"Samurai Executioner", Original First Release Japanese Movie Poster 1977, B2 Size (51 x 73cm) ZA360

This is an original Japanese B2 theatrical poster for Doku-fu Oden to Kubikiri Asa / 「毒婦お伝と首斬り浅」, released by Tōei in 1977. The film is sometimes encountered under the later English video title Samurai Executioner, although that title is somewhat misleading: the film is far more centred on the notorious figure of Takahashi Oden than on the executioner himself.

Film background
Directed by Yūji Makiguchi, the film is a highly fictionalised, exploitation-era retelling of the life of Takahashi Oden, remembered as the last woman to be executed by beheading in Japan. The cast includes Terumi Azuma as Oden and Gorō Ibuki as Yamada Asaemon, with Yuki Tachibana, Yoshinobu Hirose, and Akira Shioji among the supporting cast. Japanese film records list its theatrical release date as 22 January 1977.

The film belongs to Tōei’s 1970s cycle of sensational historical dramas: violent, eroticised, lurid, and deliberately extreme. Rather than a restrained biographical treatment, it presents Oden as a figure of danger, desire, rebellion, and fatal momentum.

Poster design
This Japanese B2 poster is a superb example of 1970s Tōei exploitation poster art. The composition is dominated by dramatic hand-painted imagery: a sword raised above a distressed woman in the snow, with the scene framed by a vivid red border and heavy vertical Japanese copy.

The title 「毒婦お伝と首斬り浅」 appears in large black brush-style calligraphy on the left, giving the poster a strong jidaigeki / sensational-crime atmosphere. The right-side red copy announces the executioner’s blade and the “poison woman” legend with all the theatrical intensity expected from Tōei’s period exploitation campaigns.

The lower credits identify Yūji Makiguchi as director, with cast names including Terumi Azuma, Gorō Ibuki, Yuki Tachibana, Yoshinobu Hirose, and Akira Shioji. The overall design is bold, confrontational, and unmistakably period-specific: snow, steel, erotic peril, red typography, and hand-painted violence.

Release identification
This poster should be catalogued as an original 1977 Japanese first-release B2 theatrical poster for 「毒婦お伝と首斬り浅」.

The English title Samurai Executioner may be used as a collector reference or alternate video-market title, but the original Japanese title and campaign identity are those printed on the poster.

Condition
Excellent condition. Please review the photograph carefully, as it shows the exact poster for sale.

This is an original 1977 Japanese theatrical B2 poster.
It is not a reproduction or a reprint.

It is over 45 years old.

Certificate of Authenticity included.