My Cultural Diet

Much like the first Samurai Wolf movie, Hell Cut delivers a deeply cynical take on the samurai genre as the titular rōnin finds himself caught between a dojo that wants his head, a fellow rōnin out for revenge, and a violent gang illegally mining gold from under the Shogun’s nose. One thing I found interesting about Hell Cut is how it subtly deconstructs its hero. Kiba is initially presented as a deadly swordsman of some renown, but when he’s faced with true violence and vendetta, his composure seems to crack and his boasting suddenly feels like all talk. Unfortunately, the movie’s multiple storylines eventually trip over themselves, and Hell Cut starts to feel like two or three movies compressed into one — something its 70-minute runtime just can’t quite accommodate. That subsequently robs the film’s final shot, in which a despairing Kiba is confronted with the disastrous consequences of the rōnin lifestyle, of some of its cynical and tragic power.

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