TheTrailofBlood

The Trail of Blood (1972)

This is the 1st of the Mikogami trilogy and is followed by The Fearless Avenger and Slaughter in the Snow. This movie tells the story of a mercenary named Jokichi that tries to settle down to an honest life. The movie opens with Jokichi being cared for by a woman who kindly bandages he feet. While he is recovering the local Yakuza show up to molest her and of course Jokichi comes to her defense. Afterwards Jokichi and the woman have to flee with the Yakuza in pursuit. They escape; fall in love and Jokichi settles down with her for an honest life as a husband, father, and craftsman. But the Yakuza catch up with them and 3 bosses come to his house while he is gone to take their revenge. His wife and son dead Jokichi picks the sword back up and heads off after the 3 men who killed his family. The rest of the Trail of Blood is Jokichi tracking down the first of the three that must pay.

This is a killer movie. The story is a your typical wronged man seeking vengeance that is common to many of the Samurai flicks. But unlike many of those other movies that are very complicated and involve someone’s honor being wronged this one is easy to understand. They killed Jokichi’s family and now they are going to pay! What I really found impressive is how nicely the beginning of the story is presented. Many times when a movie has to establish the character and their history it can be a bit dry and slow. But here the movie handles the back-story of Jokichi beautifully and keeps everything flowing smoothly. It establishes his character, and then does horrible things to him setting up his vengeance. Which of course is the whole point of the movie and where the most satisfying bits come from. Without knowing how bad the bad guys are the hero killing them isn’t as much fun you see.

The fight choreography is solid, but nothing special. The Trail of Blood has a satisfying amount of swordplay, but is not as stylized as say a Zatoichi movie, or as manic as some of the Shogun Assassin movies. Still there are enough fights to keep Samurai movie fans satisfied, plenty of blood flows, and you even get a couple of fingers tossed on the floor for good measure. That last thing with the fingers is the most memorable thing from The Trail of Blood and goes a long way to establish how much of a badass the Jokichi character is. The camera work and lighting are solid. This is especially so during the many fight sequences, as the camera slides along with the action not missing a thing. I also wanted to mention the soundtrack of the movie. It is quintessential early 70s and groovy as hell. From the minute the movie started and I heard the first few seconds I had a smile on my face.

This is yet another great release from the coolest company going for Japanese Cinema today, Animeigo. I highly recommend The Trail of Blood to anyone who is looking for a good Samurai movie. For more information about this and their other releases check them out at http://www.animeigo.com/

3 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer