Japan Synopsis
獣の剣
Legendary swordplay filmmaker Hideo Gosha's Sword of the Beast chronicles the flight of the low-level swordsman Gennosuke, who kills one of his ministers as part of a reform plot. His former comrades then turn on him, and this betrayal so shakes his sense of honor that he decides to live in the wild, like an animal. There he joins up with a motley group who are illegally mining the shogun’s gold, and, with the aid of another swordsman, gets a chance not just at survival but to recover his name and honor.
The 1964–1966 Japan Window
74 Japan films released in this three-year window, ranked here by audience rating. Sword of the Beast sits at position #8.
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with Sword of the Beast. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
Other Titles From Shochiku
The 1960s Japan Landscape
Catalog density by release year in the 1960s. Highlighted year (yellow) is when Sword of the Beast premiered. 202 total titles in this decade from Japan.
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #1,093 of 4,579 Japan films indexed here (76th percentile by TMDB audience score).
Rating is +0.7 points above the Japan average of 6.9/10.
Among Japan Action productions specifically: #484 of 1,714 (top 28%).
Production Details
| Primary Country | Japan |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Japanese |
| Production Companies | Shochiku |
| Runtime | 1h 25m |
| Release Date | September 18, 1965 |
| IMDb | tt0200768 |