A Major Disappointment

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The "Lone Wolf and Cub" series began in the 1970s as a manga by Kazuo Koike. This morphed into "Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance" and "Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx", the first two in what would become a sequence of seven feature films. Each film finds actor Tomisaburo Wakayama playing Ogami Itto, a nineteenth century ronin. Ogami wanders the Japanese countryside accompanied by his young son, Daigoro. As the whole world is out to kill them, Ogami and Daigoro take part in a series of incredulous action sequences.These action sequences are "Lone Wolf's" main claim to fame. Amongst fans of 1970s exploitation films, the series is renowned for its bloody, ridiculous and cheesy-but-cool violence. Our heroes are constantly battling samurai, ninjas and female warriors, each battle climaxing with geysers of blood, dismembered limbs and gratuitous decapitations. Characters hold their action poses, others scurry funnily in wooden slippers, whilst everyone delights in exhibiting elaborate special combos. Love them or hate them, films like this would result in hundreds of copycats, would influence countless video-games, would influence the aesthetic of future action movies, cartoons and comics, and would add numerous motifs, quirks and trends to the grammar of cinema."Shogun Assassin" was released in 1980. Directed by Robert Houtson, it was created by splicing together footage from "Sword of Vengeance" (1972) and "River Styx" (1972), the first two "Lone Wolf" features. The result - designed specifically for Western audiences - is a choppy and shapeless film in which plot is sacrificed in favour for an endless procession of violence. American grindhouse junkies of the 1980s loved it; they'd never seen anything quite like this before. But to purists, the film was mostly an insult. To them, "Shogun Assassin" lacked the gravity of other "Lone Wolf" features, even if it did ultimately offer the same weird blend of goofiness, hyper-violence and sentimentality.7.5/10 – Stupid but iconic. For more serious fare, see Kurosawa's "Ran", Okamoto's "Samurai Assassin", Yoji Yamada's samurai trilogy ("Twilight Samurai", "The Hidden Blade" and "Love and Honour"), "47 Ronin", "Kiru", Hiroshi Inagaki's "Samurai Trilogy", "Goyokin" (1969), "Chushingura" (1962), and the great Masaki Kobayashi's "Samurai Rebellion" and "Harakiri".

I generally hate dubbed movies, and I make no exception for this one. It would have been rated higher had it been subtitled. I hate losing the beauty of the language while watching a film.For those who want to see a Samurai film that shows the craft as well as the beauty, you could hardly go wrong with this film. Actually two different films joined together to make one, it gives a taste of the Lone Wolf and Cub series.Tomisaburo Wakayama was magnificent as the Samurai that traveled the roads with his son hiring himself out. You could bring anything to bear and he would dispatch them with ease. No matter how many came to kill him, he always walked away with his son. The Masters of Death were no match.There is blood, lots of blood. Limbs falling to the ground and blood spurting like from a lawn sprinkler. Death in a Samurai film is not pretty.

Shogun Assassin isn't technically any great genre picture, but I remember enjoying it with friends one night when there was nothing else to watch. It's one of those movies for the casual fan of the samurai sect of Asian action pictures (if there can be such thing as 'casual'), but maybe it might have more appeal to the real cult-followers of the ultra-violent films of old-school samurai mania. I actually got it almost on a fluke; it was featured in what now seems like a very clever goof by Tarantino from Kill Bill 2 (the little girl asks if she can stay up to watch this movie with her mother, hardy-har). I won't describe the plot as it would be the ultimate moot point- just know that a samurai is betrayed by his former master when the Shogun kills the samurai's wife, leaving him widowed with an only child, then he goes around the rest of the movie slaying anyone in his path while the child narrates with a dead-pan mix of sorrow and naive pride (albeit with that 'touching' opening speech by the kid). Basically, if you're ever looking for a good excuse to watch senseless blood-shed (and likely on a crappy DVD if you didn't look well enough and got it on said whim, all in line to get an "unrated" version) it's here, as the story wasn't even worked on to that much effect anyway.One could look at this like one of those monster movies from the 60s that got chucked together to make something remotely marketable (Godzilla's Revenge comes to mind); a little label should come on the DVD that says 'common sense need not apply here'. But it is a lot of fun on a senseless level nonetheless, as the "lone wolf" goes about chopping off heads, disemboweling by the dozens, always with the major spray effect and shot like it all needs to get shown in the most bing-bang-zoom quality possible. Unfortunately, unlike for example Riki-Oh, there aren't as many high-quality gags and just overall zaniness to go along with the verve of the ultra-violent B movie, it actually does in its own disturbing way take itself seriously. And it goes without saying that it's almost pornographic in its stylized blood-shed. Yet, against what should be my better judgment, that's what I did end up liking about it, how it went for broke all the way till the final showdown with the shogun. I wouldn't ever rank it with the great B-movies, and it sure will never have the substance of the more classy Samurai films of the 50s and 60s at Toho, but if I ever went on a dare with friends to watch it (or just too drunk to care), it'd be this one I'd pop on.

In the 19th century in Japan, a lone ronin nicknamed LoneWolf and his son travel the countryside to fight off deadly ninja assassins so he can avenge the death of his beloved wife, a powerful shogun sends out deadly minions to eliminate LoneWolf for good but can the one-man army himself deal with all of them? One of the most violent and goriest movies ever made! this Japanese-American action production is actually three films from the Japanese "LoneWolf and Cub" Series into one movie and dubbed into English. Considered a favorite of Quentin Tarantino and inspired his "Kill Bill" films, this entertaining and gory-as-hell film is a visual action feast with some laughable English dubbing ( i assume the Japanese "LoneWolf and Cub" series is better which i haven't seen) and non-stop ultraviolence such as heads split open, arms being sliced, etc.I can see why this movie has a cult following! if you want a good old fashioned Asian blood feast then maybe you should watch this.Also recommended: "Ninja Scroll", "The Toxic Avenger", "Ichi The Killer", "Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky", "Shogun Assassin", "Kill Bill Vol. 1", "Kill Bill Vol. 2", "Fist of the North Star (Anime)", "Versus", "Battle Royale", "Cannibal Ferox", "Conan The Barbarian", "Princess Mononoke", "Street Trash", "From Dusk Till Dawn", "Running Scared", "Crank", "Bad Boys 2", "Vampire Hunter D", "The Last Samurai", "Ran", "Seven Samurai", "Rashomon", "The Punisher (1989 and 2004)", "Samurai Fiction", and "Blade Trilogy".