Perhaps it is one of the great ironies in the career of Japanese director Kihachi Okamoto that a film he was forced to do was going to be his most memorable one. In a filmography consisting of titles such as “Samurai Assassin” (1965), “Kill!” (1968) and “The Human Bullet” (1968), the director’s 1966-film “The Sword of Doom” stands out as one of the bleakest jidaigeki movies. Based on the novel “Daibosatsu toge” by Kaizan Nakazato, which had already inspired many adaptations, for example, one by “Lone Wolf and Cub”-director Kenji Misumi, Kihachi Okamoto made a film which reflected the trends of the Japanese film industry of that time but is also one of the most interesting portrayals of a man, a world consumed by violence and madness.
At the center of the film, we have Ryunosuke Tsukue (Tatsuya Nakadai), a master swordsman wandering the country, and his life...
At the center of the film, we have Ryunosuke Tsukue (Tatsuya Nakadai), a master swordsman wandering the country, and his life...
- 10/29/2019
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
The list of great samurai films is long and it would probably consume a person's entire lifetime if they were to seek them all out in an attempt to satisfy any measure of a comprehensive list. Several of the known greats I have yet to see and most likely those that are new to the genre will start in the most obvious of places, that being the films of Akira Kurosawa, most specifically Seven Samurai and then probably Yojimbo, two films that will certainly be included on my Best Movies list before all is said and done along with several others, but as I said, the list is long. That said, I didn't want my first samurai entry on my Best Movies list to be an entirely obvious one, though fans of samurai films will no doubt be familiar with Kihachi Okamoto's The Sword of Doom. The first film...
- 5/30/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
We open on a mountaintop. An elderly man (Kamatami Fujiwara) and his granddaughter (Yoko Naito) emerge. He tells her the Buddhist origins of the lands surrounding them. They stop to rest and eat their lunch before beginning their downhill descent. The granddaughter, whose name is Omatsu, goes to find water. The elderly man prays for death so that his granddaughter will be happy and “no longer a pilgrim”. Suddenly, a deep voice calls out “old man”. He turns around and sees a man in black garb, his hat covering his face, smoke all around him. He approaches the elderly man and tells him to step forward and look to the west. The elderly man realizes what is about to happen, but before he can elicit a response; he is struck down with his wish cruelly fulfilled. The murderer is a samurai named Ryunosuke Tsukue (Tatsuya Nakadai), and he is The Sword of Doom’s protagonist.
- 6/12/2011
- by Catherine Stebbins
- CriterionCast
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