I, The Executioner

As the police investigate a sudden rash of brutal murders whose victims are all women the unscrupulous killer’s murky motivations remain hauntingly elusive. A labyrinthine character study slowly unfolds implying that the targets of these unspeakable acts may be culpable in their own shocking demise. Although director Tai Kato worked within the studio system mostly on genre films, his distinctly bold and somber style proved him a maverick auteur, with I, the Executioner one of his most incendiary masterpieces. Kato matches the film’s bleak narrative themes to its innovative aesthetics, “with blown out negatives, extreme close-ups, and deep focus mixed with his characteristic low angle composition to add to the sense of noirish dread which paints the modern city as an inescapable hellscape” (Haley Scanlon - Windows on Worlds).