Assassination Details

Eureka!! A true masterpiece...

Thanks to Eureka Video and their Masters of Cinema Series, fans of Japanese cinema are being given the opportunity to view some of the very best of Japan's cinematic heritage. Largely unseen in the West, films like The Face of Another (1966), Twenty-Four Eyes (1954), Vengeance is Mine (1979) and of course Assassination (1964) were all popular classics with indigenous audiences. Their absence from British screens is perhaps best understood as a perceived cultural barrier of which the content deemed too Japanese to interest western audiences. And this could be said of Masahiro Shinoda’s film, Assassination. The film is a complex period thriller describing the events of the mid-1800s, which saw civil unrest and the end of the reign of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Rooted in its historical settings, audiences unfamiliar with Japanese history would perhaps be glad of a few history lessons. But don’t be put off; this film is hugely enjoyable and rewarding. Assassination is fast pace and action packed, with its enigmatic lead Hachiro Kiyokawa (played by Tetsuro Tamba) driving the story to its tragic but inevitable conclusion.

[Highly rated reviewer]

A good film, but infinitely complicated

In the useful Alex Cox introduction to this film, he says that anyone without a good knowledge of mid-nineteenth century Japanese politics is unlikely to be able to follow the action. He isn't wrong. It boils down to a struggle for power between the conservative, isolationist Imperial faction, and the internationalist Shogunate, with a ronin (Tetsuro Tamba) of slightly mysterious background swaying between the two.

The first half of the film is made up of flashbacks, illuminating the ronin's life. The second half sees him trying to come to terms with the double-dealing of allies and enemies and find his true path. Cinematically inventive, always intriguing, but extremely hard work to follow.