Nearing the height of his career, Mifune stars alongside Tatsuya Nakadai in a film about a wandering samurai Ryunosuke (Nakadai) whose remorseless killing leaves a trail of enemies chasing behind him. After a botched assassination attempt puts him face-to-face with the more experienced swordsman Shimada (Mifune), Ryunosuke’s confidence is shaken as he descends into madness throughout the final bloody act of this film. (Kihachi Okamoto, Japan, 1966, 121 min., b&w) In Japanese with English subtitles
Introduced by Nathan Badenoch, Villanova University
