Killer's Mission

Ichibei is given a task by the Tokugawa authority. A shipload of Dutch rifles is about to be sold. The buying side is the hostile Satsuma, and the sale is to be stopped. If the rifles reach the other side the balance of power will shift. Ichibei sets out and meets a cowardly ronin on the way. The man becomes his assistant. A woman spy and a woman warrior then come into it as well. The film runs the swordplay form at a fast pace. The work stands within the Japanese swordplay films of the sixties. The ninety minutes are compressed into a short stretch. Tomisaburō Wakayama takes the lead in Shigehiro Ozawa’s Japanese film of 1969.