The first film in the Bounty Hunter Trilogy, Killer’s Mission, introduces us to the titular bounty hunter (but also doctor?), Shikoro Ichibei (played by the great Wakayama Tomisaburo who would go on to star in the awesome Lone Wolf & Cub films), who is given an assignment by the shogun to go investigate a Dutch warship which he believes to be selling guns to revolutionaries planning a coup. With a vast array of gadgetry and weapons, Ichibei sets out on his deadly mission. In the second film, The Fort of Death, a village is being harassed and pillaged by a local Lord and has built a fort to defend themselves in but aren’t equipped to ward off the government’s attacks. So they seek the help of Ichibei to raise a force of martial artists to fend off the aggressors and save the village. In classic Seven Samurai-style, Ichibei proceeds to recruit a variety of out-of-work ronin in the hopes of beating back the greedy Lord’s forces. In the third film, Eight Men to Kill, Ichibei is once again recruited on a dangerous mission by the shogun. This time a massive shipment of gold has been stolen from the shogunate’s mine threatening the economic security of the nation with all attempts to find the perpetrators having failed. Leave it to bounty hunter super spy Ichibei to track down the goods and save the day!

I know I sound like a broken record when it comes to Radiance, but man, they are just on my wavelength. This trio of jidai-geki films really delivers when it comes to doling out fun, fast-paced samurai action. In a departure from the more pastoral samurai melodramas of the 1940’s and ’50s from directors like Kenji Mizoguchi and Hiroshi Inagaki, the Bounty Hunter Trilogy is full of bloody violence and salacious women more in line with the grindhouse samurai classics of the ’70s like the aforementioned Lone Wolf & Cub films and Lady Snowblood. All three films still have a bit of a traditional streak in them at times though, particularly in the way they are shot and staged. Shigehiro Ozawa, director of the first and third Bounty Hunter film and who is perhaps most well-known for directing the brutal Sonny Chiba Street Fighter films, and Eiichi Kudo, director of the second film and probably most well-known for directing 13 Assassins, give us workman-like efforts that feel very much like many other jidai-geki films being produced at the time like the Zatoichi films.

Speaking of Zatoichi, Ichibei in the first film especially looks a great deal like Zatoichi and even pretends to be a blind masseur at one point. As others have pointed out, this is almost certainly a wink-and-nod to Wakayama Tomisaburo’s brother Shintarô Katsu, who was playing Zatoichi at the time. In fact, Killer’s Mission in general contains more overt comedy in it than the other two and feels a little breezier. It feels very much like a James Bond super spy pastiche at times but supplanted with era-appropriate characters. An early scene features Ichibei getting geared up with an array of gadgets and weapons much like Bond with Q. Plus the whole plot is very much a covert spy mission. It’s a fun flick in general but the best is yet to come.

The Fort of Death is my favorite of the three. Director Kudo and writer Kôji Takada, who would go on to work with Kinji Fukasaku on cool stuff like Doberman Cop and Hokuriku Proxy War and who would also work with other Bounty Hunter director Ozawa on the Street Fighter films, weaves a darker and more violent tale than the first one that feels less like a spy film and more overtly like a western (with of course obvious nods to Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai as well). The Fort of Death definitely has the most over-the-top climax of the three films, busting out an old friend that will bring to mind Django.

Eight Men to Kill, while still quite good, does feel like a little bit of a step down, in many ways feeling almost like an even mixture of the first two films. We have once again an intricate spy plot like Killer’s Mission but the pacing and general vibe of the film feels more like the spaghetti western tone of The Fort of Death. The bloodshed is definitely toned down quite a bit in this third entry as well for whatever reason, and it feels like it gets bogged down in exposition more than the previous two. Still, overall it’s an enjoyable film that makes for a nice close to the trilogy.

From a picture quality perspective, The Bounty Hunter Trilogy looks quite nice overall. These aren’t the most flashy, garish samurai films out there but the blood looks nice and red. The audio tracks for all three films are served up in clean and unobstructed mono with little to no audio distortion. Chances are that these films have never and probably will never look better. For extras, we have Radiance’s usual thoughtful inclusions. Tom Mes gives us a very thorough, informative audio commentary for Killer’s Mission. We also have a video interview with Japanese Film Historian Akihito Ito and a visual essay on director Eiichi Kudo by Robin Gatto. Rounding out the digital extras are an image gallery and trailers. For physical extras, we have six postcards featuring poster art from the films as well as an informative booklet including a very good essay by Alain Silver, author of The Samurai Film, an appreciation of Eiichi Kudo by Kinji Fukasaku and an article about director Ozawa on how he quit directing and became a fortune teller (!).

Blood, sweat, tears… Shadowy conspiracies, a vast array of weapons, a sense of wrong and right (or at least for what pays well)… The Bounty Hunter Trilogy is an excellent representation of just how fun and engaging jidai-geki films can be while weaving in influences from the western world. And once again, Radiance has deliver a great presentation and packaging to films that truly deserve it.