THE TRAIL OF BLOOD is an average, exploitation-leaning chambara film set in the world of Japan’s late Tokugawa-era yakuza. It stars prolific genre actor Yoshio Harada (RONIN-GAI) as a revenge-seeking ronin in the first of three films that make up director Kazuo Ikehiro’s “Mikogami Trilogy.”

The set is based on a book by late period novelist Saho Sasazawa who is best known in Japan for a popular television adaptation of his “Kogarashi Monjiro” novels. The story, as adapted by screenwriter Aihiro Ishimatsu and Ikehiro, follows genre conventions to the letter, particularly as they had evolved in the early 1970s where exploitation cinema was king in Japan.

In the film, Jokichi (Harada) is a wandering ronin with a reputation in the yukuza world. When he defends kind prostitute, Okinu (Sanae Kitabayashi), from the advances of a cruel yakuza boss, Jokichi decides to quit his life of violence and settle down with her by earning a living as a craftsman. The plan is short-lived for within a few years old enemies catch up with Jokichi. They force him to chop off two of his fingers and then murder his family. Jokichi decides to hunt down and kill all of the men responsible. Along the way, he crosses paths with other ronin with their own agenda including the marauding Blue Demon gang, a one-eyed swordsman with a strong code of honor and a ruthless killer known only as Tengu. This first chapter culminates in a devious confrontation with several of Jokichi’s enemies but leaves others unaccounted for.

Despite having lots of bloody swordplay action and stylistic visuals, THE TRAIL OF BLOOD never rises beyond mediocrity. Kazuo Ikehiro had plenty of experience with the genre after having directed three ZATOICHI films and a handful of other chambara titles throughout the ’60s. He has a good eye for presentation of sword heroes and their actions. Yet everything has a touch of staleness.

The revenge theme is extremely clichéd, it was in 1972 as well, and no obvious effort is made to give it a fresh spin. A major twist in the plot requires a sizable suspension of disbelief for the amount of effort the villains go through in order to trick Harada.

Characters with fanciful names like “Hurricane Isaburo” and “Demon-Mask Gonta” are exaggerated versions of genre stereotypes but not in the distinctive way that Shintaro Katsu portrayed Zatoichi or Toshiro Mifune hammed it up in YOJIMBO. Harada is a master at playing brooding anti-heroes and this is one of his earliest examples but it’s hardly his best. The leading ladies throw themselves at Harada and dream of running away to some ill-defined happy place. This is little more than a carbon copy of Otsu, the lovelorn heroine of Eiji Yoshikawa’s famed novel, “Musashi.” The villains are scarred, sneering baddies with no greater motivation than to do evil for the sake of doing evil and they could have come right out of a teen manga.

The swordplay action in TRAIL OF BLOOD is choreographed by Kentaro Yuasa. It’s adequate, like most screen swordplay in Japan. Japanese filmmakers have a long track record of placing great care in their depiction of kendo and Japanese sword handling which is still a highly revered art to this day. As a result, it takes something extra special to make the action in a Japanese swordplay film stand out. In this case, an attempt is made when Harada’s character decides to grow out and sharpen the nails on the remaining fingers of his left hand. This becomes an unlikely secret weapon to offset the potential loss of his sword. It’s a mildly amusing invention hindered by its implausibility and grotesqueness. Honestly, who in their right mind would try to fend off a roomful of samurai sword-wielding attackers with nothing but three sharpened fingernails?

The violence in the film is edgy but not as gruesome as what the LONE WOLF AND CUB series offers. Several prostrated men are dispatched with a slow plunge of a sword through their chest. Another victim dies in a spray of blood streaked across a rice paper wall. As fierce as Harada’s character looks, he’s rather passive by the standards of your typical sword-slinging screen hero and tends to warn off minions rather than fight his way through them even if he does rack up a fair share of bodies. While he’s not left out of the action by any means, an equal or even greater measure of violence comes from the people he encounters. The most disturbing scene involves a damsel in distress whose head makes an acquaintance with the business end of a samurai sword. It’s never fun watching attractive, helpless and morally indistinct women brutally slain.

Kazuo Miyagawa’s photography is uneven. This is the genius who shot Akira Kurosawa’s YOJIMBO and has won numerous awards for his usually brilliant cinematography. To be sure, there are moments of visual brilliance in how characters are framed with impeccable lighting and bold close-ups. Other times, the widescreen format goes to waste with too much empty space and unconvincing angles of death-dealing sword strokes. One of the hallmarks of Miyagawa’s visual style is the sophisticated layering of perspectives in a single shot. We see this in a well-framed scene where Harada, in the background in another room, speaks to his intentionally out-of-focus wife (Sanae Kitabayashi) in the foreground. There are not many opportunities for this skill to be fully utilized. The overall photography looks like a half-hearted effort from one of Japan’s finest DPs, which is to say that it’s still far superior to a lot of other ’70s-era genre films, especially those from Hollywood and Hong Kong.

THE TRAIL OF BLOOD is indicative of the chambara genre in general at the time of its release. Basically, the genre was in decline and apart from the most notable franchises, the quality of the films was also in decline. It’s safe to say that Japanese filmmakers had already said everything that needed to be said about the jidai geki during the black and white era. Unless they had a strong hook, such as blindness or a baby cart, there wasn’t much filmmakers could do that hadn’t already been done better by film masters like Kurosawa. This film is proof, although it still contains enough core entertainment value to warrant at least a passing look.

THE TRAIL OF BLOOD is followed by THE FEARLESS AVENGER and concludes with SLAUGHTER IN THE SNOW.

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