Media Reviewed: UK DVD (Vipco)
Director: Robert Houston
Starring: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Kayo Matsuo, Minoru Ohki, Masahiro Tomikawa
In the late seventies Robert Houston obtained the rights to the first two films in the Lone Wolf and Cub series, Sword of Vengeance and Babycart at the River Styx and edited them together, re-wrote the dialogue in English and added a new electronic score. What could have been a total mess of a film ends up as a thoroughly entertaining, thoroughly cheesy, thoroughly violent film.
The plot involves the Shogun's decapitator, Ogami Itto (Wakayama) and his young son, Daigoro (Tomikawa). The shogun order's Itto's wife dead after he becomes paranoid and believes Itto to have betrayed him. Itto refuses to submit to the Shogun and the rest of the film involves hordes of ninja and samurai trying to hunt him down. This results in an carnage and bloodshed - people are literally sliced to pieces in an orgy of gory action.
Shogun Assassin uses parts of Sword of Vengeance in order to explain the plot in the first ten minutes of the film, the rest uses action from Babycart at the River Styx (my personal favourite of the six Lone Wolf movies). Whilst the original films have a lot more plot going on in them, with a lot of interesting references to Japanese history, Shogun Assassin goes for action and uses footage from both films extremely well. The electronic score is very cheesy, but fits the action of the film perfectly. The English dialogue and dubbing will draw unintentional laughs and adds to the entertainment value of the film.
The action scenes are well choreographed and feature some excellent swordplay from Wakayama. The more outrageous moments truly need to be seen to be believed - a standout moment in the film occurs when Lone Wolf pushes his son down a hill in a wooden buggy towards some samurai; he activates blades that spring out of the wheels, ploughing into the samurai and severing their legs. Throughout the film bright red blood literally sprays out of wounds and, whilst not realistic, it adds to the entertaining, over-the-top feel of the film.
Whilst the original films are better plot-wise, with much more interesting narratives, Shogun Assassin is excellent if you just want to sit down and enjoy violent, bloody carnage for ninety minutes. The UK DVD version from Vipco is uncut, but not ideal, as the image is non-anamorphic and a bit of a pain to get right on a widescreen TV. Those who enjoy this would be well advised to seek out the originals and their best bet would be to go for the US box set from Animeigo containing all six films.
Excellent