Kill! (1968)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Kill!  (1968) – K. Okamoto

This is not your ordinary chanbara/samurai film – the plot seems the same (rogue samurai inserts himself into a political struggle and rights wrongs) but the action is often played for laughs rather than (or in addition to) something more serious.  Tatsuya Nakadai, so often the righteous hero, is instead a rather sly (though outwardly tramp-like) ex-samurai who helps those who need it while also fooling (and occasionally killing) those who seek to exert power wrongfully. Etsushi Takahashi plays a country bumpkin who wants to be a samurai but ends up assisting Nakadai, although ostensibly working for the other side. The source novel is by Shûgorô Yamamoto who also wrote the one used for Kurosawa’s Sanjuro (1962), a not dissimilar film (also with comedic elements).  I suppose the only drawback is that the plot seems rather overly convoluted and the many different characters are not always easily clear in terms of their role in the story.  Yet, Nakadai with his gentle ease and surprising comic presence carries the film.  That said, it wouldn’t be the same without Masaru Satô’s quirky spaghetti western-like soundtrack and Rokurô Nishigaki’s eye-catching widescreen cinematography.