Samurai movies go back to the 1920s and seem unlikely to ever fade from cinema. For a look at the genre circa the 1960s, we head to 1966’s Samurai Wolf.

As he wanders Japan, a ronin named Kiba (Isao Natsuyagi) winds up in a small town. While there, he finds himself involved in various local conflicts.

These turn out to be more complex than Kiba initially assumes. Eventually Kiba assists the lovely vision-impaired Chise (Junko Miyazono) and he encounters a slew of conflicts along the way.

Despite the aforementioned long history of samurai films, Wolf demonstrates a different influence: the then-burgeoning spaghetti western. The film might take place in Japan and feature feudal times, but it plays more as Leone than Kurosawa.

Which doesn’t seem like a bad thing necessarily. After all, Italian westerns obviously riffed off their US counterparts, so a Japanese version of Italian cinema seems just as valid.

As I went into Wolf, I hoped for a bracing variant on the genre. At times it lives up to those hopes, but it tends to feel too much style over substance to really succeed.

At its core, the film comes with a simple plot of a warrior who falls in love and tries to help his new paramour. However, Wolf tosses in unnecessary complications that muddy the waters.

The story turns into a mess. Even without much to it, the narrative fails to develop into a coherent tale.

All of this feels unnecessary. We get double-crosses, triple-crosses, and maybe a couple quadruple-crosses to boot.

That feels like too many crosses for one short movie to bear. As noted, we really find a basic core story that seems like enough to sustain us without all those goofy complications.

Those pile up and make the film unwieldy before long. Even if we could easily follow the twists, they seem too disjointed to maintain our interest.

We do find a solid lead turn from Natsuyagi, and the movie’s stylized action offers some excitement. Nonetheless, the general incoherence of Wolf makes it a less than enthralling adventure.

Samurai Wolf appears in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Expect an inconsistent presentation.

In particular, blacks felt mushy and grey a lot of the time, especially during nighttime shots. Those looked ashen and without the appropriate depth.

Daytime material also faltered at times, mainly because those elements could appear too bright and blown out. Shadows lacked intensity.

Sharpness generally satisfied, at least, as the film mostly displayed positive delineation. A little softness crept in at times – exacerbated by the overly bright impression – but the image usually offered acceptable definition.

Neither jagged edges nor moiré effects impacted the image, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain seemed light but fairly natural.

Print flaws manifested a few streaks and specks but most of the movie felt clean. Though it came with some positives, too many problems affected the presentation.

In addition, the movie’s LPCM monaural soundtrack showed its age. The looped dialogue tended to seem edgy and rough, though the lines appeared to be intelligible – at least as much as I could tell given I don’t speak Japanese.

Effects varied, with some clean stems as well as distorted material. The same issues occurred with music, as the score went from fairly vibrant to shrill. This felt like a mediocre track for an older movie.

As we shift to extras, we open with an audio commentary from film historian Chris Poggiali. He delivers a running, screen-specific look at story and characters, cast and crew, themes and genre domains, and the movie’s release.

Poggiali starts slowly, as he does little more than describe the story for a span of time. He eventually gets into meatier areas, though these don’t often feel especially deep, as he usually just gives us basics about the participants.

Eventually Poggiali devotes an awful lot of the track to “who cares?” topics like the various theaters where the film played. Some good notes emerge here but an awful lot of the track feels less than useful.

Outlaw Director runs 15 minutes, 38 seconds and offers notes from director’s daughter Tomoe Gosha. She discusses her father’s career – with some emphasis on Wolf - in this informative chat.

The disc concludes with trailers for Wolf, Samurai Wolf 2: Hell Cut and Violent Streets.

Samurai Wolf delivers a simple story that loses effectiveness because the filmmakers muddy the waters. Rather than focus on the core narrative, the movie suffers from so many complications that it turns into a mess. The Blu-ray brings mediocre picture and audio with a few bonus features. Parts of Wolf hit the mark, but it lacks consistency.

Note that this release of Samurai Wolf pairs it with its sequel, 1967’s Samural Wolf 2: Hell Cut. Both reside on the same Blu-ray.