is a 1965 Japanese movie directed by Kihachi Okamoto

Kihachi Okamoto

was a Japanese film director who has worked in several different genres, including jidaigeki.-Career:Born in Yonago, Okamoto attended Meiji University, but was drafted in 1943 and entered World War II during its most difficult hours, an experience that had a profound effect on his later film work,...

 and starring Toshirō Mifune

Toshiro Mifune

Toshirō Mifune was a Japanese actor who appeared in almost 170 feature films. He is best known for his 16-film collaboration with filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, from 1948 to 1965, in works such as Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, and Yojimbo...

, Koshiro Matsumoto, Yunosuke Ito, and Michiyo Aratama

Michiyo Aratama

was a Japanese actress who appeared in leading and supporting roles in such films as Hiroshi Inagaki's Chushingura, Kihachi Okamoto's Samurai Assassin and Sword of Doom, and Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan, Hymn to a Tired Man and The Human Condition trilogy.- Filmography :* Suzaki paradise: Akashingō ...

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Samurai Assassin is set in 1860, immediately before the Meiji Restoration

Meiji Restoration

The , also known as the Meiji Ishin, Revolution, Reform or Renewal, was a chain of events that restored imperial rule to Japan in 1868...

 changed Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese society forever by doing away with the castes in society and reducing the position of the samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

 class.

The film tells the story of Niiro Tsurichiyo (Mifune) as the illegitimate son of a powerful nobleman, and the way of his life that made him a swordfighter but also a social outcast. The film is based on a novel, which in turn was inspired by the historical Sakuradamon incident

Sakuradamon incident (1860)

The on 24 March 1860 was the assassination of Japanese Chief Minister Ii Naosuke , by rōnin samurai of the Mito Domain, outside the Sakuradamon gate of Edo Castle.-Context:...

, in which the feudal lord Ii Naosuke

Ii Naosuke

was daimyo of Hikone and also Tairō of Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan, a position he held from April 23, 1858 until his death on March 24, 1860. He is most famous for signing the Harris Treaty with the United States, granting access to ports for trade to American merchants and seamen and...

 was assassinated outside the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle

Edo Castle

, also known as , is a flatland castle that was built in 1457 by Ōta Dōkan. It is located in Chiyoda in Tokyo, then known as Edo, Toshima District, Musashi Province. Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Tokugawa shogunate here. It was the residence of the shogun and location of the shogunate, and also...

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