Sword of the Beast (1965)

Hideo Gosha is one of the more obscure legends of Japanese cinema. Most filmgoers in the English-speaking world have heard of Akira Kurosawa, or Hayao Miyazaki, and quite a few will stretch to Yasujiro Ozu or Kenji Mizoguchi. Gosha remains comparatively obscure, mainly because it has only really been in the last few years that his films have been widely available on home video.

He started his career in television, primarily in creating and directing the chanbara (samurai action) series Three Outlaw Samurai. At the time there was an informal agreement between Japan's film studios not to use television directors in the making of their films. It was when Shochiku chose to produce a big-screen prequel to Three Outlaw Samurai that this rule was finally broken, with the studio defying their rivals and inviting Gosha to direct it himself. From there he went from strength to strength, directing a series of hard-edged, visually sharp chanbara films that still hold up today as some of the finest examples of the genre.

Sword of the Beast is one of them, telling the story of a ronin Gennosuke (Mikijiro Hira) who has murdered one of his superiors and is on the run from the victim's vengeful daughter and her fiancée.

The Tale of Zatoichi (1962)

I think there’s an argument to be made that there are two types of samurai movie. There is the kind that is all about the samurai, ronin and various swordspeople slashing each other to death with swords. There is also the other kind, which is all about the moment of zen-like stillness before the samurai et al start slashing each other to death with swords.

The Tale of Zatoichi definitely falls into the latter category. This is a historically significant film, as it is the first in a long-running series of movie featuring Zatoichi, a master samurai turned blind masseuse. Played by Shintaro Katsu, the character featured in a run of twenty-six feature films and 100 television episodes between 1962 and 1989. He has subsequently been re-cast and re-made, notably by actor/director Takeshi Kitano in his internationally successful remake Zatoichi (2003). That was a great film; as is often the case, however, the original is better.