Shogunate

Dai-bosatsu toge – AKA The Sword of Doom

Release Date: 25 January 1966 (Japan)
Director: Kihachi Okamoto
Genre: Period Drama/Samurai

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The Sword of Doom is a celebrated classic of the period drama/samurai style and an example of the high caliber of film making in this genre during the 1960s. Although flawed by its unfinished ending and absence of intended sequels, the film is a justifiable favorite of Japanese cinema lovers.

The unusual story of ‘Sword of Doom follows Ryunosuke Tsukue, an masterfully skilled swordsman with a unique and seemingly unbeatable style. Ryunosuke, after killing a man in a non lethal duel, is forced to leave his home. He ends up joining a group of disreputable ronin who are devoted to keeping the Tokugawa Shogunate in power. He makes his way through life, killing whom ever gets in his way without a trace of remorse. Things come to a head when a power struggle erupts in the ronin gang and the brother of the man he killed in the duel seeks him out for revenge.

The Sword of Doom is filmed in striking black in white, with the contrast turned way up. The entire film is a master class in shadow and light, with people and objects either engulfed by darkness or glowing with illumination.

The movie includes some beautiful, if usually brief, shots making use of a stunning sense of symmetry, such as the iconic image of Ryunosuke standing beyond a trail bodies in the mist of the forest. Cinematography and specifically shot composition and position, are elevated to a very fine art in ‘Sword of Doom. While most of us are not concerned with the micro details of composition, we can all appreciate such masterful cinematography on some level, even if we don’t have the lexicon to describe it.

‘Sword of Doom is unusual in that the protagonist is, on the whole, a completely unlikeable and actually villainous character. His opponents are the good men, the righteous men. Ryunosuke cannot even fit the role of anti hero. This is a man whose own father asks that he should be killed.

It is this unusual perspective that makes The Sword of Doom special among the group of widely known 60s period dramas to which it belongs.

The various grand scenes of slaughter (they can only be described as such) are some of the best of the classic samurai films. The forest ambush, taking place after the duel, is a spectacular one sided match. The fight has an incredible cinematic sensibility, with Ryunosuke holding dramatic post-strike poses in the mist and cutting down the crowd of attackers with ease.

Later in the film there is the famous winter assassination scene, where Ryunosuke watches in silence and perhaps for the first time in his life, fear, as the band of ronin he’s with are ripped apart by master swordsman Toranosuke Shimada. This is the first and only time we see Ryunosuke afraid and unwilling to fight. It’s also the point where Shimada delivers that most memorable quote: “The sword is the soul. Study the soul to know the sword. Evil mind, evil sword.”

But the finale, the fight between Ryunosuke and the endless crowd of ronin, tends to drag on and frankly, we’ve seen this before. The entire sequence is, at least for the reviewer, extremely reminiscent of Harakiri’s finale and not as well staged, choreographed or simply as interesting. The ‘Sword of Doom scene lasts for 7 minutes while Ryunosuke kills approximately 70 ronin.

The infamously abrupt ending is the one major disappointment in ‘Sword of Doom. The film was intended to be the first in a trilogy, with the massive conflicts so well set up in the first movie being resolved in the following two. But, those films were never made and so we are left with an unsatisfactory and frustrating ending that effectively removes much of the film from relevance.

It is a painfully cruel robbery that the ultimate conflict between Ryunosuke and Shimada, which was so dramatically set up in the winter assassination scene, never takes place. Similarly, the impending duel between Ryunosuke and Uzuki Hyoma, which has been building for nearly the entire movie, never happens.

The level of suspense which is forged to such a sharp point throughout the film, is dropped in a shockingly abrupt way and without so much as an afterward. The conclusion of the film was, on the whole, a frustrating and disappointing experience.

The Sword of Doom will forever be samurai favorite, for its striking visuals, unique perspective and incredible – if one sided – martial contests.The quality of what came before far out weighs the let down of the film’s finale, but the unfinished ending remains an unmistakable blemish on the rest of ‘Sword of Doom.

8/10