Killing

Killing (斬、, 2018) is a Japanese period film you can watch online on iFILM — written and directed by Shinya Tsukamoto, running eighty minutes. The setting: mid-nineteenth century Edo, a few years before the shogunate's collapse.

Mokunoshin Tsuzuki, played by Sosuke Ikematsu, trains every day and is the finest sword in his village. The problem is that he can no longer bring himself to kill — and he is not sure when that changed. A wandering ronin named Sawamura, played by Tsukamoto himself, arrives to recruit fighters for the coming war. Yu Aoi plays the village woman whose quiet presence makes the dilemma sharper, not easier.

For audiences expecting samurai action, this will feel slow. That's deliberate. Tsukamoto is less interested in the mechanics of the sword fight than in the moment just before it — the gap between capability and will. Watch Killing (2018) online on iFILM.