Hot Picks

- Ready for My Close Up 2019

- Talk of the Dead 2016

- Tower Rats 2020

- Script of the Dead 2024

- The Bell Affair 2023

- Easter Bloody Easter 2024

- Velma 2022

- Everwinter Night 2023

- Main Character Energy 2023

- Stupid Games 2024

- Bittertooth 2023

- 4 Minutes of Terror: Night Slasher 2024

- Apart 2024

- The Abandoned 2006

- Becky 2024

- The Evil Fairy Queen 2024

- The Black Guelph 2022

- Followers 2024

- Silence of the Prey 2024

- Battle for the Western Front 2024

- Beware the Boogeyman 2024

- Subject 101 2022

- Driftwood 2023

- The Legend of Lake Hollow 2024

- Black Mass 2023

- Skinwalkers: American Werewolves 2 2023

- The Manifestation 2024

- Spirit Riser 2024

- Garden of Souls 2019

- It's a Wonderful Slice 2024

- Caleb & Sarah 2024

- The Thousand Steps 2020

- The Desiring 2021

- When a Stranger Knocks 2024

- Quint-essentially Irish 2024

- Son of Gacy 2024

- Saltville 2024

- The True Story of the Christ's Return 2024

- Whenever I'm Alone with You 2023

- Jurassic Triangle 2024

- Midnight Peepshow 2022

- Offworld: Alien Planet 2024

- The Swiss Conspiracy 1976

- Sex-Positive 2024

- Here for Blood 2022

- All Over Again 2024

- The Color Yellow 2023

- Des Töchterleins Leid 2024

- I Am a Channel 2024

- The Hermits 2023

- Murdaritaville 2024

- Inheritance 2024

- The Devil's Partner 1960

- First Impressions Can Kill 2017

- A Killer Conversation 2014

- Star Crash 1979

- Strangler of the Swamp 1946

Machibuse

Ambush at Blood Pass
The Ambush: Incident at Blood Pass

Japan 1970
produced by
Toshiro Mifune, Yoshio Nichikawa (executive) for Mifune Productions, Toho
directed by Hiroshi Inagaki
starring Toshiro Mifune, Yujiro Ishihara, Ruriko Asaoka, Shintaro Katsu, Kinnosuke Nakamura, Chusha Ichikawa, Ichiro Arishima, Mika Kitagawa, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Jotaro Togami, Chieko Nakakita, Ryunosuke Yamazaki, Seishiro Hisano, Yasuo Araki, Seishiro Kuno, Hiroshi Tanaka, Hirohito Kimura, Yutaka Sada, Shinsuke Achiba, Yuzuro Sawanobori, Shunichi Okita, Kazuo Suzuki, Koji Kaminishi, Yasuji Uraki
written by Kyu Fujiki, Ichiro Miyagawa, Hideo Oguni, Hajime Takaiwa, music by Masaru Sato

Yojimbo

review by
Mike Haberfelner

Quick Links

Abbott & Costello

The Addams Family

Alice in Wonderland

Arsène Lupin

Batman

Bigfoot

Black Emanuelle

Bomba the Jungle Boy

Bowery Boys

Bulldog Drummond

Captain America

Charlie Chan

Cinderella

Deerslayer

Dick Tracy

Dr. Mabuse

Dr. Orloff

Doctor Who

Dracula

Edgar Wallace made in Germany

Elizabeth Bathory

Emmanuelle

Fantomas

Flash Gordon

Frankenstein

Frankie & Annette Beach Party movies

Freddy Krueger

Fu Manchu

Fuzzy

Gamera

Godzilla

Hercules

El Hombre Lobo

Incredible Hulk

Jack the Ripper

James Bond

Jekyll and Hyde

Jerry Cotton

Jungle Jim

Justine

Kekko Kamen

King Kong

Laurel and Hardy

Lemmy Caution

Lobo

Lone Wolf and Cub

Lupin III

Maciste

Marx Brothers

Miss Marple

Mr. Moto

Mister Wong

Mothra

The Munsters

Nick Carter

OSS 117

Phantom of the Opera

Philip Marlowe

Philo Vance

Quatermass

Robin Hood

The Saint

Santa Claus

El Santo

Schoolgirl Report

The Shadow

Sherlock Holmes

Spider-Man

Star Trek

Sukeban Deka

Superman

Tarzan

Three Mesquiteers

Three Musketeers

Three Stooges

Three Supermen

Winnetou

Wizard of Oz

Wolf Man

Wonder Woman

Yojimbo

Zatoichi

Zorro

Available on DVD!

