Kill!

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Kill!

Directed by	Kihachi Okamoto
Produced by	Tomoyuki Tanaka
Written by	Shugoro Yamamoto Akira Murao Kihachi Okamoto
Starring	Tatsuya Nakadai Etsushi Takahashi Naoko Kubo Shigeru Kôyama
Music by	Masaru Satô
Cinematography	Rokuro Nishigaki
Distributed by	Toho Company Ltd.
Release date(s)	June 22, 1968 (Japanese release)
Running time	115 min.
Language	Japanese
IMDb profile

Kill! (斬る, Kiru^?) is a 1968 film directed by Kihachi Okamoto, written by Akira Murao, Kihachi Okamoto, and Shugoro Yamamoto and starring Tatsuya Nakadai.

1 Cast
2 Synopsis
3 Trivia
4 External links

[edit] Cast

Tatsuya Nakadai .... Genta (Hyodo Yagenta)
Etsushi Takahashi .... Hanji (Hanjiro Tabata)
Naoko Kubo .... Tetsutaro Oikawa
Shigeru Kôyama .... Ayuzama
Akira Kubo .... Monnosuke Takei
Seishiro Kuno .... Daijiro Masataka
Tadao Nakamaru .... Shoda Magobei
Eijirô Tono .... Moriuchi Hiyogo
Isao Hashimoto .... Konosuke Fujii
Yoshio Tsuchiya .... Matsuo Shiroku

[edit] Synopsis

Tatsuya Nakadai stars as Genta, a former samurai who became disillusioned with the samurai lifestyle and left it behind to become a wandering yakuza (gang) member. He meets Hanjiro Tabata (Etsushi Takahashi) a farmer who wants to become a samurai to escape his powerless existence. Genta and Tabata wind up on opposite sides of clan intrigue when seven members of a local clan assassinate their chancellor. Although the seven, led by Tetsutaro Oikawa (Naoko Kubo) rebelled with the support of their superior, Ayuzama (Shigeru Kôyama), he turns on them and sends members of the clan to kill them as outlaws.

The film is a comically exaggerated exploration of what it is to be a samurai. The characters in the movie either give up samurai status or fight to attain it, and samurai are seen behaving both honorably and very badly. The film has a parodic tone, with numerous references to earlier samurai films.[1]

[edit] Trivia

Kill! is based on Shugoro Yamamoto's novel Peaceful Days, the same source as for Akira Kurosawa's Sanjuro.
The film shares some common scenes (for example, the beating scene) with Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, which was in turn inspired by Kurosawa's Yojimbo.