The Sword of Doom
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| The Sword of Doom | |
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| Directed by | Kihachi Okamoto |
| Produced by | Sanezumi Fujimoto Kaneharu Minamizato Masayuki Sato |
| Written by | Shinobu Hashimoto, from a novel by Kaizan Nakazato |
| Starring | Tatsuya Nakadai, Yuzo Kayama, Michiyo Aratama, Toshirô Mifune |
| Music by | Masaru Satô |
| Release date(s) | 1966 |
| Running time | 119 min |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Sword of Doom (大菩薩峠 Dai-bosatsu tōge?, "The Pass of the Great Buddha"), is a jidaigeki movie released in 1966. It was directed by Kihachi Okamoto and stars Tatsuya Nakadai.
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[edit] Story
The story follows the life of Ryunosuke Tsukue (Tatsuya Nakadai), an amoral samurai and a master swordsman with an unorthodox style. Ryunosuke is first seen when he kills an elderly Buddhist pilgrim for no reason and with no apparent feeling. Later, he deliberately kills an opponent in a fencing competition that was intended to be non-lethal. This latter act forces him to leave his home town, but not before he fights his way through an ambush, killing perhaps a dozen samurai in the process. To make a living, Ryunosuke joins the Shinsengumi, a sort of semi-official police force comprised of ronin that supports the Tokugawa shogunate through murder and assassinations. Through all his interactions, whether killing a man or at home with his mistress and their baby son, Ryunosuke rarely shows any emotion. His expression is fixed in a glassy stare that suggests a quiet insanity.
Eventually Ryunosuke learns that the younger brother of the man he killed in the fencing match is looking for him, intent on revenge. He plans to meet this young man and kill him, but before the duel can take place, two events occur that shake his confidence. In a botched assassination attempt, he sees another master samurai, Shimada Takahashi (Toshiro Mifune), in action, and for the first time he doubts that his own skill is truly unbeatable. That same night, Ryunosuke's mistress, horrified by his unremitting evil, tries to kill him in his sleep. He kills her, and flees without keeping his appointment to duel with his pursuer. Later he rejoins the gang of assassins at a geisha house. There, in a quiet (and he is told, haunted) room, he starts seeing the ghosts of all the people he has killed. Further, he is haunted by the words of Takahashi: "The sword is the soul. Study the soul to know the sword. An evil soul is an evil sword."
At this point Ryunosuke appears to descend into complete insanity. He starts slashing at the shadows of the ghosts that surround him, and then begins attacking his fellow assassins, who seem to number in the hundreds. In one of the longest (seven minutes) and most famous sword fight scenes on film, Ryunosuke kills countless gang members in the burning geisha house as they gradually wear him down with what few wounds they can inflict. Finally it appears that Ryunosuke will surely be killed; bleeding and staggering, his face contorted in berserker rage, he lurches forward, raises his sword once more, and the film ends; a freeze-frame catching Ryunosuke/Nakadai in mid sword-slash.
[edit] Ending
The film's abrupt ending leaves many aspects of its plot unresolved. The reason is that the film is an adaptation of only one part of the long serialized novel that it was based on. The filmmakers intended to complete the story in later sequels, but these were never made.
[edit] Trivia
- Ryunosuke's swordfighting technique was Kogen Itto-ryu.
- Some of the characters in the group that Ryunosuke joins are actual historical figures.
