Au-dessus de la loi

Sure Death was a very popular Japanese TV series and the film series came after many years of TV episode were aired. Unfortunately this film picks up as if it was another episode so unfamiliar audiences are really in a fix to understand what's going on.

The plot concerns the Sure Death crew (a motley group of undercover assassins) battling a mysterious plot to kill all assassins in the city of Edo. A sub-plot is about a prostitute hiring the team to kill her pimp. The Sure Death team are out gunned by the assassin killer so they join forces with other assassins in town.

The film is a combination of serious chambara action, absurd tongue-in-cheek humor and stylish film-making. Many of the fights are well done but suffer from a larger problem the entire film suffers. The 2 hour film is edited like a TV show that's trying to pad out the program. A good half-hour could have been edited out. While the settings are well designed and the shots are very well photographed, frequently I couldn't figure out what was happening. Story wise, it's very hard to figure out what's going on as the main characters are never introduced as the film makers assumed that their audience knew who they were already. The sub-plot stops dead about 40 minutes into the film and is discarded. Almost as if the producers combined two 1 hour episode ideas into one film. And the film goes on for ten slow minutes after the action climax is over!

While there are many excellent set pieces, the slow pacing, confusing story and TV show conventions really make this a film for Sure Death fans only.

You have a group of assassins that lead normal daily lives in a small town.. taking work as it comes, and otherwise, living in poor conditions. Then, they are threatened by another group of unknown assassins. They fight, movie ends.

Not gonna lie.. I was quite disappointed with my viewing and just wanted it to end after a while.

This feels like a somewhat aimless story with an underwritten script, or a side story to an existing show, where the character backgrounds actually matter. With a story that seems to lack a decent structure, exciting developments and a well planned groundwork to make any part of it compelling! With a lack of depth, music repeating noticeably, clashing tone of grim and silly.. There's little reason to recommend it, too.

The inspiration behind Sure Death (aka: Hissatsu!, 1984) was a popular 1970s' Japanese television show 'Hissatsu Shikake-Ni'. TV spin-offs characteristically carry over a good deal of baggage when they hit cinemas. Viewers come to them with expectations already firmly in place, while over-familiarity with the main characters mean that any drastic changes to the format involved are viewed with suspicion. There's also associated problems of opening up any small screen drama satisfactorily onto a larger canvas. Without access to the original shows, it is hard to tell exactly how Sadanaga's film compares to the original, although its weaknesses suggest that it indulged the home audience's familiar expectations at some expense of dramatic tension and logic.

The two-hour film concerns a group who are ostensibly respectable members of 19th century Japanese society, but who moonlight as assassins-for-hire, working to avenge injustice on the side. Threatening their pre-eminence now is the elusive mastermind 'Copper Coin' (so named after his habit of leaving these items in his victim's mouths) who, presumably, wants to secure a monopoly of Edo murder. The bulk of the film concerns the attempt of the good team to fight off the predations of the bad - either by recruiting new members or, as it turns out, relying upon their own special skills and courage to face up to the menace in an extended finale. A lot of this intrigue is spun out at rather a leisurely pace, with some digressions - notably the early, pathetic attempts by a young whore to find an avenger for her cat's death. Western viewers unfamiliar with the original will take a while to place the multiple characters in context, as they are introduced seemingly quite casually. This meandering exposition, the amount of padding, and lack of a true dramatic structure are the film's biggest problems.

Fortunately it is all helped by some very flattering cinematography and includes set ups a mile away from the modest, low budget origins of the piece. Sadanaga and his cinematographer have a good eye for composition and colour often, if not always, distracting the viewer from longueurs elsewhere. Some scenes, like the beheading viewed from overhead, exteriors, the odd crane shot amongst cluttered roofs, or the confusion and noise of the fatal festival are particularly effective, and show the necessary step up from TV horizons has been achieved. In particular there's a fondness for the colour red, displayed to good advantage in the film. Copper Coin's coquettish female accomplice has a trademark of a twirling red umbrella, and the director often excels in using this as a visual 'hook' in a scene, whether prominent in a busy market or picked out through the vibrant greens of surrounding foliage.

Although this is a *chambara* (swordplay) movie, mounted in fairly traditional fashion, Sure Death is less concerned with a straight treatment of the genre than with knowing infusions of satire and pastiche. Confirmation of this is to be heard in the choice of music: the use of mock spaghetti western and 1970s' funk give an ironic edge to proceedings which, 20 years on, give it a modern, knowing, flavour. Understandably, a lot of the film's in-jokes and subtle mockeries would be lost to western audiences, then and now. What remains, such as the 'play' on the killing skills, unique to each of the assassin squad's regular daytime profession, is enjoyably imaginative. A roof-tiler kills by throwing sharpened tiles for instance, while a Shamisen maker kills with the instrument's strings; another fighter (an acupuncturist?) pushes steel needles into the ear drum to kill, while still another, nicknamed the 'Stone Turtle', burrows at high speed beneath his opponent's feet to attack and so on. By both exploiting and exaggerating superhero action stereotypes, a trick familiar of late from such films as Hollywood's uneven Mystery Men (1999), the present film creates some comically surreal effects while at the same time commenting on audience genre expectations. It succeeds best in the martial sequences, which are well paced and staged, while dialogue scenes can weigh more heavily. As an action film Sure Death passes the time, but its lack of urgency finally tells against it and it emerges as a minor piece of work.

This movie is based on a period drama that was wildly popular on Japanese television in the 70's called "Hissatsu Shikake-Ni "Hissatsu" (Sure Death) tells the story of a secret group who masquerade as regular merchants by day but are really killers for hire who work to avenge those who seek justice. The members all have highly specialized killing methods based on their "daytime" occupations, a roof tiler kills by throwing sharpened tiles, a Shamisen (like a Japanese banjo) maker kills with the instruments strings etc.

This movie deals with the group trying to track down a killer of assassins. The "6-mou" man (so called for the coin he leaves in the victims mouth) is trying to become the only assassin in Edo by killing off the competition. It's up to the team to get him before he get them. It's is a very entertaining and beautifully stylized film (check out the soundtrack! a mix of spaghetti western and 70's funk). It does seem a bit overlong, like a drawn out tv plot, but its sense of humor is a nice break from the more serious "chambara" films.