By Andrew Hamlin Northwest Asian Weekly “Warning,” reads the back of the DVD box for “The Great Killing.” “Contains violence, strategy.” All three of Eiichi Kudo’s groundbreaking samurai films (“13 Assassins” featured last week and “Eleven Samurai” to come shortly) contain that same warning. All three do indeed contain violence and strategy as advertised, but […]
Following the ‘13 Assassins’
By Andrew Hamlin Northwest Asian Weekly When director Eiichi Kudo went into pre-production for his 1963 samurai film “13 Assassins,” he had no way of knowing that he would help pioneer a new age in samurai cinema. Kudo worked with screenwriter Kaneo Ikegami, who’d written another film, “Seventeen Ninja,” released earlier that same year, and […]