The Razor: Sword of Justice (Goyôkiba, 1972)

Misumi Kenji

Japan

90 mins, color, Japanese (English subtitles)

---

This is the first, and perhaps most outrageous, of the Hanzo The Razor series (there's three of them), and it is not an easy distinction to win. It is most certainly a film that even the most daring filmmaker this side of the pond wouldn't even dream of making. There's enough political incorrectness to make Bill Mahler weep with envy. And it's also great fun, although most of it is combined with stunned embarrassed looks at other people in the audience.

Hanzo (Shintaro Katsu) is an honest and hardworking Edo constable, but his zeal does not endear him to his superiors. The Razor is unfazed. He test-tortures himself to devise better ways to extract information from suspects, he trains hard (mostly his enormous member, THE weapon to question women), and he uses very unconventional methods to find out the truth. When he begins to suspect his immediate boss, Hanzo stumbles across a palace secret that finally leaves him with the power to influence the Shogunate.

Everything about this film is ridiculous. The credits don't show up until 20 minutes into the film. The plot is weird, most of it never gets explained (what was that with the Ninjas and why, the hell, was Kanbei protecting Oyuri?), and the climactic duel occurs about 20 minutes before the end, which then comes fairly fast and uneventful. When you think the film is over, there's a 10 minute story which has absolutely no relation whatsoever to the rest of the plot. Then Hanzo walks across maps and then we find out it's the end (this time for sure). The cheesy 70s music make the experience even more unique because it is so at odds with the period setting of the film. Shintaro is great, as usual. Still, this is hardly family fare... at least if you have a normal family, unlike me.

May 31, 2001. BLS