Bohachi Bushido: Code of the Forgotten Eight

Shino is a ronin who wants to die and cannot manage it. After an attempt on his own life, an organisation called the Bohachi finds him. The Bohachi are a gang of men who have abandoned the eight virtues; that is where the name comes from. They hold the brothel business in Edo and need somebody to clear out their rivals. Shino takes the job because he is looking for a way to die. The source is a manga by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima; the same pair made Lone Wolf and Cub. Teruo Ishii directed, and the film belongs to the hard exploitation strand Toei produced in the seventies. Violence and sex are used openly as selling material; the women mostly stand there as spectacle, and from today that is the hardest thing about it. Tetsuro Tamba plays Shino. Eighty-one minutes.