Killing

2018 [JAPANESE]

Action / Drama

6
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 56% · 11 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 56%
IMDb Rating 6.5/10 10 1520 1.5K

samurai revenge swordsman ronin jidaigeki edo period

Plot summary

In Edo period Japan, a lone ronin lives in a village helping the farmers tend to their land. One day, a group of outlaw swordsmen enter the village.

Director

Shin'ya Tsukamoto Photo
Shin'ya Tsukamoto

Top cast

Yû Aoi Photo
Yû Aoi as Yu
Shûji Ôtsuki Photo
Shûji Ôtsuki as Kahei
Tatsuya Nakamura Photo
Tatsuya Nakamura as Genda
Kôji Tsukamoto Photo
Kôji Tsukamoto as Masterless Samurai
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
731.58 MB
1280*714
Japanese 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 19 min
Seeds 1
1.47 GB
1920*1072
Japanese 5.1
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 19 min
Seeds 1

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Jeremy_Urquhart 5 / 10

Wasn't really a fan of this one

A samurai drama about several people trying and continually failing to leave a small village for about 80 minutes.It was interesting to see Shinya Tsukamoto's take on the samurai film, but I don't think it worked great overall. I could get used to the digital look of things, but I hated how often it would cut to a close-up from exactly the same angle- it looked cheap and jarring almost every time (they did the same thing less frequently in the new Top Gun, whenever they wanted a close-up of a pilot mid-flight; I hope it's not a thing that's considered acceptable editing nowadays).Worth it for Tsukamoto completionists of course, and maybe for die hard samurai fans, as it's not awful, but otherwise it's a little hard to recommend.
Reviewed by GyatsoLa 8 / 10

Zan, not zen

Tzuzuki is a Ronin, a masterless samurai living at the very end of the long period of peace through to the mid 19th Century which made such swordsmen surplus to Japanese society. He seems happy wandering, helping farmers in exchange for food, but trouble is stirring in Edo and he realises he must go there - it is unclear whether out of duty or hope for his own future. He seems to get lucky when a wandering master swordsman asks him to join him on a mission to help the Shogun against his enemies. This seems to set us up for a traditional clash between desire and duty, modernity and tradition, but the film takes a surprising turn when a few tough guy wanderers arrive in the village and Tzuzuki is hit with a fever, meaning he has to stay longer.The film takes a strange turn when we realise that Tzuzuki is not just reluctant to leave his farmer friends, but is almost pathologically unable to translate his sword skills into the real job of killing men - even deserving men. The fever itself seems to encompass his whole world. Suddenly everything is not what it seems - not the master swordsman, not the sweet village girl who seems to love Tzuzuki, not the tough but seemingly good hearted wanderers.This is a very modern take on the traditional Samurai genre. Plenty of previous Samurai movies examine the twisted ethos of the warrior class, but few examine so much how killing itself destroys the humanity of the swordsman. It is strikingly filmed and directed - normally I hate shaky-cam films, but its used effectively here to create a hallucinogenic atmosphere of confusion and chaos. The settings are very beautiful and effectively caught by the cinematography and the short running time of the film means that there is no flab at all - its a gripping, tight film, with its only flaw really that we never really get to understand the characters real motivations. Nevertheless, this is definitely one of the best modern samurai films I've seen in some time.
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