Branded to Kill

Goro Hanada is a contract killer ranked third in Japan's underworld, a position he is content with. He has money, a comfortable apartment, a wife he loves, and a fondness for the smell of freshly cooked rice. His routine is disrupted when a woman named Misako draws him into an assignment, and the job goes wrong. With the target surviving, Hanada finds himself hunted by his own organization, and the mysterious killer known as Number One is sent after him. Whether Number One truly exists or serves as a myth designed to frighten others becomes part of what Hanada must confront as he tries to survive.

Seijun Suzuki directed the film, the twenty-fourth of the twenty-six features credited to him in chronological order, following Carmen from Kawachi and preceding Lupin the Third: The Legend of the Gold of Babylon. Nikkatsu Corporation produced it, with Takiko Mizunoe and Kaneo Iwai as producers and a screenplay by Atsushi Yamatoya, Yasuaki Hangai and Seiichirō Yamaguchi. Joe Shishido leads the cast as Hanada, joined by Kōji Nanbara, Isao Tamagawa, Annu Mari, Mariko Ogawa and Hiroshi Minami. The film runs ninety-one minutes and belongs to the action, crime and thriller genres. On TMDB it holds a rating of 7.2 out of 10 from 262 votes, indicating a modest but favorable level of audience approval.