1968 | Japan | Fiction

Kill! (Kiru)

  • Japanese English, German 114 mins
  • Director | Kihachi Okamoto
  • Writer | Kihachi Okamoto, Akira Murao, Shûgorô Yamamoto
  • Producer | Tomoyuki Tanaka

STATUS: Released

This film is currently not available.   

In this pitch-black action comedy by Kihachi Okamoto, a pair of down-on-their-luck swordsmen arrive in a dusty, windblown town, where they become involved in a local clan dispute. One, previously a farmer, longs to become a noble samurai. The other, a former samurai haunted by his past, prefers living anonymously with gangsters. But when both men discover the wrongdoings of the nefarious clan leader, they side with a band of rebels who are under siege at a remote mountain cabin. Based on the same source novel as Akira Kurosawa’s Sanjuro, Kill! playfully tweaks samurai film convention, borrowing elements from established chanbara classics and seasoning them with a little Italian western.

Samurai Betrayal Violence Honor Satire
Film Organizations
The Criterion Collection
DISTRIBUTION