Samurai Wolf

Director: Hideo Gosha, Hideo Gosha, Hideo Gosha, Hideo Gosha

1966 / 75min / DCP

Deadly wandering ronin Kiba (Isao Natsuyagi) steps in to play the bodyguard of a blind woman that’s the target of another hired swordsman of equal skill in Gosha’s lean, inventively photographed, and tightly plotted black-and-white chambara, which packs a surprising number of memorable, well-developed characters into a trim runtime, and features some of the most vicious swordplay seen in any samurai film of its day, much of it caught in gorgeous slow-motion.