With this film, Sword of Seduction, The Sleepy Eyes of Death series comes into its own style. Up to this point, the films have not been that much different from many other ronin style adventures. However, with this one (which I first saw as Kyoshiro Nemuri at Bay) , the series gains its own distinct style, a samurai series with the look of a colorfully Gothic horror film.
In many ways, Sword of Seduction has many of the tropes of the previous entries. Kyoshiro Nemuri tries to protect an innocent (in this case a Christian and his sister willing to do anything to get her brother out of jail). There are bad guy smugglers (here opium smugglers) and another spawn of the Shogun up to no good. However, this time the Shogun's daughter is Princess Kiku, a facially deformed, sexually insatiable, murderess who stands as the series's most memorable villainess. Kiku is not the only untrustworthy female in this entry. In fact, all of the villains are of note this time around, the greedy, the opportunistic, and the crazy.
In terms of action, Sword of Seduction contains the most swordplay of any entry so far. The highlight for me was the duel on water's edge between Nemuri and the Princess Kiku's samurai who has sworn to kill Nemuri. I was also partial to a nocturnal eleven against one standoff. Tomisaburo Wakayama returns as Chen Sun, so once again the viewer is treated to a fists versus sword match.
However, beyond the action, Sword of Seduction contains some beautifully unsettling moments. Take the climax on the smuggler's ship during sunset. The location is clearly a set and the sky a painted backdrop. Far from being a debit, this style increases the atmosphere, the way it did in Kwaidan or some of the 1960's Mario Bava films. The film then concludes with a revelation about Nemuri's parentage that could have came right out of one of those Bava movies. This is bright red, blood pumping, heart of darkness stuff. In addition, the film handles the subplot of Christian persecution more shockingly (and far more entertainingly) than Martin Scorsese did in Silence. Not that Nemuri has any idealism about the Christian martyrs. He calls them stupid for following any religion at the expense of their lives, yet Nemuri has less use for those (like the smugglers) manipulating the persecutions for profit.
Finally, as a side note, part of Sword of Seduction's climax played on a television screen in the 1995 Christopher Lambert movie The Hunted, which is how I was first introduced to Kyoshiro Nemuri. Sword of Seduction was the only one of this series that I had watched (until this month) with English subtitles. It held up well.
