Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance
Dir: Kenji Misumi
1972
*****
The Lone Wolf and Cub series (known as ‘Wolf taking along his child’ in Japan) started out as a manga comic created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima. First published in 1970, the story was later adapted into six films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, a television series starring Kinnosuke Yorozuya and is widely recognized as an important and influential work. Lone Wolf and Cub chronicles the story of Ogami Ittō, the shōgun's executioner who uses a dōtanuki battle sword. Disgraced by false accusations from the Yagyū clan, he is forced to take the path of the assassin. Along with his three-year-old son, Daigorō, they seek revenge on the Yagyū clan and are known as "Lone Wolf and Cub". A total of six Lone Wolf and Cub films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama as Ogami Ittō and Tomikawa Akihiro as Daigoro have been produced based on the manga. They are also known as the Sword of Vengeance series, based on the English-language title of the first film, and later as the Baby Cart series, because young Daigoro travels in a baby carriage pushed by his father. The first three films, directed by Kenji Misumi, were released in 1972 and produced by Shintaro Katsu, Tomisaburo Wakayama's brother and the star of the 26 part Zatoichi film series. The next three films were produced by Wakayama himself and directed by Buichi Saito, Kenji Misumi and Yoshiyuki Kuroda, released in 1972, 1973, and 1974 respectively. The more famous Shogun Assassin (1980) was an English language compilation for the American audience, edited mainly from the second film, with 11 minutes of footage from the first. Also, the third film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades was re-released on DVD in the US under the name Shogun Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death. While I love Shogun Assassin and the weird American child narration, you can’t beat the originals and they should be watched over the edited remake. Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance starts at the beginning. Set in Japan during an unspecific year of the Edo period, Ogami Ittō, disgraced former executioner, or Kogi Kaishakunin, to the shōgun, wanders the countryside, pushing a baby cart with his 3-year-old son Daigoro inside. A banner hangs off his back. "Ogami: Suiouryo technique" (Child and expertise for rent). His services are asked for in a most unexpected way, when an insane woman seizes Daigoro from the cart and proceeds to try to breastfeed the boy. Daigoro at first hesitates, but after stern look from his father, he proceeds to suckle the crazy woman's breast. The woman's mother then apologizes for her daughter's behavior and tries to give Ittō money, but the stoic rōnin refuses, saying his son was hungry anyway. As he walks in the rain, he remembers another rainy day several months earlier when his wife, Asami, was slain by three ninjas, ostensibly in revenge for Ittō's execution of a boy daimyō, but it was really part of a complicated plot by the shōgun's inspector Bizen and the "Shadow" Yagyū Clan to frame Ittō for treason and take over the executioner's post. Now a wandering assassin for hire, Ittō takes a job from a Chamberlain, to kill a rival and his gang of henchmen, who pose a threat to the chamberlain's lord. The chamberlain plans to test Ittō, but a quick slash behind his back with his Dōtanuki sword dispatches the chamberlain's two men. The targets are in a remote mountain village that is home to hot-spring spa pools. As Ittō pushes the baby cart, and Daigoro observes scenes of nature, such as a mother dog suckling one puppy, and two children singing a song and bouncing a ball, Ittō thinks back again to the time just after his wife was killed. He gave Daigoro a choice between a toy ball or the sword. If the child chose the ball, Ittō would put him to death send him to be with his mother – a better place in his opinion. But the curious child reaches for the sword – he has chosen to take the path of the ronin with his father, to live like demons at the crossroads to hell between fire and water – shown literally in one of the film’s most iconic scenes. Eventually, Ittō reaches the hot-spring village. He finds that the rival chamberlain and his men have hired a band of ronins who have taken over the town and are raping, looting and pillaging. Ittō is forced to give up his sword and take his place as a hostage in the village. The ronins discuss killing Ittō, but then decide to let him live if he will have sex with the town's remaining prostitute while they watch. The prostitute refuses to have any part in it, but then she's threatened by one of the men, a knife expert, and in order to save the woman, Ittō steps forward and disrobes, saying he will do the men's bidding with the woman.The episode takes one more trip back to the past, for the dramatic beheading and blood-spurting scene in which Ittō defeats one of Yagyū Retsudo's best swordsman, with the aid of a mirror on Daigoro's forehead to reflect the sun into the swordsman's eyes. And then there is the big showdown in the village, where it is revealed that the baby cart harbors some secrets – various edged weapons, including a spear-like naginata, which Ittō uses to take out the evil chamberlain's men, chopping one off at his knees, leaving the bloody stumps of his lower legs still standing on the ground. One of the men has matchlock pistols, but Ittō quickly upturns the baby cart, which is revealed to be armored underneath, and when the gunman's pistols are empty, Ittō quickly leaps over the baby cart and brings his blade down on the man's forehead, splitting it in two. Ittō leaves the village, and the prostitute hopes to follow, but Ittō makes a motion to cut the ropes on the bridge leading to town, to stop her from following, for the journey he is on is one that is for only him and Daigoro to make. Its gore and fight scenes are infamous and are now the stuff of cult legend. Zatoichi had covered a similar plot and had moments of violence but it wasn’t until the early 70s and the rise of Exploitation films did we see the likes of Lone Wolf and Cub, Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion and Hanzo the Razor. Exploitation and Chanbara seemed to work well together but it was Lone Wolf and Cub that had the longevity and would really make its mark on the world. It’s nearly always the first Chanbara film that people think of and the first one to be parodied – such is its influence. Tomisaburo Wakayama is awesome as the larger than life anti-hero Ogami Ittō and there is so much more to the idea than simple gimmick. Kenji Misumi’s direction is superb, hugely influential to the genre and to modern American cinema in general. It’s a cult classic, the film you had to see to be welcomed into any school or collage film club. If your older brother had a copy then you were king of the school play ground back in the 80s and it remains a well-loved Samurai classic.