The student riots against the revised U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in 1960, treated by Oshima and others, are here projected back in time to the early seventeenth century; the "students" are children of the road, orphaned by civil wars, engaged in guerrilla warfare against not only the Tokugawa faction but all official indecision and capitulation. Kinnosuke Nakamura is transfixing as the hero Sasuke, whose eyes glow electric blue when he is reading someone's mind, a psychic power that both elevates and isolates him among the disillusioned youth that are the subject of this film. It also allows him to meet on an equal basis the famous ninja, Hanzo Hattori. Kato's playfully avant-garde treatment incorporates street theater and music, dance and swordplay, magic and anachronism, to show these youths as somewhere between Peter Pan and the Red Brigade, with dual mottos: "Rules are jewels for fools," and "To stake your life on something is to find meaning." (JB)