This fantastic samurai thriller from Okamoto Kihachi stars Nakadai Tatsuya (Harakiri) as a merciless, amoral samurai, who wanders the land murdering and taking advantage of almost everyone he meets, while displaying little or no emotion throughout.

When a woman (Aratama Michiyo) approaches him, begging that he let her husband win in a duel planned for the following day, Ryunosuke agrees, if she agrees to sleep with him. When it comes to the duel, the husband has discovered his wife’s infidelity and tries to kill his opponent. The husband loses, and Ryunosuke flees, murdering many of the dead husband’s clansmen in the process and taking his wife along in tow.

This sets in motion a chain of events that culminate in a fantastic finale, pitting our antihero against seemingly hundereds of assassins in a crazed swordfight to the death. Nakadai gives a chilling performance as the evil samurai, whose confidence is dented when he encounters Mifune Toshiro’s superior skills. Okamoto also makes great use of splitscreen photography throughout the film, developing adventurous ways of framing his action both inside the enclosed spaces of oiran houses or in some beautifully staged outdoor action.