Considered the masterpiece of Toei's myriad yakuza pieces, Blood of Revenge lovingly unveils the secret heart of florid melodrama pulsating beneath the gangster genre, smoothly shifting between murders and tears, hysteria and serenity, swords and lovers while detailing an early 1900s mob fight over an Osaka construction monopoly. Skillfully edited scenes of assassinations, fights, and stabbings create a collage of panicked shouts, flaring eyes, and flashing swords, while Kato's trademark low-angle, elegantly somber long takes of ceremonies, bedside vigils, and the doomed romance between "a man who lived as a yakuza and a woman who lived as a woman" provide oases of studied calm between the storms. Filmed in only eighteen days, its sturdy performances, stately widescreen cinematography, and Kato's assured, generous direction bely the film's B-movie origins, weaving a surprisingly engrossing, Sirkian universe of honor and desire into a doomed landscape of blood and swords.-Jason Sanders