Tenchu!

The 1860s, Japan. The shogunate is close to collapse and the clans are cutting each other down. Okada Izo is a ronin from the provinces, broke and unable to read. Takechi Hanpeita, who leads the Tosa clan, takes him in. For the first time in his life Izo belongs somewhere, and in return he kills. The more he kills the further his name travels, and the further Takechi moves away from him. At some point Izo understands what he is: not a sword but a tool being used. Hideo Gosha directs; two hours and twenty minutes, with Shintarō Katsu as Izo and Tatsuya Nakadai as Takechi, from a script by Shinobu Hashimoto. The writer Yukio Mishima appears as Tanaka Shinbei; he had less than a year left before he took his own life. Okada Izo was a real assassin.