Shogun Assassin Box Set Blu-ray Review
Gore-geous.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, April 14, 2012
Everybody have their flowcharts ready? Okay, here we go: in 1970, a popular manga series called
Lone Wolf and
Cub appeared depicting the feudal Japanese adventures of an official executioner of the Shogun named Ogami Itto
who finds
himself ostracized after false accusations are leveled against him by a family of feudal lords known as the Yagyu. Itto is
consigned to a mercenary like life as a roving assassin, taking along his infant son, Daigoro, with revenge against the
Yagyu a primary goal. Two years after the manga appeared, the first of what would become a long running franchise of
Japanese film adaptations premiered, starring Tomisaburo Wakayama as Itto. The first film bore the title
Lone Wolf
and Cub: Sword of Vengeance, and was followed in short order over the ensuing years by
Lone Wolf and Cub:
Baby Cart at the River Styx, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril, Lone Wolf
and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons and
Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven in Hell. In the late
seventies, American producer David Weisman obtained rights to the
Lone Cub and Wolf film franchise from Toho
and with his partner Robert Houston recut the first two films (
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance and
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the River Styx), redubbed the edited version into English, and released it to
American markets as
Shogun Assassin in 1980. The film was deemed to be incredibly violent in its day (an
allegation
that completely ignores the patently cartoonish aspect of a lot of the violence), and in fact the reaction in overseas
markets (especially in Britain) led to savvy marketers using the alluring "banned" appellation once the film started
matriculating to home video. Weisman and Houston soon moved on to the third
Lone Wolf and Cub film, and
then to the succeeding sequels, bringing each of them out dubbed into English as
Shogun
Assassin 2, Shogun Assassin 3 and so on, though of course
Shogun Assassin 2 was in actuality the
third film in the
Lone Wolf and Cub franchise, since the first
Shogun Assassin had been cobbled
together from the first
two Lone Wolf and Cub outings. See why a flowchart was recommended?
Shogun Assassin has always been something of a cult phenomenon, a tendency that was given a new shot in
the arm when none other than Quentin Tarantino featured a snippet of the film in
Kill Bill Vol. 2.
Shogun Assassin 3.5/5
(For my colleague Casey Broadwater's more in-depth analysis of the standalone release of the first film, read
here.)
This first film in the series is in some ways a maddening experience, a combination of both very good elements as well
as a sort of nonsensical ambience that is part and parcel of the film having been cobbled together from two sources
(though truth be told the bulk of this film actually comes from the second
Lone Wolf and Cub outing).
Shogun Assassin has been denuded of anything approaching complexity or plot nuance in order to maximize
action and not so coincidentally bloodshed. Therefore what initially was an internecine conflict in the
Lone Wolf and
Cub outings is boiled down to a supposedly easier to understand plotline whereby Itto's commander, the Shogun
himself, ends up becoming paranoid and attempts to kill Itto, managing only to kill Itto's wife. That sets Itto out on his
seemingly endless quest, with his toddler son in tow, living his new life as a mercenary.
Shogun Assassin does an admirable job of setting up the basic plot and characters which will continue to inform
the subsequent sequels, as well as moving in an anecdotal fashion from one outlandishly cartoonish battle to the next.
Swords bifurcate heads (when they're not actually chopping them off completely), what look like mere flesh wounds end
up unleashing incredible volumes of gushing blood, and martial arts battles seem to erupt from a simple "how do you
do" between any two given characters or groups. There's a great trio of mad female ninjas hot on the trail of Itto (one
of them voiced by none other than Sandra Bernhard), and the entire film has a sort of looney-tunes ambience that,
while not playing for laughs, is at times strangely reminiscent of that "other" reworked Asian film, Woody Allen's
What's Up, Tiger Lily?. Director Kenji Misumi has an eye for scenic vistas that helps invest this first outing with
an epic sweep, and despite the hyperbolic elements,
Shogun Assassin remains a curiously mesmerizing
experience.
Shogun Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death 2.5/5
The third
Lone Wolf and Cub outing is a disturbing piece that may have
some of the cartoonish elements
of the reedited
Shogun Assassin, but which, being the first unedited (though dubbed into English) version of the
franchise released as part of the
Shogun Assassin series benefits immensely from basically being left alone,
preserving its primal elements and making the film seem much more historically relevant (if not particularly accurate) as
a result. Daigoro is a little older now, but still is transported around in the perambulator (which is tricked out with a
number of feudal versions of spy thriller gizmos), and as Itto and son traverse a river in a ferry, Itto notices he's being
tailed, no doubt by the Yagyu.
Shogun Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death has a fair degree of violence toward women dotting its
landscape, with two unfortunate women meeting their fates early in the film in a really unsettling rape scene and then,
somewhat later, with a longer running arc that features a woman whom Itto initially notices on the ferry and who turns
out to be a hapless unfortunate about to be sold into prostitution. Her tangle with her pimp-seller is a visceral
sequence in the film, and it places Itto in the unusual position of being a protector rather than a killer.
