KILL!
(Japanese Title: Kiru)(1968)
With Tatsuya Nakadai, Etsushi Takahashi, Naoko Kubo, Shigeru Koyama, Akira Kubo
Directed by Kihachi Okatamo
Black and White
Reviewed by JB
KILL! is reportedly based on the same
novel as Akira Kurosawa's SANJURO,
though you wouldn't know it at first
glance. Both films are arguably comedies, but Kurosawa's film
is gentler, swordplay and famous gush of climactic blood
aside, while Kihachi Okatamo's film is what
a samurai action flick crossed with a spaghetti western would be like
if
written and directed by Dick Lester. It is a
parody movie not in a throw everything at the wall and use it
all way like
Mel Brooks but in the way SCREAM
and SHAUN OF THE DEAD are parodies of horror films. Like
those movies, KILL! skillfully exaggerates the
elements of a genre while still being slick and well-plotted
enough
to stand on its own as an example of that genre. In his great
samurai films, Okatamo plays the clichés
close to the bone,
so that if you are not well-versed in these types of films, you may not even get the satire.
As best as I can describe it
after one
viewing, KILL! is about a group of seven
samurai sent out on an assassination mission only to be betrayed by the
warlord who sent them. Tatsuya Nakadai plays
a vagrant caught up in the betrayal and, having seen
it
happen before in his
former life as a samurai, attempts to nip things in the bud and save
the seven from an ignominious fate. Nakadai is marvelous in
the
role, as the hangdog ex-samurai who now prefers to keep company with
the lowlife yakuza.
His performance plays against Etsushi Takahashi's energetic
turn
as a poor farmer who longs to become a samurai. The two
characters cross paths throughout the film, and through plot
complications, the farmer finds himself dedicated to killing the
vagrant at first sight but always failing, sometimes accidentally
killing or maiming somebody else with his wayward sword.
Typical
of the humorous touches in this film, the farmer's loyalties get so
mixed up, at one point he happily finds himself with one group of
samurai before realizing that he really belongs to the opposing group
and making a hasty exit.. (A similar gag occurs in SANJURO,
when
a prisoner finds himself momentarily dancing for joy with his captures
of the news of a recent victory.)
As noted in other reviews in this
section as well as the Kurosawa
and Zatoichi
sections, the influence of Kurosawa films on American and Italian
westerns was soon reflected back, as the films that were once
influenced by Japan were now themselves leaving a mark on the samurai
films of the sixties. In KILL!, this is most noticeable in
the
score by famed composer Masaru Satô , who rose to fame through his work
with Kurosawa. Sato's themes, complete with wailing horns and
twangy electric guitars, lack even a hint of
Japanese flavor
and could almost be mistaken for lost Ennio Morricone outtakes.
The 1960s were a golden age of
superb,
intelligent black and white samurai movies that portrayed samurai not
as
godlike creatures of Japanese lore but as human beings, sometimes
sloppy and lazy (YOJIMBO, SANJURO), sometimes even evil and insane (SWORD OF DOOM), often taking
a
stand for themselves against their masters (SAMURAI REBELLION, HARA KIRI). KILL!, set in a
historical time when the lines between samurai, yakuza
and plain old working stiffs were increasingly blurred and easy to
cross, may be often hard to follow, but is certainly one of
the
best films of this particular period of Japanese cinema. 
- JB
http://thestuffyougottawatch.com
Copyright © 2010 John V. Brennan, John Larrabee