| Ogami is hired to kill a tattooed female assassin,
but the job is not as straightforward as it seems. Meanwhile,
Gunbei Yagyu, disgraced by Ogami in a duel before the Shogun,
happens upon Ogami's son Daigoro, and sees his chance for revenge.
In the end, Ogami will have to defeat a horde of Yagyu warriors
before he can face his arch enemy, Retsudo Yagyu!
Samurai movie starring Tomisaburo Wakayama,
Akihiro Tomikawa, and Yoichi Hayashi.
Directed by Buichi Saito.
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HEROIC-CINEMA'S REVIEW:
This is the first film I've seen that starts with a
nipple. I've mentioned this fact to a few people, and the response
has overwhelmingly been "So what?" No-one else has been
at all impressed, and it seems that I've been watching all the
wrong films. Apparently it's nipples-a-go-go out there in
cinema-land, and everyone's off to see the latest Kurosawa Nipple
Retrospective, leaving me alone in my nippleless wilderness.
Be that as it may, the aforementioned nipple works well as an
opener. The camera pans back to show us the tattoo around
the nipple, and that the nipple is attached to a fearsome female
fighter stripped to the waist, despatching a couple of blokes with
her flashing blade. This is fairly uncommon behaviour even now,
and I for one was all aquiver to see what came next. Why the
tattoo? Why the flashing blade? Why was she flashing her nipples
about, if for any other reason than that she was mighty proud of
some fine tattoo work?
Yes, dear reader, we do indeed find the answers to these
questions, and more. The fearsome female in question, Oyuki, is
bent on revenge after her honour was sullied, and had herself
tattooed to put fear into the hearts of her enemies.The sullier is
the son of a noble family whose head hired her to teach martial
arts skills, and Oyuki keeps herself occupied carving up his
minions, and waiting for the man himself.
Enter Itto Ogami, our baby cart-pushing hero, who gets hired by
the family to put an end to Oyuki. In his quest to find her, he
visits the tattoo artist, and we're treated to a fine display of
traditional Japanese tattoo art. He also visits her father, who
tells the sad story and throws himself on Ogami's mercy, in a
subtle and entirely unstated (to Western eyes) way. Our
poker-faced hero now has to fulfill his commission to kill Oyuki,
and still somehow stay within his own code of honour.
How he manages this, and the eventual fate of Oyuki, I shan't
reveal, save to say that it brought a tear to my eye. I didn't get
long to savour that moment, however, as Ogami is beset by about a
hundred minions of the Yagyu clan, who were responsible for his
fall into outlawry. At this point, he loses his poker-face, and
actually shows some emotion. Well, does some grimacing and
shouting, which is probably justifiable under the circumstances.
Overall, this is a film that has blood, sweat, and tears, as
well as a baby in a box and a fine set of nipples.
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