Sure Death was a very popular Japanese TV series and the film series came after many years of TV episode were aired. Unfortunately this film picks up as if it was another episode so unfamiliar audiences are really in a fix to understand what's going on.
The plot concerns the Sure Death crew (a motley group of undercover assassins) battling a mysterious plot to kill all assassins in the city of Edo. A sub-plot is about a prostitute hiring the team to kill her pimp. The Sure Death team are out gunned by the assassin killer so they join forces with other assassins in town.
The film is a combination of serious chambara action, absurd tongue-in-cheek humor and stylish film-making. Many of the fights are well done but suffer from a larger problem the entire film suffers. The 2 hour film is edited like a TV show that's trying to pad out the program. A good half-hour could have been edited out. While the settings are well designed and the shots are very well photographed, frequently I couldn't figure out what was happening. Story wise, it's very hard to figure out what's going on as the main characters are never introduced as the film makers assumed that their audience knew who they were already. The sub-plot stops dead about 40 minutes into the film and is discarded. Almost as if the producers combined two 1 hour episode ideas into one film. And the film goes on for ten slow minutes after the action climax is over!
While there are many excellent set pieces, the slow pacing, confusing story and TV show conventions really make this a film for Sure Death fans only.
