Chanbara

Chanbara (from the sound of clashing swords) is the Japanese sword film, and it is a completely separate tradition from the Chinese and Hong Kong kung fu covered under martial arts. Where kung fu is empty hands and Shaolin discipline, chanbara is steel, ronin, and a bleak view of the codes samurai were supposed to live by.

The two registers

The serious end is among the finest cinema Japan produced. Masaki Kobayashi's Harakiri (1962) and Samurai Rebellion (1967) use the samurai film to attack the feudal hypocrisy it usually celebrates, and are as good as any films on this site. Kihachi Okamoto's Sword of Doom (1966) is a portrait of a swordsman who is simply, motivelessly evil.

The exploitation end is where the blood comes in. The Lone Wolf and Cub series (1972 onward) follows a disgraced executioner pushing his infant son in a booby-trapped pram across a landscape of arterial spray, and it is gorgeous, violent pulp. The Zatoichi films run to twenty-five-plus entries about a blind masseur who is also the deadliest swordsman alive. Lady Snowblood (1973) belongs here too.

Why it feeds this site

Tarantino built Kill Bill out of chanbara as much as anything, and the arterial-spray aesthetic of the 70s samurai film runs straight into the modern action movie. The American recut of Lone Wolf and Cub as Shogun Assassin was itself a grindhouse staple.

Where to start

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx for the pulp, Harakiri for the art.