just watch it!

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The year is 1860 and Japan is in a very unstable place. A time when the 300 year rule of the Shogunate was drawing to a close, an event which would simultaneously bring Imperialism to Japan and cause the death of the Samurai age. This is the setting of Samurai Assassin, a highly complicated, and character driven Chambara film that is shot in brilliant black and white. It also features one of Toshiro Mifune's best performances, as well as an astounding ending battle sequence that's just too cool for words.Mifune plays Niiro Tsuruchiyo, a master-less samurai who joins forces with the multiple clans against the Lord of Hikone, Sir Li Kamonnokami Naosuke. Li is the right hand of the shogunate and brought upon himself the wrath of the Satsuma, Mito, and Choshuu provinces after making an unpopular choice for the appointment of the 14th shogunate. Many critics arouse after the controversial appointment, and Li initiated the Ansei Purge to quiet critics of his choices. This in turn, lead to an assassination plot hatched by the three provinces in order to remove Li from his position of power. Here enters Mifune, who wants to help the clans, in order to become a samurai of the Mito house. If that's not enough, the clans have their own problems too trying to weed Li's spies out of the plot. Which results in a film full of intrigue, espionage, underhanded dealings, and of course assassinations. If all this sounds complicated...it's because it is.Looking past the intricate plot of Samurai Assassin and the film is basically a detailed character study of Mifune's Niiro. Much of the film deals with his mysterious past and is told through flashbacks, both as first hand accounts and through investigative processes headed by the clan who is trying to distinguish the followers from the spies. This serves as both a negative and a positive for Assassin. While it helps develop Mifune's character (and he's excellent as always), it also slows the film to a tedious pace. Also hidden in Niiro's past is a long story of forbidden love. The films first hour concerns itself mostly with these issues, while the second half slowly builds to an incredibly brutal finale. Bottom line- Samurai Assassin takes it's time to get where it's going, but when it arrives at its destination it redeems the films minor shortcomings. The finale is a brutal scene filmed in swirling clouds of snow and features an dizzying, blood soaked, action packed conclusion sure to satisfy any Chambara fan.

A first-class film that excels in script, cinematography and acting. It is difficult to name a lot of films that are so well conceived of and executed. The plot is amazing and the twists are well-crafted. The narrator seems an imposition at the start but as the film progresses it only adds to the mood. I found the movement (pace) of the film delightful, juxtaposed between the swift and the languid. Of course, for most of us outside the idiom of Japanese cinema the acting maybe described as melodramatic, but that's pretty much the norm there. And how can anyone not comment on the film's last scene - the snow, the blood, the twist of fate, the camera moves like an assassin itself. I highly recommend it.

Samurai Assassin is a complicated story but easier to follow than director Okomoto's excellent Sword of Doom made a year later. While it is clear that the band of assassins is seeking revenge on an official for an earlier purge on the assassins' clans, we never learn about the original reasons for their enmity. Historically, the disagreements concerned relations with foreign countries who were seeking to open up Japan to trade, but this is never alluded to in the film. The driving forces of the story, and they are good ones, are Niino's (Mifune) ambition to achieve full samurai rank and the paranoia of the leaders of the assassin band. These two forces interact nicely as the plot unfolds. Eijiro Tono (the innkeeper who befriends Mifune in Yojimbo) does his usual terrific job as the merchant who helped raise Niino and tries to protect him from meeting a tragic fate. Highly recommended for samurai and Mifune fans.

Everything about this movie is powerful! The acting, the direction, the music and the cinematography are Japanese cinema at its best! I usually don't like narration but the narration in this film is awesome. The only thing I can compare it to is the sound of an Uzi being fired! Mifune, at his best, conveys brilliantly the complexities of the samurai/ronin mentality! The film moves frantically through time! Sometimes it is hard to tell past from present but the entire production is so well done that it all makes perfect sense if you just pay attention! This is one of the most brutal Japanese films I have ever seen. The final confrontation takes place in a snow storm and the comparison between the softly falling snow and the bloody battle it is falling on is chilling and surreal! Unlike some of these older films the transfer to video is clear as a bell with easy to read (if a bit hurried) subtitles.