Kiru (Kill) poster & wallpaper

Tatsuya Nakadai, Etsushi Takahashi, Naoko Kubo

Two ronin - an ex-samurai and an ex-farmer - get caught up a local officials complex game of murder and betrayal.

Flixster Users

90% liked it

62 ratings

Unrated, 115 min

Directed by: Kihachi Okamoto

Release Date: June 22, 1968

Invite friends to see

Stats: 17 reviews

Get movie widget Recommend it Add to Favorites
report incorrect info

Photos

None yet... Got one?

Your Rating


clear rating

Flixster Reviews (17)

  • rickrudge
    February 27, 2009
    rickrudge
    Kiru (1968)

    This movie opens with X-farmer, Hanjiro Tabata (Etsushi Takahashi) a starving Samurai-want-to-be, walking into a dusty, windy, desolate town, looking for work. He meets up with an equally starving Yakuza, Genta the vagrant (Tatsuya Nakadai). They meet up with anoth...( read more)er Yakuza that explains why the town is dead. Supposedly there had been an uprising by the townspeople, led by the local Yakuza boss. The uprising was quickly put down by the local corrupt magistrate and everyone executed.

    Just then, another Samurai walks into town. Tetsutaro Oikawa (Naoko Kubo) has arrived with a message for seven members of his clan from their leader. There were no specific orders to kill the local magistrate, but it was sort of implied. This message gets the seven Samurai out to make their own undoing.

    The reluctant hero, the Genta character, is wonderful. He's obviously an X-Samurai who was disillusioned with the posturing and false honor of that class. He reminds me of James Garner in many of his movies, like "Support Your Local Sheriff" (1969). He's smart, irreverent and can usually see all of the angles that nobody else seems to be aware of. It's not like Genta isn't brave or heroic or a good swordsman. He just sees this all as a bunch of BS and not worth getting yourself killed over. Against his better judgement, he gets more and more involved in this struggle.

    Despite everyone else taking sides, he's able to smooth talk his way around the battle to the death that everyone else is determined on doing. He is able to talk to men who would normally be his deadly enemy and talk man to man with them. So this movie is sort of a comedy, sort of a tongue-in-cheak action/Samurai movie that makes fun of itself and the whole genre (as well as the spaghetti westerns of the time).

    This movie is part of the Criterion collection's Rebel Samurai DVD box set. It's well worth you checking out.

View All Kiru (Kill) Reviews

Critic Reviews

No recent reviews.

View more Kiru (Kill) reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments

This board looks lonely. Be the first to talk about "Kiru (Kill)" !

Post A Comment | View All Comments

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

All Rotten Tomatoes content is used under license from Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes, Certified Fresh, and the Tomatometer are the trademarks of Incfusion Corporation, d/b/a Rotten Tomatoes, a subsidiary of IGN Entertainment, Inc.

Cast

More Like This

This list looks lonely.
Add a suggestion!

Facts

No facts approved yet. Be the first

Kiru (Kill) : Watch Free on TV

Movie Quizzes

No quizzes for Kiru (Kill). Want to create one?

Video Clips

No video clips yet. Want to upload one?

Meet Other Fans

None yet...

Add Kiru (Kill) to favorites

Recent News

No recent headlines. Got one?

Recent Lists

Make a List |

View All Lists

Most Popular Skin

No skins yet. Interested in creating one?