To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned)

Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!

Ronin and bodyguard Yo (Toshiro Mifune) accepts a job to travel to Sanshuu Pass and... well, and wait for something to happen. On the way to the pass, Yo saves a woman, Okuni (Ruriko Asaoka) from her violent husband, and later he leaves her at an inn near the pass, even though (or because) she has fallen in love with him. Nothing much happens at the pass, so after a day of waiting, Yo returns to the inn that's full of suspicious people like the gambler Yataro (Yushiro Ishihara), the doctor Gentetsu (Shintaro Katsu), who lives in the barn, the way too positive innkeeper Oyuki (Mika Kitagawa) and her way too careful grandpa. Add to this a self-absorbed and torture happy but badly injured police officer, Ibuki (Kinnosuke Nakamura) and his prisoner, Tatsu (Ryunozuke Yamazaki), who is sure to be freed by his yakuza friends before long and you have an explosive mix ... yet before Tatsu's friends can spring him free, both Yo and Yataro - even though he is in love with innkeeper Oyuki - make a getaway ... or at least they pretend to do so.

Later that evening, Tatsu's gang arrives at the inn, frees him and takes everyone in the inn hostage - and wouldn't you know it, Gentotsu now turns out to be the gang's boss. It turns out that they want to hold up a platoon that is to deliver the gold of the Shogunate through Sanshuu Pass and thus effectively overthrow the Shogunate ... and it also turns out that Yo has actually been hired to help them - which means he has to turn against everybody in the inn, even people like Okuni he has come to like - until that is Yo receives new orders that tell him to kill Gentotsu.

Somehow, Yo manages though to neither turn against his friends after all nor kill Gentotsu - whom he now knows has been betrayed -, and he even tries to stop Gentotsu from trying to rob the gold, because that is a rather obvious trap ... however, it's much too late for that, when Gentotsu learns he has been betrayed, he is only all the more enraged and decides to go through with the attack no matter what - and ultimately is killed, along with his gang.

Yo meanwhile, who has essentially been playing both sides, is let go thanks to Ibuki, who shows that he is a righteous man after all, however, as expected there is no happy end for Yo and Okuni, whom he leaves without even saying good-bye.

In the last scene, Yo is seen slaughtering the Crow - the man behind the whole deal and the betrayal - and his men to put a few wrongs right.

 

Entertaining and quite interesting samurai film in which - especially when compared to the same year's Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo - plays a more sombre version of his Yojimbo character who is nevertheless quite as cunning as ever and still as capable as ever to play two sides against each other (as established in Yojimbo, the first of the series). Despite its interesting storyline and the unusual setting (a lonely inn surrounded by snow), Ambush at Blood Pass is far from perfect: Several narrative threads (like the subplot about gambler Yataro) are abandoned all too suddenly, other subplots are introduced without having anything to do with the main storyline, and the ending in which Yo slays the Crow is nothing if not cheesy.

Still, overall the film is quite enjoyable, even if it bares no comparison to Akira Kurosawa's handling of the character.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

Feeling lucky?
Want to
search
any of my partnershops yourself
for more, better results?
(commissions earned)

The links below
will take you
just there!!!

Find Ambush at Blood Pass
at the amazons ...

USA  amazon.com

Great Britain (a.k.a. the United Kingdom)  amazon.co.uk

Germany (East AND West)  amazon.de

Looking for imports?
Find Ambush at Blood Pass here ...

Thailand  eThaiCD.com
Your shop for all things Thai

Something naughty?
(Must be over 18 to go there!)

x-rated  find Ambush at Blood Pass at adultvideouniverse.com


Thanks for watching !!!

 

 

In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

Amazon

Amazon UK

Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
Amazon!!!