Sword of Doom

Sword of Doom – Fans of chambara (Japanese sword-play films) regard Sword of Doom (Kihachi Okamoto -1965) as the ultimate exercise in this genre. If you are interested in seeing a sullen samurai cut down hundreds of enemies in picturesque surroundings, this is the film for you. Cognoscenti describe Sword of Doom as the chop-choppingest of all pictures of this type and I would not venture debate on this subject. Beautifully filmed, the picture details a series of murders and duels involving a nihilistic samurai, Ryunosake Tsuke. Ryunosake pointlessly kills a Buddhist monk on a high mountain pass, rapes a colleagues wife and, then, bludgeons that colleague to death in an exhibition duel that is supposed to be bloodless. Attacked by twenty members of the dead man’s family, he kills them all in a spectacular battle on a country lane. Ryunosake inherits the dead man’s disgraced wife, has a child with her, and, then, after she tries to stab him, butchers her. At the climax of the film, for reasons that are totally obscure, Ryunosake kills hundreds of assasins seemingly aligned with him in some sort of murky plot to murder the Shogun. This ludicrous and apocalyptic battle takes place in a blazing geisha house, covering acres of terrain with paper-clad walls perfect for slashing and falling through, lasts seven minutes, and concludes with a freeze-frame of the badly wounded Ryunosake lunging at the camera with his sword – having killed everyone else in sight, it seems that he is planning to massacre the camera crew, the sound man, and the film’s director as well. As if one supremely efficient killing machine were not enough, Okamoto brings in Toshiro Mifune as a noble swordsman who seems to be a foil to the savagely brutal Ryunosake. In the most stunningly choreographed combat sequence, Mifune’s character slaughters about thirty enemies who attack him in a snowstorm – this yields lots of picturesque shots of severed body parts and blood draining into the white of the newly fallen snow. The film feels badly thwarted. Everything is directed toward a duel between Mifune’s swordsman and Ryunosake. But the confrontation between the two men never occurs. (The film was projected as part of a trilogy – the other parts were never made.) Okamota stages the bravura swordfights in long takes so that the audience can appreciate all the balletic, if completely unrealistic, action. Typically, Ryunoake (or Mifune’s samurai in the snow scene) kills his opponents in groups of three – one man will lunge at him, miss his blow, be killed and, then, on the backstroke the virtuouso swordsman will slash the second guy to death; understandably cowed by the fate of his two friends, the third man, then, will lose heart, turn to flee, and be cut down from behind. The next group of three assailants is already cued up, docilely waiting to see the first cadre cut to pieces. Even before the last of the first trio bites the dust, the second group attacks with identical results. The mobs of attacking samurai obligingly wait their turn to be killed. The death-blows are delivered by slashes across the front or back of the body which certainly don’t seem anatomically configured to kill anyone – at most, these slashes would result in nasty gashes or lacerations. But true to the genre’s form, every touch of Ryunosake’s blade instantly kills, freezing the attacking man in a posture of motionless, grim agony – with a prolonged yelp, the human statues made by Ryonosake’s sword then collapse to the ground clearing the arena for the next group of hapless assassins. It’s totally ridiculous but, often, very beautiful, a kind of hyper-athletic, ultra-choreographed modern dance – equal in many ways to the best of Pina Bausch. The weird mechanics of the hundreds of killing – the super-fast slash across the front of the body – is mandated by the need to film these ballets in long, often tracking, shots. In the final combat, Okamoto indulges in a combination of long takes and very quick cutting, with subliminal close-ups emphasizing squirts of blood and gore. The final battle is supposed to be more brutal and realistic than the earlier fights but it’s so long and staggeringly protracted that the audience completely is unable to suspend its disbelief at the gory antics portrayed on the screen. Okamota uses the wide-screen brilliantly and the landscapes are stunning. But there’s no movie here, just a series of dance sequences involving men in kimonos carrying pointed sticks.