Despite the pluses of being unedited and being allowed to retain its ostensibly dramatic demeanor,
Shogun
Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death is hampered by an overly anecdotal structure that lurches from segment
to segment and which robs the film of much continuity or momentum. The film is often incredibly ludicrous despite its
best efforts to take itself seriously, something which becomes completely apparent in the patently ridiculous final
showdown, which will have some frustrated viewers screaming to the bad guy,
"Just shut up and die already!".
Shogun Assassin 3: Slashing Blades of Carnage 3.0/5
If the steely faced demeanor of Itto chopping and hacking his way through any number of bad guys hasn't been
enough for you, this third outing offers the additional allure of a leading lady nemesis who is heavily tattooed and isn't
above slaying her foes topless. (It should be mentioned that several of the
Shogun Assassin films feature at
least passing female nudity). Michie Azuma portrays Oyuki, the female assassin of a feudal warlord, who has gone
rogue and is seen in the film's opening moments dicing and slicing her way through a bunch of supposedly superior
males in a forest. The film initially seems to be poised to have a cat and mouse game between Itto, who has been
hired to kill Oyuki, and the resourceful woman, but it takes a somewhat surprising left turn after this initial set up is
developed.
Daigoro becomes the actual focus of a large swath of
Shogun Assassin 3: Slashing Blades of Carnage, when he
wanders away from his tricked out baby carriage and ends up getting lost. That puts him in a series of predicaments
culminating in a showdown with a nefarious member of the Yagyu family, which in turn leads to a showdown between
the Yagyu villain and Itto, who through sheer determination has managed to track down his missing son and is
hopefully about to be reunited with him.
Only after this somewhat circuitous route does the film finally return to the supposedly central conflict between Oyuki
and Itto. The film then takes
another unexpected turn after that battle is actually dispatched rather quickly in a
relatively anticlimactic fashion, with a return of two Yagyu clan members who have differing responses to Itto after
having done battle with him. There's the expected gorey finale which actually sees Itto fairly badly wounded. This
third installment is a definite step up from the second, with a more cohesive plot (despite its twists and turns), and
some outlandish but extremely effective action elements. Itto becomes less of a stony faced cipher in this film, if only
because his efforts to find and protect Daigoro finally humanize him, if only a little bit.
Shogun Assassin 4: Five Fistfuls of Gold 3.5/5
This film bears certain similarities to another martial arts film which highly influenced Quentin Tarantino and the
Kill
Bill films, namely the great Shaw Brothers classic,
The Five Deadly Venoms. Like that film,
Shogun Assassin 4: Five
Fistfuls of Gold posits a quintet of characters who each have individual talents and, in this case, individual
knowledge that will help Itto perform what turns out to be his major task in this film. There's strangely also a
somewhat extra-Japanese historical aspect to this film, as it becomes evident that Itto has been enlisted to help calm
some turmoil caused by an evil warlord (is there any other kind?), who has locked away his true heir, a son, and placed
a daughter he fathered with his concubine in his place, the girl now fitted out to appear male. The locked away heir
may remind some of British history, while the girl made to appear male will of course remind some of Disney's
Mulan.
Daigoro once again wanders off in this film and gets mixed up with a female pickpocket, but rather than being a
distraction from the main Itto plot, this subplot actually works quite effectively as a mirroring technique, as both father
and son are beset by questions of honor, loyalty and duty and how properly to respond in the face of adversity.
Dramatically, this is probably the best of the sequels, though it still bears the imprint of ridiculously over the top battle
sequences that feature huge splatter elements and near laugh out loud lunacy. Once again women are shown to be
no less than formidable opponents, and there's some interesting suspense in the third act of this film as Itto attempts
to divine the true motives of a woman who wants to hire him to kill the scheming warlord.
Shogun Assassin 5: Cold Road to Hell 3.0/5
This might equally have been called
Shogun Assassin: Snowbound, for the final act takes place in a frost covered
environment that has some odd results, including the iconic baby carriage becoming magically fitted with sled blades
instead of wheels. This is in some ways the
silliest of the
Shogun Assassin films, yet it manages to
nonetheless be immensely entertaining most of the time, especially since it seems—until the final moments—to finally be
bringing the long simmering conflict between Itto and the Yagyu Clan to a head.
The film also benefits from a supernatural element, as the particular Yagyus in this film practice black magic, lending
some of the proceedings a sinister air. This is in some ways the least "traditional" outing for Itto and Daigoro, and in
fact it seems largely divorced from the original source material in tone and content. There's also little doubt that at the
time of the film's production it was probably seen as just another cog in the
Lone Wolf and Cub wheel, as the
ending is set up for yet another outing with the nefarious Yagyu Clan (which has never occurred—to this date, anyway).
Despite the frozen ambience of the final portion of the film, this is a surprisingly scenic and even epic journey for Itto and Daigoro (who is
considerably older and more capable now, making his "home" of the baby carriage seem somewhat anachronistic). If
this outing may seem like the filmmakers were stretching a little too hard to invest the series with new life (kind of like
the late entries in the
Charlie Chan franchise), there's no denying the film's basic entertainment value, which
while as gory as ever, has a surprising energy for a fifth (or indeed, actually
sixth) trip back to the
Lone Wolf
and Cub well.
