Dangerous path (FX)
12 Calmness (FX)
13 A little happiness
14 Acrobats' circus (FX)
15 Shadows on the lookout
16 Kazama Gohei (Ishikawa Goemon)
17 Song of the stranger
18 Offering
19 The japanese circus (FX)
20 Allies of the night
21 Deception
22 Master of illusions
23 Silent mind
24 Face from the past
25 Incidental music
26 Incidental music
27 Assassination
28 Invasion of Korea
29 Incidental music
30 Incidental music
31 Attack against Hideyoshi
32 Koga counterattack (FX)
33 Dark demon
34 Curative refuge
35 Mortal entrusted
36 Promise of life
37 At the edge of the night
38 Confusion
39 Juzo vs Gohei
40 Dungeon of madness
41 The Goemon's execution
42 End Credits (The future of Ninjutsu)

Total Time: 1 hr 4 min 33 sec

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Enjoy the music!!!

Hello, I hope you have enjoyed the soundtrack, although I know that it is not a film known as the case of Ninja Assassin or other similar movies that are more commercial. I have been looking for any link so that you can download the movie and complete more my post, in fact that was the idea, but I have not found in any site. As far as I know, the movie has no dubbing into other languages and is subtitled in english and korean only. Hopefully someone finds it and upload the link here, so that everyone can know as great film of the ninja theme. I invite you to make that contribution of being possible, thanks a lot.

Re-up please

Re-up please

Of course, I will upload the soundtrack again in the next days.

The file is ready to be downloaded again. Enjoy the music!!!

You've put a lot of work into creating this interesting, eerie and very Japanese OST, thank you. For me it is a fascinating period in Japanese history when the Big Three unified Japan over 400 years ago.

It seems Yuasa is still alive and in his mid-80s and this must be his last film soundtrack.

You've put a lot of work into creating this interesting, eerie and very Japanese OST, thank you. For me it is a fascinating period in Japanese history when the Big Three unified Japan over 400 years ago.

It seems Yuasa is still alive and in his mid-80s and this must be his last film soundtrack.


Thanks a lot for your comment. I also love that period of Japanese history, and the ninja is one of the best warriors of the war history. What I like about this film is the realism to tell the story. Ninjas in this movie are more real than those shown in other films. Also I liked the scenery. Some themes of this soundtrack are great masterpieces of music about Ninjutsu, like the tracks of "The castle of owls", "Hidden Plans", "Malignant Augury", "Allies of the night", "Koga Counterattack" and "The Goemon's execution". The best track for me is "Dark Demon". That theme is amazing!!! And respect to this soundtrack, apparently does not exist anywhere. Getting the Japanese DVD to extract the music was an act of magic, and I mean it literally: Pure magic. But that is my secret... Je, je, je... Enjoy the music, my friend!!!

thanks a lo vlad

Thanks!