Eight Men to Kill Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Eight Men to Kill Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 25, 2024

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of Radiance Films' release of The Bounty Hunter Trilogy.

There's a trend in many contemporary restaurants where "fusions" of different cultures' menus are combined to offer something new and ostensibly improved. For anyone who may be under the impression that this same general "mixing" approach is something recent, The Bounty Hunter Trilogy should provide a cinematic example that "fusions" have been around for quite some time. As commentator Tom Mes kind of jokingly refers to in his track on the first film in this set, anyone looking for historical accuracy in these films had best keep searching elsewhere, especially since production design elements can often weirdly interpolate "wrong" decades (or even centuries) into the proceedings. But even that "combo platter" may not be as viscerally noticeable as the often quite interesting ping ponging in all three films between "traditional" Japanese (quasi?) samurai outings, what might be generally termed Spaghetti Western elements, and, perhaps most intriguingly (and another way these films tend to bend perceived eras or at least genres to their own uses), a kind of James Bond- esque spy film aspect. It wouldn't be until 1972, the year of this trilogy's final entry, that star Tomisaburô Wakayama would start appearing as one of two legendary titular characters in what is arguably his better remembered series, Lone Wolf and Cub. While that might kind of unavoidably seem to make The Bounty Hunter Trilogy a "test run" of sorts, it probably really isn't, as this earlier triptych has its own distinct flavor (speaking of fusion menus).

As this review is being written, there is a total solar eclipse due in just a couple of weeks over a swath of the United States (my wife is actually flying back to Illinois to experience "totality" at a friend's house), but for those not in the best location to view it, Eight Men to Kill offers its own example of this fantastic phenomenon late in the story, in one of the more unusual aspects offered in the entire Bounty Hunter Trilogy. Eclipses were of course kind of harbingers back in the day, but in this instance an eclipse almost serves as a "delivery date" that Ichibei (Tomisaburô Wakayama) has to meet in attempting to retrieve a missing shipment of gold.

It might be too easy in a way to mention an eclipse and then how "dark" this third entry in the trilogy is, but Eight Men to Kill is probably the most relentlessly violent of the three films, and it lacks to sometimes goofy humor that was part and parcel of Killer's Mission in particular. Kind of interestingly, while both Killer's Mission and The Fort of Death followed each other in fairly rapid succession in 1969, Eight Men to Kill didn't appear until early 1972, at just about the exact same time that Tomisaburô Wakayama "moved on" to Lone Wolf and Cub. That very temporal difference might make Eight Men to Kill an outlier one way or the other, but it feels almost like an entry in another franchise altogether, though, again interestingly, it was directed by Shigehiro Ozawa, who helmed the first film in the series.

Eight Men to Kill Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Eight Men to Kill is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Radiance Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.34:1. Radiance tends not to provide a ton of technical information on their releases, and that's once again the case with all three films in this set, which are lumped together in Radiance's insert booklet with the following very brief notes on the transfers:

Each film in The Bounty Hunter Trilogy was transferred in high definition by Toei Company Ltd and supplied to Radiance Films as high definition digital masters.

This is another generally great looking transfer, one that offers secure reproduction of a nicely suffused palette, though this presentation shares a certain slightly yellow-green skewing with The Fort of Death at times, something that may be most noticeable in either outdoor scenes, where skies can vary from "true blue" to something leaning more toward teal or green, and where flesh tones can occasionally look somewhat jaundiced. Detail levels are generally excellent throughout, and some close-ups offer some really impressive fine detail levels. Grain is once again very heavy at times, even aside and apart from opticals (the film features a lot of on screen text), but while undeniably gritty looking on occasion (see screenshot 8), resolves without any major issues. The eclipse sequence is graded in a kind of evocative orange tone (see screenshot 2). My score is 3.75.

Eight Men to Kill Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Eight Men to Kill features LPCM 2.0 Mono audio in the original Japanese. As with the two other films in this set, there's a somewhat boxy sound in evidence throughout this track, and this track in particular has a pretty strident high end at times which can also reveal just a hint of hiss in the few quiet moments. All of this said, there are no real issues in terms of listenability, and some elements, as in the score, offering a decently full bodied sound. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Eight Men to Kill Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Radiance has packaged The Fort of Death and Eight Men to Kill together on one disc, with the following supplements:

• Robin Gatto (HD; 18:00) is an interesting visual essay by "Samurai film connoisseur" Robin Gatto, focusing mainly on The Fort of Death and director Eiichi Kudo.


• Gallery (HD)


• The Fort of Death Trailer (HD; 3:20)


• Eight Men to Kill Trailer (HD; 3:07)

Eight Men to Kill Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Eight Men to Kill may be a Bounty Hunter film more in name than in actual tone or even presentational aspects, but it's a viscerally exciting story that moves along briskly and once again offers Wakayama a standout role. Technical merits are generally solid and the visual essay in particular very interesting. Recommended.