Overview: Anticipating the cool aesthetic of Seijun Suzuki’s Branded to Kill and based on a crime novel by Shinji Fujiwara, the author of the original material for the same year’s A Colt is My Passport, A Certain Killer and A Killer’s Key are similarly stylish contemporary hitman thrillers directed by Daiei’s top director of jidai-geki, Kazuo Mori (The Tale of Zatoichi Continues) and starring the studio’s top actor Raizō Ichikawa (Shinobi: Band of Assassins, Sleepy Eyes of Death).

Co-scripted by the director Yasuzō Masumura (Giants and Toys, Blind Beast) and featuring masterful scope cinematography with an expressionistic eye for color by one of Japan’s most esteemed cinematographers, Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon, Ugetsu), these Japanese crime drama essentials are presented for the very first time to the English-language home video market.

Blu-ray Verdict: In A Certain Killer (1967), Shiozaki’s low-profile existence as a chef at a local sushi restaurant serves as a front for his true job as a professional assassin whose modus operandi is poisoned needles.

He’s approached by Maeda, a low-ranking member of a local yakuza group, to take out a rival gang boss. But the sudden arrival into his life of a spirited young woman, Keiko (Yumiko Nogawa, Gate of Flesh), has dramatic ramifications on his relationship with his new employer.

A Certain Killer is definitely a more downbeat approach to the hitman film series and while it’s not ridden with bloodshed, its got class. Shiozawa’s a lone wolf, strong silent type, and Raizō Ichikawa is a block of ice in this role. Just the way he maneuvers in this role he’s way too cool and embodies it.

His supporting characters make this worth the watch as their personas are more loud, while he is very reserved. It makes the plot thicker, and while some of it felt non-linear, once you get to the final act it’s rewarding.

Co-written by Yasuzo Masumara, I assume he probably was set to direct at some point, but action specialist Kazuo Mori does a good, and rather stylish job with plenty of Melville echoes.

Ichikawa’s lone wolf assassin is back in A Killer’s Key (1967), this time masquerading as a traditional dance instructor named Nitta who is called in to avert a potential financial scandal that threatens to engulf a powerful yakuza group with ties to powerful figures in the political establishment.

In a vacuum, A Certain Killer might be the better of the two, but A Killer’s Key is much more intriguing in context. Raizō Ichikawa reprises his role as the reticent killer that women can’t help but fall for. But where A Certain Killer led the character down one path, the path of never once being tempted and of the job being the job, A Killer’s Key takes the same low key performance and embarks into a whole different direction.

The same performance that in one movie made the character withdrawn and calculating suddenly is steeped in revenge, petty vindictiveness and greed. Where the eponymous killer would have no qualms about walking away several times over in the previous movie, he comes back and digs himself deeper into a hole that with a cooler head could have been avoided entirely.

Two endings of a man anonymously vanishing into a crowd, the same image but very different emotions. One is of a man with his head held high and his dignity intact, the other of a fool that kept betting on black even while the casino collapsed all around him.

In a way the perfect ending to a franchise that with the second movie essentially prevents itself. A killer thoroughly humbled and embarrassed into disappearing from the face of the earth.

Visually and structurally not as interesting as A Certain Killer, but as a biting portrait of a certain type of protagonist it’s really effective without ever having to lean into becoming a farce.

Bonus Features:
High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation of both films
Original uncompressed Japanese mono audio for both films
Optional newly translated English subtitles
Brand new audio commentary for both films by critic and Asian cinema expert Tony Rayns
The Definite Murderer, a brand new 30-minute introduction to the films by Japanese film scholar Mark Roberts
Original theatrical trailers for both films
Image gallery
Reversible sleeve featuring newly commissioned artwork for both films by Tony Stella
Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by Jasper Sharp and Earl Jackson

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