Movies - The Sword of Doom

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	Movies - The Sword of Doom

The Sword of Doom, known in Japan as Dai-bosatsu tōge (大菩薩峠) (Daibosatsu Pass), is a samurai movie released in 1966. It was directed by Kihachi Okamoto and stars Tatsuya Nakadai.

Story

The story follows the life of Ryunosuke Tsukue (Tatsuya Nakadai), an amoral samurai and a master swordsman with an unorthodox style. Ryunosuke is first seen when he kills an elderly Buddhist pilgrim for no reason and with no apparent feeling. Later, he deliberately kills an opponent in a fencing competition that was intended to be non-lethal. This latter act forces him to leave his home town, but not before he fights his way through an ambush, killing perhaps a dozen samurai in the process. To make a living, Ryunosuke joins a band of rogue samurai who travel the country committing assassinations to promote their political agenda. Through all his interactions, whether killing a man or at home with his mistress and their baby son, Ryunosuke rarely shows any emotion. His expression is fixed in a glassy stare that suggests a quiet insanity.

Eventually Ryunosuke learns that the younger brother of the man he killed in the fencing match is looking for him, intent on revenge. He plans to meet this young man and kill him, but before the duel can take place, two events occur that shake his confidence. In a botched assassination attempt, he sees another master samurai, Shimada Takahashi (Toshiro Mifune), in action, and for the first time he doubts that his own skill is truly unbeatable. That same night, Ryunosuke's mistress, horrified by his unremitting evil, tries to kill him in his sleep. He kills her, and flees without keeping his appointment to duel with his pursuer. Later he rejoins the gang of assassins at a geisha house. There, in a quiet (and he is told, haunted) room, he starts seeing the ghosts of all the people he has killed. Further, he is haunted by the words of Takahashi: "The sword is the soul. Study the soul to know the sword. An evil soul is an evil sword."

At this point Ryunosuke appears to descend into complete insanity. He starts slashing at the shadows of the ghosts that surround him, and then begins attacking his fellow assassins, who seem to number in the hundreds. In one of the longest and most famous sword fight scenes on film, Ryunosuke kills countless gang members in the burning geisha house as they gradually wear him down with what few wounds they can inflict. Finally it appears that Ryunosuke will surely be killed; bleeding and staggering, his face contorted in berserker rage, he lurches forward, raises his sword once more, and the film ends; a freeze-frame catching Ryunosuke/Nakadai in mid sword-slash.

The abrupt end to the film leaves many aspects of its plot unresolved. The movie only shows part of the story from the long serialized novel it was based on, and the rest of the plot was meant to be shown in further sequels which were never filmed. In spite of this, the movie stands on its own as a compelling story, a visually beautiful film, and an intriguing allegory about the consequences of using a great power for evil purposes.

Trivia

The famous final fight scene lasts for the final seven minutes of the film. In that fight, Ryunosuke is seen slaughtering approximately seventy gang members.

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