Ronin Iyemon Tamiya (Tatsuya Nakadai) returns home to find that his pregnant wife Oiwa (Mariko Okada) has been forced to work in a brothel by her father; in order to get his wife back, Iyemon resorts to murdering his father-in-law. Meanwhile, Iyemon's buddy Naosuke (Kanzaburô Nakamura) kills Yomoshichi Satô (Mikijirô Hira), who stands in his way of wooing Oiwa's sister Osode (Junko Ikeuchi). The men cover up their crimes and vow to avenge the murders.
Iyemon soon realises that being a husband and father to a newborn son isn't all he thought it would be -- finding a position as a samurai is actually more important to him. To achieve this, he aims to marry the daughter of a rich, influential man who can recommend his services to a lord, but first, he must get rid of Oiwa. Iyemon gives his wife some special medicine that he has been told will make her ugly, thereby giving him a reason to leave her; instead it makes her very ill. When Oiwa learns what Iyemon has done, her husband sticks her with his sword and dumps her body, but being dead doesn't stop his wife from taking revenge.
I get the feeling that I am expected to like Illusion of Blood more than I do simply because its Japanese, has a respected cast and director, and is from the'60s; unfortunately, I found the whole thing very labored, not very scary, and overlong, with a narrative that doesn't flow all that well. Even the much-touted visuals failed to impress me, although this may well have been due to the rather lousy picture quality of my DVD. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is a boring film, but I definitely struggled to remain engaged, and was relieved when it was finally all over.
