Tomisaburo Wakayama would go on to play the main character in the LONE WOLF AND CUB movies. But before that he portrays this naughty monk here who likes to gamble, bang prostitutes and not take any crap from anyone. This movie is clearly inspired by the ZATOICHI films in the way they play and since Wakayama's brother, Shintaro Katsu, plays Zatoichi in almost everyone of those films he even resembles him quite a bit. Of course the difference is that our wicked priest here isn't blind and instead of a samurai sword he mainly just uses jujitsu to fling his opponents around. There's even one scene where our hero pretends to be a blind masseuse in case anyone missed all the other less obvious references. Just like Zatoichi this gets pretty heavy with the melodrama but it all ends with heads being smashed like ripe melons at the hands of Mr. Wakayama so that's a pretty good payoff. Worth a look for Zatoichi fans. AKA PRIEST KILLER and THE EVIL PRIEST.
There are a few other movies starring this wicked priest character but how many in the series seems to be a little unclear. From what I've seen it looks like there were 5 official films.
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