Le Passage du grand Bouddha

This was perhaps one of the worst Japanese samurai movies I've ever watched. The storyline was heavily patched and segmented, very uninteresting most of the time. Guy with a katana sword with somewhat nonchalant stance which scared most of his opponents and frightened them to death. Then when in close combat, all his opponents seemed to be just so slow to cut him, everybody just purposedly a step slow to allow him to cut them. It just looked so staged to compy with the screenplay, but just looked so stupid. Then at the betting game, the loser new comer young woman had to be stripped down every time when somebody won, what a ballony! Like the western poker game played by man and woman, the loser woman got to strip down until naked? WTF? It also looked more clueless in the later part, suddenly a bunch of assassins tried to ambush an opponent? How this twist was developed was completely beyond my comprehenshion. I was so clueless but even so, I just felt extremely bored to watch on. This so-called Satan's sword or swordmanship simiply just a worthless exeggeration. A big Zzzz.

Satan's Sword (or Daibosatsu Toge, The Great Buddha Pass) is based on a very long, unfinished series of books published in Japan (all unread by me). These books have been adapted a few times to the screen. The best known in the west is Sword of Doom, starring Tatsuya Nakadai and, in a supporting role, Toshiro Mifune. Although that film is easier to find (and has a Criterion Collection blu-ray release), I preferred this trilogy of films starring Ichikawa Raizo.

The first film introduces the rather long list of characters. At the film's heart is Ryunosuke Tsuke, the anti-hero of the series. Ryunosuke enters the film by cold bloodedly murdering an old man travelling on the Great Buddha Pass. Why does Ryunoskue do this? He likes to kill people. Next, the wife of a samurai competitor comes to see Ryunosuke , begging him to throw their upcoming match, so her husband can rise in the clan. Ryunosuke sexually assaults the woman and deliberately kills her husband in the duel. That is just the type of man he is.

This first entry packs a lot of plot into 105 minutes. In addition to Ryunosuke and the dead samurai's widow, the film features Hyoma, the vengeance seeking brother of the samurai Ryunosuke killed. There is also O-Matsu, the young woman who was travelling with the old man Ryunosuke murdered on The Great Buddha Pass. In addition, the film features some political intrigue involving groups loyal to the shogun and other groups rebelling against the shogun. I do not know much about Japanese history, so some of the intricacies were lost on this viewer. The film certainly has more plot than swordplay and even ends on a cliffhanger in mid-action.

Satan's Sword has two big strengths. First and foremost is Ichikawa Raizo. I have admired the actor ever since I saw him as Kyoshiro Nemuri in the later Sleepy Eyes of Death/Son of the Black Mass movies. Few actors play a smug, anti-hero better. Ryunosuke Tsuke is a horrible person, yet the viewer cannot take his eyes off of him, thanks to Ichikawa Raizo's intense screen presence. The film's second strength is its colorful photography. Director Kenji Misumi has a wonderful eye for color and composition.

The first entry in this Daibosatsu Toge adaptation may seem a little slow for those looking for action. The film features a couple of good swordfights, but it is mostly a drama. However, the film looks nice and Ichikawa Raizo is wonderful.

The movie Satan's Sword is adopted from Kaizan Nakazato's famous novel Daibosatu Touge(also known as The Great Bodhisattva Pass).It is Japan's one of the most famous novels and filmed 5 times. It has been said that Nakazato Kaizan wrote this to describe human karma based on Buddhism. The story in this trilogy is about 20% of the whole story in his novel. This is the first movie of the Satan's Sword trilogy. The story of Tsukue Ryunosuke, an amoral swordsman who slays other people with no apparent reason pursued by the brother of his fencing competition victim, he wanders through the country in the end of Edo period gradually deepening his insanity.

I'd like to skip repeating details of the movie since other users had already done it with their reviews. Instead, I am going to state my personal opinion about a theme (hidden message) of this movie, and Raizo Ichikawa's portrayal of Ryunosuke and how it was played out. "Satan's Sword" wasn't made to only show spectacular sword fights or to demonstrate bad guy verses good guy type of story. The theme of this movie is something that causes viewers to look at a dark side of reality in the life.

