Hanzo the Razor: Sword of Justice (1972)

Rating: C-

Dir: Kenji Misumi
Star: Shintarô Katsu, Yukiji Asaoka, Mari Atsumi, Kô Nishimura

Seriously tacky Japanese film, from much the same team as Lone Wolf and Cub. The hero is a renegade cop, macho beyond belief, who interrogates women by bonking them into submission, having honed his technique on sacks of rice (and a training regime which adds a whole new dimension to ‘beating your meat’). After finding a conspiracy to cover up some high-level goings-on, he comes under pressure to drop the case. Three guesses whether he does. Body fluids everywhere and a script full of double-meanings, are wrecked by a tendency to go on and on, plus the deeply incongruous 70’s soundtrack (19, rather than 1770’s). A Shogun Assassin style edit of two or three entries in the series would be an improvement, and conceivably an undoubted trash classic