Samurai Assassin

Samurai Assassin

Theatrical poster for Samurai Assassin (1965)
Directed by Kihachi Okamoto
Produced by Toshirō Mifune
Reiji Miwa
Masao Suzuki
Tomoyuki Tanaka
Written by Jiromasa Gunji (story)
Shinobu Hashimoto
Starring Toshirō Mifune
Keiju Kobayashi
Michiyo Aratama
Yûnosuke Itō
Eijirō Tono
Tatsuyoshi Ehara
Tadao Nakamaru
Shiro Otsude
Yoshio Inaba
Akihiko Hirata
Eisei Amamoto
Ikio Sawamura
Music by Masaru Satō
Cinematography Hiroshi Murai
Editing by Yoshitami Kuroiwa
Distributed by Toho Company Ltd. (Japan)
Toho International Company Inc. (1966, USA)
Release date(s) January 3, 1965 (Japan)
March 5, 1965 (USA)
Running time 123 min.
Language Japanese

Samurai Assassin ( Samurai ?) is a 1965 Japanese movie directed by Kihachi Okamoto and starring Toshirō Mifune, Koshiro Matsumoto, Yunosuke Ito, and Michiyo Aratama.

Samurai Assassin is set in 1860, immediately before the Meiji Restoration changed Japanese society forever by doing away with the castes in society and reducing the position of the samurai class.

The film tells the story of Niiro Tsurichiyo (Mifune) as the illegitimate son of a powerful nobleman, and the way of his life that made him a swordfighter but also a social outcast. The film is based on a novel, which in turn was inspired by the historical Sakuradamon incident, in which the feudal lord Ii Naosuke was assassinated outside the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle.

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