01-05-2025, 10:52 PM
Ken Ki (1965)
The title translates to sword demon. This was the weakest of the three. An orphan of dubious birth becomes a gardener for a lord that’s losing his mind. The orphan is named Hanpei which is an obscure reference to the belief that his father was a dog. He learns iai by watching a ronin practice in the forest. In some ways, this is an iai film. Hanpei resheathes his sword in between cuts, which is a weird thing to do when there’s other opponents still standing. He takes a cursed sword from a sealed box of cursed swords in a temple and then he becomes an assassin. The beats of this story were awkward - many of Hanpei’s growth transitions just didn’t make sense. The sword fights start small but then culminate in a huge one vs many battle that’s pretty satisfying. However the flaws in the storytelling undermine the finale. It’s as if Misumi is reaching for something, but falls short of achieving his vision leaving us to wonder what it all meant.
Raizo Ichikawa is the lead in all three films and to his credit, each character is very different. The only common thread is that they’re all great swordsmen.
The first two at D00M recommended. This last one is skippable.
The title translates to sword demon. This was the weakest of the three. An orphan of dubious birth becomes a gardener for a lord that’s losing his mind. The orphan is named Hanpei which is an obscure reference to the belief that his father was a dog. He learns iai by watching a ronin practice in the forest. In some ways, this is an iai film. Hanpei resheathes his sword in between cuts, which is a weird thing to do when there’s other opponents still standing. He takes a cursed sword from a sealed box of cursed swords in a temple and then he becomes an assassin. The beats of this story were awkward - many of Hanpei’s growth transitions just didn’t make sense. The sword fights start small but then culminate in a huge one vs many battle that’s pretty satisfying. However the flaws in the storytelling undermine the finale. It’s as if Misumi is reaching for something, but falls short of achieving his vision leaving us to wonder what it all meant.
Raizo Ichikawa is the lead in all three films and to his credit, each character is very different. The only common thread is that they’re all great swordsmen.
The first two at D00M recommended. This last one is skippable.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse