General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Sleepy Eyes of Death: Full Circle Killing

Sleepy Eyes of Death: Full Circle Killing (Japanese title Nemuri Kyōshirō: Engetsugiri, 眠狂四郎円月斬り) is a 1964 Japanese chambara (Japanese sword-fight samurai film genre) film directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda, the third entry in Daiei Film's Nemuri Kyoshiro series starring Raizō Ichikawa as the cynical, masterless swordsman Nemuri Kyoshiro.¹^•² It was released in Japan on May 23, 1964, runs 85 minutes, and was produced at Daiei Kyoto in color.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Japanese title	眠狂四郎円月斬り (Nemuri Kyōshirō: Engetsugiri), released in English as Sleepy Eyes of Death: Full Circle Killing¹
Release	May 23, 1964, Japan; distributed by Daiei¹
Series position	Third of the twelve Nemuri Kyoshiro films made with Raizō Ichikawa between 1963 and 1969³
Director / writer	Kimiyoshi Yasuda; screenplay by Seiji Hoshikawa, from the novel by Renzaburō Shibata¹
Runtime / format	85 minutes, color, Daiei Kyoto²
Lead cast	Raizō Ichikawa (Nemuri Kyoshiro), Yūko Hamada, Kyōko Azuma, Tarō Marui, Jun'ichirō Narita⁴
Signature technique	Kyoshiro's Full Moon Cut (Engetsugiri), a hypnotic sword technique in which he traces a circle in the air and cuts down the opponent before the circle closes⁵

Spoilers

Plot

The story begins when Katagiri Takayuki, an illegitimate son of the shogun, tests a new sword by cutting down a starving peasant who has fled famine from the countryside. Nemuri Kyoshiro witnesses the killing, is hated by the dead man's companions, who mistake him for one of the killers, and becomes a target of Takayuki himself.¹ In an English-language synopsis, a decapitation by the shogun's "monstrous misbegotten son" draws the wandering swordsman into the affair when he is blamed for the beheading.⁶

Takayuki is driven by his mother Matsujo, who has been arranging the deaths of the shogun's legitimate heirs so that her son will succeed to the shogunate.⁷ Takayuki is a sword collector obsessed with acquiring Kyoshiro's rare Musou Masamune blade, while Kyoshiro in turn takes an interest in Takayuki's fiancée.⁷ In one episode, Kyoshiro is invited aboard a pleasure boat by Konami, a maid in Takayuki's household, where he is urged to enter service and asked to give up his sword; he refuses and cuts off the arm of Takayuki's fencing master Toda before leaving.¹

The film is notable for a scene in which Kyoshiro rapes Konami, his adversary's fiancée, and later spends part of the story defending himself from her attempts at revenge.⁷ Reviewers have treated this as a defining marker of the character's anti-hero status, setting him apart from more sympathetic series protagonists such as Zatoichi.⁷

Production

The screenplay was adapted by Seiji Hoshikawa from Renzaburō Shibata's novels, and the film was shot by Chikashi Makiura, who had worked with Yasuda on the previous entry.¹ Ichirō Saitō composed the score, Toshio Taniguchi edited, and Yoshinobu Nishioka was art director; Shōhei Miyauchi handled fight choreography.⁴ Yasuda was a Daiei jidaigeki (Japanese period drama set in feudal times) regular who also directed several Zatoichi films, the first Daimajin, and films in the Yokai Monsters series.⁸

Style and reception

A darker entry. Reviewers describe the third film as the darkest of the series to that point: it opens with a brutal beheading and contains more onscreen violence than the first two entries, including severed limbs and a final duel set against a burning bridge.⁹^•⁸ One account calls it the last film in the series to use a more subtle depiction of Kyoshiro's peculiarities, before later entries adopted strobe effects for the Full Moon Cut.⁸ The Full Moon Cut itself is staged as a ritual in which Kyoshiro slowly moves his sword in a circle like the minute hand of a clock, drawing the opponent into attacking before the circle is complete.⁵

Criticism has been mixed. A Letterboxd review praises the bloodier action and sets but finds the camerawork, narrative fluidity, and music downgraded from the second film.¹⁰ Another reviewer notes a first-person camera sequence on a stone staircase as a highlight while judging the overall mise-en-scène less striking than other entries.¹¹ The Blood Brothers review credits Yasuda's direction with balancing exploitation elements and class-struggle themes, singling out the burning-bridge finale.¹² IMDb lists a user rating of 6.8 from about 240 votes and records a trivia body-count of 52 for Kyoshiro in this film.¹³

Place in the series

The Nemuri Kyoshiro series was based on Renzaburō Shibata's bestselling novels and became the signature role of Raizō Ichikawa, who played the half-Japanese, half-foreign swordsman, born of a Japanese noblewoman raped by an apostate Christian missionary during a black mass.³^•¹⁴ Daiei produced twelve films with Ichikawa between 1963 and 1969, ending with Sleepy Eyes of Death: Castle Menagerie; two further films were made after his death in 1969 with Hiroki Matsukata in the lead.³^•¹⁴ Full Circle Killing was released in North America on VHS and DVD by AnimEigo as part of its Sleepy Eyes of Death collector's sets, uncut with English subtitles.¹⁵

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026