is a 1969 Japanese samurai film directed by Hideo Gosha

Hideo Gosha

was a Japanese film director.Among his most famous films are Goyokin and Hitokiri, released in 1969, and The Wolves, released in 1971. His most famous film in the West is Sword of the Beast, released by Criterion....

 set during the end of the Tokugawa

Tokugawa

Tokugawa may refer to:*Tokugawa clan, a powerful family of Japan**Tokugawa Ieyasu, the most notable member of the Tokugawa clan and founder of its shogunate*Tokugawa shogunate, a feudal regime of Japan...

 Shogunate. It is notable for starring the famous author Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima

was the pen name of , a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état...

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Plot

Okada Izo

Okada Izo

was a Japanese samurai of the late Edo period, feared as one of the four most notable assassins of the Bakumatsu period. He was born in Tosa to the gōshi Okada Gihei, who had been a peasant but had bought the gōshi rank...

 is a ronin

Ronin

A or rounin was a Bushi with no lord or master during the feudal period of Japan. A samurai became masterless from the death or fall of his master, or after the loss of his master's favor or privilege....

born into poverty who joins the Tosa loyalists, a group headed by Hanpeita Takechi. Izo soon becomes a well known and successful killer, and he is stubbornly loyal to Takechi. However, Ryoma Sakamoto warns him that he is merely "Takechi's dog" and that Takechi will end up betraying him. As Takechi becomes more and more determined to succeed, it becomes necessary to sacrifice Izo, which he does by having him arrested and later trying to poison him. Izo, disillusioned, confesses to his murders for the Tosa Loyalists, and he is condemned to Crucifixion

Crucifixion

Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...

. Before being killed, he is told that Takechi will be forced to commit seppuku

Seppuku

is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku was originally reserved only for samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honor code, seppuku was either used voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies , or as a form of capital punishment...

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Cast

• Shintaro Katsu
  Shintaro Katsu
  , born Toshio Okumura was a Japanese actor, singer, producer, and director...
  
   as Okada Izo
  Okada Izo
  was a Japanese samurai of the late Edo period, feared as one of the four most notable assassins of the Bakumatsu period. He was born in Tosa to the gōshi Okada Gihei, who had been a peasant but had bought the gōshi rank...
  
  
• Tatsuya Nakadai
  Tatsuya Nakadai
  is a Japanese leading film actor.He became a star after he was discovered working as a Tokyo shop clerk by filmmaker Masaki Kobayashi during the early 1950s...
  
   as Hanpeita Takechi
• Yujiro Ishihara
  Yujiro Ishihara
  was a Japanese actor and singer born in Kobe. His elder brother, Shintaro Ishihara, is an author, politician, and the current Governor of Tokyo. Yujiro debuted in 1956 in "Season of the Sun," based on a novel written by his brother...
  
   as Sakamoto Ryoma
  Sakamoto Ryoma
  was a leader of the movement to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate during the Bakumatsu period in Japan. Ryōma used the alias .- Early life :Ryōma was born in Kōchi, of Tosa han . By the Japanese calendar, this was the sixth year of Tenpō...
  
  
• Yukio Mishima
  Yukio Mishima
  was the pen name of , a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état...
  
   as Tanaka Shinbei
• Mitsuko Baisho as Onimo
• Takumi Shinjo as Minakawa