ACF 803: Free screening of "The Fort of Death" at Asia Society this Friday evening

The Fort of Death
Directed by Eiichi Kudo
Japan, 1969, 97 minutes, 35mm color
When: Friday, December 10, 2010, 6:45 pm
Where: Asia Society
725 Park Avenue (at 70th Street), NYC
Admission: FREE!!!
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The joint presentation of the film series Japanese Cinema 1960s by Asia Society and Japan Foundation concludes this Friday. The final of the five films screened for free is The Fort of Death, which might most succinctly be described as a "Spaghetti Samurai" flick, since it so clearly transplants the sensibility of Sergio Leone's take on Hollywood westerns into a Japanese environment.

Peasants in a village hire a bounty hunter to rebel against a shogun who exploits them for money in order to remodel an Edo castle. The bounty hunter summons his fellow fighters to join the fight. What ensues is an epic battle involving samurai, ninjas, powerful guns and cannons. Growing up in a family that ran a horse breeding business, director Kudo has proved particularly adept at choreographing action sequences, making this Japanese version of a B-Western especially enthralling. (Toei Co., Ltd.)

"[Kudo is] an extraordinary stylist…To call him a skilled action director is to understate the power of his set-pieces."—Henry Sheehan