The Sword of Doom
Synopsis
Ryunosuke is a sociopathic samurai without compassion or scruples. When he is scheduled for an exhibition match at his fencing school, the wife of his opponent begs Ryunosuke to throw the match, offering her own virtue in trade. Ryunosuke accepts her offer, but kills her husband in the match. Over time, Ryunosuke is pursued by the brother of the man he killed. The brother trains with the master fencer Shimada. In the meantime, however, Ryunosuke earns the enmity of the band of assassins he runs with, and it becomes a question of who shall face him in final conflict.
Production Budget Analysis
The production budget for The Sword of Doom (1966) has not been publicly disclosed.
CAST: Tatsuya Nakadai, Yūzō Kayama, Michiyo Aratama, Yōko Naitō, Toshirō Mifune, Tadao Nakamaru DIRECTOR: Kihachi Okamoto CINEMATOGRAPHY: Hiroshi Murai MUSIC: Masaru Satō PRODUCTION: Takarazuka Eiga Company Ltd., TOHO
Box Office Performance
Theatrical box office data is not publicly available for The Sword of Doom (1966). This may indicate a limited release, direct-to-streaming, or a release predating modern box office tracking.
Profitability Assessment
Insufficient publicly available data to assess profitability.
INDUSTRY IMPACT
PRODUCTION NOTES
▸ Production
The Sword of Doom is an adaptation of Daibosatsu Toge (), a novel that has remained popular since its initial release in 1913, a year after the death of the Emperor Meiji, "the ruler who oversaw Japan's transition from hermetically sealed feudal state to modern nation." The novel originated from a newspaper serial, which appeared for three more decades; forty-one volumes were published before it was left uncompleted at the 1944 death of its author, Kaizan Nakazato. The novel had previously been adapted into a two part film by Hiroshi Inagaki in 1935. After World War II, it was remade multiple times, in three parts by Kunio Watanabe in 1953, in three parts by Tomu Uchida between 1957 and 1959, and in three parts by Kenji Misumi and Kazuo Mori in 1960 and 1961.
According to Geoffrey O'Brien, The Sword of Doom was an adaptation imposed on Kihachi Okamoto by Toho after the studio was dissatisfied with his film The Age of Assassins, which was completed in 1966 but only released in 1967. With "gaps and unresolved story lines" due to skipping some material, O'Brien noted that Okamoto's film might instead be called "Famous Scenes from 'Daibosatsu Toge'". He also suggested the film's final freeze-frame should be looked at as a pause while awaiting later installments that were never made, rather than an ending.
AWARDS & RECOGNITION
Summary: 1 win & 1 nomination
CRITICAL RECEPTION
In a contemporary review, "Robe" of Variety found the film to have an "overlong unfolding story" that "rarely stops for a rest" and ultimately declared the film a "programmer".
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