KYOSHIRO NEMURI: IN THE SPIDER'S LAIR (1968)

 

Anti-hero ronin Kyoshiro Nemuri (Raizo Ichikawa) confronts one of the most vile bitches in samurai cinema history. (I would call her the "hard C-word" and she would deserve it, but I am too much of a gentleman.)

After decades of hearing it touted as an all-time classic, I finally saw KYOSHIRO NEMURI: IN THE THE SPIDER'S LAIR, and maybe it was due to all the hype, but I have to admit that I was underwhelmed.

Also known as THE HUMAN TARANTULA, this 11th in the "Sleepy Eyes of Death" samurai series pits titular wandering anti-hero Kyoshiro Nemuri (Raizo Ichikawa), the red-haired son of a black mass conducted by Portuguese priests who raped his mother as part of the ritual, against a brother and sister pair of unspeakably sadistic sociopaths who keep a dungeon full of innocent villagers whom they haul out and murder in cruel ways for their amusement. Nemuri is a particularly nihilistic take on the samurai protagonist, as he owes allegiance to no one and basically doesn't give a shit about anyone or anything, so little that he does is noble or heroic. He's a rather unlikable sort, but even he recognizes that the evil siblings need killing, and the path to that ultimate resolution features a very high body count indeed, though not punctuated with spewing gallons of arterial spray like in the LONE WOLF AND CUB or HANZO THE RAZOR flicks. 

The film is well-crafted and acted, but somehow I just could not connect with Nemuri or really care about anything in the narrative, other than seeing the bad guys get what was coming to them, and when they finally do meet their well-earned fates, it was nowhere near as cathartic as their deaths deserved to be. The brother and sister are two of the worst villains in a genre that's packed with utter scumbags for antagonists, so them being as nasty as they are and standing out as exemplars of soulless cruelty as much as they do is really saying something and may be a key element to why this entry is so revered. And make no mistake, Nemuri is a slayer who litters the landscape with bodies, so there's certainly no skimping on the sword-slashing action. It may just be that between the time I first heard about this film and its lofty rep and the present, I have seen perhaps 200 samurai films of wildly varying quality, several of which are all-time favorites that I will eagerly revisit, even the ones that concentrate more on drama than sword fights and gory violence (1960's BENTEN KOZO being a prime example) involved me way more than this one did. For me, it was worth sitting through once, just to see it. 

I have previously seen the first entry in the series, but it was a long time ago and its details have faded from memory, though I do recall finding Nemuri's inaugural adventure to be an interesting character study of a protagonist who is pretty much the antithesis of the heroic ronin ideal. My lukewarm response to IN THE SPIDER’S LAIR notwithstanding, I am quite willing to give the rest of the Kyoshiro Nemuri outings a chance. In fact, I welcome the opportunity.

 

Poster from the original Japanese theatrical release.