Shogun Assassin (1980)

“He whips out his sword and relieves his victims of their heads!” [1]. This declaration may actually piss some people off, but this is a totally must see bad ass blood splattering samurai action masterpiece. So for the uninformed viewers, why would this statement piss people off? Well this movie is actually the first two films of the Lone Wolf and Cub film series; it was condensed, re-edited, dubbed into English, and re-scored for American release. So there are some purists that really dislike this version and feel that it bastardizes the series. The fact remains that this version was most Americans first introduction into this series and the world of crazy samurai spraying blood movies.

The rights to the original Lone Wolf movies were purchased by David Weisman from Toho Studios for $50,000 and then it was released in America by Roger Corman’s studio New World Pictures.  The pictures were based on a comic book called Lone Wolf and Cub written by Kazuo Koike, who also created Lady Snowblood, Crying Freeman, and one based on Hanzo the Razor. This movie is about a rouge samurai that wanders around Japan with his son in a baby cart, looking for work and defending himself from his many enemies. The main character is played by Tomisaburo Wakayama, a veteran actor to the samurai film genre and brother to producer Shintaro Katsu. Katsu is best known for playing Zatoichi, the blind swordsman, in 26 movies and a television series.

This is simply a totally bad ass movie. The American edit is super fast paced and filled with a ton of bloody action, featuring eleven fight scenes, tons of spraying blood, and splitting heads. All of the fight scenes are memorable and Lone Wolf always has some type of tricks available on his baby cart. The narration by the child and the new score are perfect for a dubbed film and are a good fit for the time period in which it was released, the synthesized score is very reminiscent of the sound from John Carpenter films and the Phantasm horror series.

The movie was highly influential on many filmmakers, most notably Quentin Tarantino and John Carpenter. Tarantino has incorporated the super violent spraying blood into the Kill Bill films and many of his other ones. This motion picture is the one that the bride’s daughter watches when she goes to bed in the second Kill Bill film. Carpenter used some similar imagery from this film in Big Trouble in Little China, mainly the three guys wearing the straw hats. If you like action and violence, then this is essential viewing. There are also six films from the original Lone Wolf and Cub series, along with a television series and the comic that they were based upon. All of them are worth checking out.

Works Cited

[1]	"IMDB," IMDB, 17 3 2016. [Online]. Available: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081506/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1. [Accessed 17 3 2016].