Le sabre du mal

Original title: Dai-bosatsu tôge

IMDb RATING

7.9/10

13K

YOUR RATING

Toshirô Mifune, Yûzô Kayama, and Tatsuya Nakadai in Le sabre du mal (1966)

Through his unconscionable actions against others, a sociopath samurai builds a trail of vendettas that follow him closely.

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Action Epic Epic Samurai Action Drama

Through his unconscionable actions against others, a sociopath samurai builds a trail of vendettas that follow him closely.Through his unconscionable actions against others, a sociopath samurai builds a trail of vendettas that follow him closely.Through his unconscionable actions against others, a sociopath samurai builds a trail of vendettas that follow him closely.

Director
- Kihachi Okamoto
Writers
- Shinobu Hashimoto
- Kaizan Nakazato
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.9/10

13K

YOUR RATING

Director
- Kihachi Okamoto
Writers
- Shinobu Hashimoto
- Kaizan Nakazato
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

User reviews83

Featured review

Powerful, Disturbing, Confusing

There is, of course, no question that the protagonist here is the handsome and insane Ryunosuke. And I can see that his insanity, alienation, and disassociation all come together in a climax of hallucination and compulsion. But there are things that I do not see. First, why is he insane? That is, what is his origin and the origin of his evil style of sword play? Second, why is there at least one very absorbing subplot which is developed and then dropped? I mean the romance between the "grand daughter" and Mifune's chief student and the tension regarding their welfare that builds up because of the plan of revenge? Is there some overriding master plan here; or some historical, cultural, etc. concept that I am missing?

lndc98
Dec 14, 2002
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Trivia
The abrupt ending of the film is due to the fact that it was originally intended to be the first part in a trilogy of films based on a lengthy Japanese novel. Nakazato Kaizan's 41 volume historical novel focused on the Edo period in Japanese history when the shogunate collapsed and a new government arose that revolved around the Emperor. It was the longest novel in Japan - encompassing 1533 chapters and over 5 and a half million Japanese characters - until the publication of Sohachi Yamaoka's serialized novel "Tokugawa Ieyasu", which is reportedly the longest novel in any language.