Name: Nippon kengô den: Shingetsu Hôzôin ryû
Genre: Action
Released: 1945-05-17
Duration: 1 h 11 min
Rating: 6.3
Cast: Denjirō Ōkōchi, Susumu Fujita, Ryūnosuke Tsukigata

Denjirô Ôkôchi is a monk wandering around Japan. When he arrives in Yagyu, everyone there wants to practice dueling with him. He's not interested, so they play with the next wanderer, kill him, and tell his brother and sister it was Ôkôchi who did it. Now everyone wants to kill him.

Originally 85 minutes, the copy of this chambara -- samurai flick -- I looked at was 54 minutes. Given a release date of May 1945, there was undoubtedly a lot of propaganda in it, later removed. Given the blame on the blameless hero, I suspect it was an early example of the legend of the Second World War that would become popular in Japanese movies and even one high-school text book: Japan was just going along, minding its own business, harming no one, when the US came along and nuked it, just like Godzilla! This was three months before Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hit with atomic bombs, but already propaganda was urging people to die by the millions when the US invaded in the projected Operation Olympic, which was expected to result in as many as ten million American injuries and deaths.

What survives is some battles involving some of the biggest action stars of the era, some nice location shooting, and some good fight choreography. And a plot that makes little sense.

Japanese cinema is celebrated for its refined minimalist dramas and avant-garde experimentation; it also introduced popular genres like jidaigeki (samurai epics), kaiju, and anime. Across both high art and mass entertainment, it often explores morality, impermanence, and the pressures of modern life.

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The action genre features fast-paced, thrilling, and intense sequences of physical feats, combat, and excitement. The characters of these stories are involved in daring and often dangerous situations, requiring them to rely on their physical prowess, skills, and quick thinking to overcome challenges and adversaries.

Nippon kengô den: Shingetsu Hôzôin ryû

Nippon kengô den: Shingetsu Hôzôin ryû (1945)

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Nippon kengô den: Shingetsu Hôzôin ryû

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