Manji (Takuya Kimura), a proficient samurai consumed by the slaughter of his mentally challenged younger sister, accepts a girl’s request to find the men who killed her father and raped her mother. (Hana Sugisaki co-stars in the dual role of Manji’s sister and employer). Even before the opening title card can fade to black, it gets coated with a splattering of blood. At least three dozen people die during the pre-credit sequence. And that’s just the tip of the barbarism, because our hero is bedeviled by the curse of indestructibility. That drama-draining maneuver manages to create ample room for practiced bloodletter Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer) to stack bodies in this, his 100th film. If the running time had been less than 141 minutes, it might have worked, but the monotonous rivers of squirting blood have the same desensitizing effect as a pornographic climax compilation; the droning carnage wound up working like a “wake me when there’s dialogue” snooze button. (2017) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.