Samurai Assassin is in many ways a brother film to Sword of Doom—it was directed by the same man (Kihachi Okamoto), shares one of the same stars (Toshiro Mifune), and even the same screenwriter (Kurosawa collaborator Shinobu Hashimoto). It doesn’t exist on the same level as Doom—few movies do—but Assassin is good enough in its own right that comparing the two directly is probably unfair. Also, like Doom, it’s not as widely recognized as many of the “staple” samurai movies (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, etc.), but don’t let that stop you if you’re curious.