Another entertaining little gem?
Killer’s Mission is about a samurai ordered by the governement to stop foreigners selling fire weapons to rebels. To achieve his mission, the samurai has some tricks on his own.
This pre-Lone Wolf & Cub exploitation chambara obviously features bloody fights & weird nice ideas. Not as well executed as the aforementioned film (director Ozawa, known for The Street Fighter, is no Misumi), but still fun, with the Wolf himself playing the lead role!
Take a look at the artistic cuban poster for Killer’s Mission (which was released over there under the title “Sangrienta busqueda de la paz”, loosely translated by “The Bloody Quest for Peace”).
If needed, the film was only released in Germany on DVD, hence the german dub for this trailer (yep, it’s kind-of strange… the lead character even has a chinese name – “Ling Fung”). Hopefully, the disc includes an uncut full screen english subbed version, it’s better than nothing! FYI, the german title Das glorreiche Schwert seems to mean The Glorious Sword.
Also, there’s a sequel, Fort of Death, directed the same year by Eiichi Kudo (from 13 Assassins), this looks even better but it wasn’t released anywhere on DVD – a subbed print from the Japan Foundation was screened at the Venice Film Festival ’07, too bad it looks like it’s now taking dust somewhere…).
AKA Shokin kasegi