Who would think that one of the best Samurai movies had been made by a French director and it took place in gloomy, rainy Paris of the 60s? Great movie, simply amazing with the coolest actor possible to play the Samurai of the title, a "beautiful destructive angel of the dark street", Alain Delon. Delon's Jef Costello, the self-employed killer for hire, does not say much but when he is on the screen, you'd never take your eyes off him. Delon is the major but not the only asset to the film. Mellville's style is so distinguished, so precise, so elegant, so chilling, and so perfect in the exploring the darkest solitude possible (and that of a samurai or a tiger in the jungle) and of the only destiny the samurai has to be prepared for - "One who is a samurai must before all things keep constantly in mind, by day and by night . . . the fact that he has to die. That is his chief business" that I can't think of any other movie to place close to his masterwork.
Review of The Samurai
