Bohachi: Clan of the Forgotten Eight

Also Known As
Porno Jidaigeki: Bohachi Bushido
Bohachi Bushido: Code of the Forgotten Eight

Main Details
Released in 1973
Color
2.35:1
Production Co: Toei

Cast and Crew
Directed by Teruo Ishii
Cinematography by Jubei Suzuki
Music by Hajime Kaburagi
Written by San Kaji, Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima
Starring: Tetsuro Tanba, Goro Ibuki, Tatsuo Endo and Ryohei Uchida

Instead of a pure Pinky Violence feature, this time I thought I’d review Bohachi: Clan of the Forgotten Eight which is sort of a Chambara/Pinky Violence hybrid.  For those who are unaware, Chambara films are basically those of the sword fighting samurai genre.  In the grindhouse world that includes such films as the Zatoichi and Lone Wolf and Cub Series.  In fact, Kazuo Koike wrote the two manga for which Lone Wolf and Cub and Bohachi: Clan of the Forgotten Eight were based.  Now on to the blood and boobies...

Tetsuro Tanba as "Shino, the Assassin"

The story begins with our hero Shino (played by Tanba Tetsuro) embroiled in a bloody sword fight... on a bridge... at sunset... against overwhelming odds.  After cutting down wave after wave of advancing government troops who want him captured or dead, merely because he kills people for a living, he grows weary of killing says screw it and steps of the bridge into the icy waters below.  He’s ronin so he didn’t actually say, “Screw it.”  It was a much more poetic, "To live is hell, but to die, also is hell."

 He is fished out and revived by warmth of a few of the whores of the Bohachi clan.  The Bohachi are bad guys.  They reject the eight values of honor, piety and selflessness of Confucianism and by doing so, live only for personal pleasure and gain thus making them "beasts in human skin."  They are essentially samurai with an anti-bushido ethos.  Shino is tested to become a member of this ruthless gang (it involves money and sex) andultimately fails but is still welcomed into the clan by it's leader because, you know, he's invincible.  The Bohachi chief has lofty goals and needs some help to carry out his plans of eliminating rival prostitution gangs.

 Shino says, "Sure" because he has nothing else to do and commences killing or publicly shaming the guys who get it on with whores from rival gangs.  He then takes on the rival gangs themselves and everything goes swimmingly until Shino is double-crossed by the Bohachi chief and is forced to take out his employer, the Bohachi clan and then finally confront the government troops in an epic final fight on a snow covered battlefield.

Bohachi: Clan of the Forgotten Eight  is a blood soaked Japanese period piece with boobies galore, as one would expect from this mixed genre, but it contains elements which set it apart from other Pinky Violence/Chambara films:

- Naked knife-wielding women bodyguards

- A syphilitic sex-addict prostitute kept in a cage

- Opium induced hallucinations

- Flying severed limbs and heads

Booby rating:  4.5 out of 5

Violence rating:  4 out of 5

Get Bohachi Bushido: Code Of The Forgotten Eight 
Unrated at TLACult.com