 Nemuri Kyoshiro Joyoken (1964) is fourth in the Full Moon Swordsman series, shown in English variously as Sleepy Eyes of Death: Sword of Seduction or Adventures of Nemuri Kyoshiro: She-Devil Slaying Sword or Kyoshiro Nemuri at Bay & by variant titles.
This is the episode in which the nature of Kyoshiro's character is finally revealed in its full sadistic glory. It was a decade ahead of its time in depicting violent & perverse sexuality of heros (rather than just of villains), a heady influence on future chambara swordplay films whose antiheros had few moral limitations.
Princess Kiku (Michiko Ai) is evil incarnate. She likes to addict her handmaids to opium then deny them access & watch them suffer. Eventually she kills them. She is herself continuously on opium. She is skilled at Noh drama dance, & is never seen in public except in her Noh mask. Long before her face is revealed we begin to suspect she will not look quite human, as so many tricks are used to keep us from seeing her face.
The princess is the daughter of a past Shogun. She's involved with a smuggler who got her addicted specifically so someone of the inner court would protect an illicit trade with China. But as Kiku has become an uncontrolable psychotic killer, the smugglers fear an investigation that will unveil their operation.
Tomisaburo Wakayama returns in the role of Chen Sun first encountered in The Chinese Jade (1963). He's the thirteenth descendant of Gen Ping who introduced Shorinji boxing (Shaolin kung fu) into Japan. Because he knows the Chinese language, he has become involved with the smugglers who've provided opium to the inner court.
Since Kyoshiro likes to cause trouble for evil men, he begins to harass Bizenya (Yoshio Inaba) the head of the smugglers. Bizenya & his partners try to convince Chen Sun to kill Kyoshiro, but Chen Sun warns them that if he ever gets round to testing his skills against the Full Moon style, it won't be for their reasons.
 The Virgin Shima (Naoko Kubo) is a Christian priestess regarded by her underground followers as a saint.
The persecuted, secret Christians know Kyoshiro is a half-breed who had a missionary father & they expect him to want to help Shima. But when a frightened worshipper begs Kyoshiro to assist the Virgin Shima, he replies, "I flatly refuse to help such a person."
His refusal turns out not to be irreversible. He despises Christians much as he despises humanity in general. But he despises hypocricy in particular. He observes a European Catholic priest breaking his vow of chastity to have sex with a beautiful maiden (Shiho Fujimura) who has been tricked into the position by Princess Kiku's sick sense of humor, & then instantly converts to Buddhism to escape persecution & death. Kyoshiro meets him shortly after his release from prison & chops his head off.
At the same time, he admires fidelity to any belief or cause, whether or not he agrees with the cause. The girl who was tricked into having sex with the priest did so hoping to save the life of her brother, who was about to be executed as a secret Christian. When both are betrayed for Kiku's amusement, Kyoshiro is moved by the victims' sincerity, so that he undertakes to assist the Virgin Shima for whom they died.
The two story-lines come together when it turns out the smugglers are orchestrating Christian gatherings in order to turn them over to the shogunate for imprisonment or execution, thus to keep the authorities too busy to bother with investigating smugglers.
Shima herself is something other than she pretends, but she knows Kyoshiro's origins because they are practically brother & sister, her mother having been his wetnurse after his own mother committed suicide.
 An astrologer met along the road sees bad omens in Kyoshiro's face & offers to tell his fortune. Kyoshiro says, "I don't live for tomorrow. So I don't need my fortune told."
He next encounters an esoteric Buddhist priestess named Seiga. She invites him to attend an erotic wedding ritual, an elegantly filmed sequence & precursor to the roman poruno or samurai softcore of the 1970s & 80s.
The astrologer & esoteric priestess turn out to be assassins, & the dark omen seen on Kyoshiro's face was not for him, but themselves. Here is where Kyoshiro first kills a woman rather than just humiliating or raping her as he did in the earlier episodes.
This is thought to be the first time in the history of samurai films that a hero, rather than a villain, kills a woman. And it's a moment that will open a floodgate of heros killing villianous women in samurai films to come, as well as being a moment that conveys the limitlessness of Kyoshiro's dark capacity.
Once again on his way to assist the Virgin Shima, he's stopped en route by the seductive Osen, who sneaks poison into his sake. Even poisoned he refuses to be defeated. When Osen's pimp attacks him, Kyoshiro blinds the man with a single sweep of his sword so that he will never again be able to enjoy the beauty of Osen. Kyoshiro then ravages Osen in his usual manner of raping bad women, but it's not really rape since she enjoys the hell out of it.
Yet another episode regards the psycho princess who sent her vassals to make Kojiro an offer he can't refuse, that he sneak into her room by night & make love to her. He readily agrees, though knowing she sadistically kills her lovers. When he sneaks into her room in pitch darkness, he brings a substitute to lay with her, a kabuki actor of the sort who were male prostitutes & would screw anyone for the right fee.
Princess Kiku realizes she has been duped when Kyoshiro leaps in from the shadows to protect the actor's life. Kiku flees before Kyoshiro can see her face, but by now he's guessed that she's disfigured from some infection perhaps related to opium use, & he now knows what he must do to publicly humiliate her. Humiliating despicable women is central to Kyoshiro's character, as he's not your run of the mill good guy, he's a son of the Black Mass.
 Swordplay action is plentiful & the best in the first four features. A night-time one-against all duel concludes with the only worthy opponent mesmerized by Kyoshiro's Full Moon Cut, more gorgeously photographed than ever.
Kyoshiro's enemies multiply like fruit flies. Not only the smugglers want him dead, but humiliated Kiku's chief vassal is a chain-fighter who thinks he can defeat the Full Moon cut by wrapping his whirling chain around Kyoshiro's upraised sword. Chen the master of Chinese boxing uses weapons as well as open hand against Kyoshiro's sword.
He finally meets the Virgin Shima who reveals his origins to him, his consecration to Satan, his mother's suicide, his missionary father having become a Satanist.
She believes they have a great deal in common & should be family to one another, but Kyoshiro is appalled to learn Shima, though known to the Christian underground as "the godlike woman," is a complete fraud. When she offers Kyoshiro treasures & her body if he will unite in her greed-driven cause, he says, "Too many have died because of you," & draws forth his ill-omened sword.
copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl
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