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This film’s a great bit of fun for fans of Japanese cinema, particularly the chambara genre — swordplay films set in period Japan. Kill! is a comedic take on the genre’s conventions, loosely based on the same source material as Akira Kurosawa’s film Sanjuro (Shugoro Yamamoto’s novel Peaceful Days).

Our two lead characters are the simple farmer who wants desperately to become a samurai, Hanji (played by Etsushi Takahashi), and a worldly samurai-turned-yakuza named Genta (played by Tatsuya Nakadai). … (read more)