"Satan's Sword" was directed much closer to the original novel than Chiezo Kataoka (aka Souls in the Moonlight) and Tatsuya Nakadai ( Sword of Doom) versions. Ryunosuke's inner turmoil and detachment from the world around him were well played by Raizo Ichikawa. His play is subtle but there is some quiet intensity in Ichikawa himself that is worked to magnify Ryunosuke's inner turmoil. His expression of motion (force)within stillness, or motion in the still, is a characteristic of samurai and worked very well in portraying Ryunosuke. Because Ichikawa was young (29) the time he played, Ryunosuke's nihilism wasn't well portrayed but his deep voice and his unique kabuki style speaking created a distinctive Ryunosuke character.

When compared with Chiezo Kataoka and Tatsuya Nakadai versions of the same title movies, I liked Ichikawa version better because his Ryunosuke wasn't portrayed as nearly psychopath as in Nakadai version. I am almost certain that Ryunosuke in Nakazato's original novel wasn't psychopath or insane. Although Ryunosuke is an amoral lost soul, possessed by his sword, and has no sympathy to others, these do not necessarily make him insane or mentally ill. However, Kataoka version Ryunosuke is little too old and he doesn't seem all the way amoral.

An astonishing final scene in the third movie of the trilogy left me with some feelings of confusion and helplessness but it allowed me to think something more. Perhaps, within the lingering feelings with a room for thought, there is the message of the Satan's Sword trilogy.

All in all, the movie "Satan's sword" was filmed by the best technical stuff of the Daiei at that time. The visual effect in this movie is stunningly beautiful and every scene settings were masterfully done. It was a creation of Japanese movie golden era. This is a great movie in its message (theme), scale and artistic means that fully entertaining. I highly recommend people to watch all three movies of the Satan's Sword.

My missus, who is Japanese, tells me that Raizo Ichikawa was a very big star around the time this film was made. Well, I can't say he does much for me. In fact, I think his mostly minimal acting style is one of the reasons that this film, first of a trilogy, is fairly uninteresting.

The effeminate yet deep-voiced Raizo plays a swordfighter with superb skills in the slashing department but minimal skills in relationships. A lot more could have happened than actually did, and it took quite a long time about it. The main enjoyment of this picture is some of the great costumes, period interior decorating and architecture and scenery. The other two films are better, but only slightly.

The story follows the life of Ryunosuke Tsukue (played by Raizo Ichikawa), 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 the Shinsengumi, a sort of semi-official police force made up of ronin that supports the Tokugawa shogunate through murder and assassinations. 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. Ryunosuke slowly descends into complete insanity in the final 15 minutes and the movie ends on a cliff-hanger note with a duel that isn't materialised.

OK first things first, this is a Kenji Misumi picture, so it can't be all that bad. But in the same time it's obvious that Misumi here is still learning the ropes, his directing pretty much by-the-numbers, even though flashes of the brilliance he would show in consequent years are still evident. He was a contract director for Daei at the time, before the studio's bankruptcy. He would go on to craft perhaps the best series in the cinema's history, Lone Wolf and Cub. Here we see his early steps in the genre, totally bloodless in case you're wondering. I believe the first movie to introduce the arterial spray we all love is Kurosawa's Sanjuro that came out two years later.

Now if you came all the way here to read this review, you should already be familiar with Kihachi Okamoto's masterpiece, Sword of Doom, from 1966. Okamoto's Daibosatsu Toge (as is the Japanese title) is a remake very faithful to the original. Going against every remake rule, it is also superior in every aspect. Raizo Ichikawa is not a patch on Tatsuya Nakadai, one of the most imposing actors I have ever seen. Everything from the b/w cinematography to the acting to the swordfights to the plot is three or four scales above in Sword of Doom. Misumi's earlier version comes very short by comparison. However if you HAVE seen Sword of Doom and you're a chambara fan, you could do a lot worse than check out Misumi's Satan's Sword.. Okamoto's remake follows Misumi's picture to the hilt, most scenes are almost identical in how they play out. Imagine Gus Van Sant's shot by shot remake of Psycho and you're close.

OK now that we've got that out of the way, let's see what this one has going for it. Raizo Ichikawa leaves a lot to be desired (especially because one cannot help but picture Nakadai in the same role), but the movie is fairly entertaining, the swordfights are quite good (although there's no blood I repeat) and Misumi's exterior photography is good. The most important reason to get Misumi's Satan's Sword trilogy though is to see the story of Ryunosuke Tsuke evolving in the next two sequels. Okamoto's Sword of Doom was supposed to have sequels which never materialised, so if you were miffed by its abrupt ending, here's your only chance to see the conclusion of Tsukue's tragic story.

Overall not an essential chambara entry by any means, but Sword of Doom and fans of the genre will be pleasantly entertained.