LONE WOLF AND CUB (1972-1974)

As the kids say, this series goes hard.... hard, down life's Demon Cart to Hell.... Or something.

(These are my collected reviews of all six films - the third film in the series, "Baby Cart to Hades," I actually saw out of sequence years before, which is why it reads a little differently than the rest):

1. SWORD OF VENGEANCE (1972)

What to say? Inglorious betrayal; frame ups; copious, occasionally unhinged bloodshed; magnificently lenses close-ups of gnarly profiles; spare and bad-ass string-percussive musical accompaniment; dynamic comic-book inspired compositions and transitions (whats with that one shot shot in three sides, kind of image one can see in the Spider-Verse movies almost); an undeniably cute baby that gets his share of moments (and nipples!); and a Shogunate that knows a clan set him up and killed his wife, his path to stop at nothing to get back at the dastardly Yagyu clan always in sights despite the sidetracks (including their menacing white-haired glaring asshole of a villain, and a moment of flesh pleasure).

It doesn't skimp on the Exploitation thrills that you come to expect - not least of which as I'm one of those seeing this after the cobbled-Frankenstein'd Shogun Assassin (which I only somewhat remember through many Bong hits ago) - including moments of rape and general unsavory mayhem and gangland terror, but it's directed with more care for setting up and playing through a scene that you expect (almost classical, save for the close ups), giving nearly all of the bad mothereffers distinct personalities as total freaks (I think one has the period correct version of a Japanese eyepatch), and the location work is pretty unique (that one set piece in the grain field for the dual with that one finish move, bravo). 

I thought it wouldn't live up to Shogun and on the contrary this surpassed it pretty easily, especially as I'm now older yet no less easy mark for this hardened Japanese Pulp.  All the while, Wakayama, in the start of Otami's quest for revenge, with a perfect DGAF expression throughout and yet he still leaves room for a performance of depth and (for his baby son) compassion and one of a sort of serenity and peace channeling this assured, burly son of a (sho)gun.  And as much violence there is, I was taken aback by the nudity (not that I'm complaining, mind you).  

This rocks.  

Next! 

2. BABY CART AT THE RIVER STYX (1972)

Or: Wailing Necks

In the second installment in our ongoing series "Ogami the Revenge Demon Has to Kill a Lot of People Even Though He Looks Mildly Bothered to Annoyed Every Time Assassin Goons and Yagyu Come to Try and Fail to Take Him and Little Daigoro Out," played by the always formidable and burly Tomisaburo Wakayama, Ogami is hired by a wealthy but foolish clan to take out a traitor and female ninjas that are part of the dastardly nemesis Yagyu clan set their sights on taking out our heroes. 

 Along the way, mayhem ensues, ie little Daigoro gets babynapped, one female assassin leaps out of her fighting kimono and runs backwards away, and lots of poor bastards are split in two or more pieces, chaos from a bunch of bad motherforders on a boat... but you kind of expect things like that.  What you don't expect (and are totally delighted by, and by you I mean me) are the artistic mis en scene involved with, for example, a guy getting his fingers, ears and nose sliced off bit by bit, the endlessly captivating close ups where everyone outdoes all those spaghetti Western profiles for grimace and menace, or how this director keeps utilizing camera and editing tricks that are still marvelous 50 years on. 

 Hell, that set piece where Ogami pushes the cart and one after another the female ninjas stroll along and try to take Ogami out - and how the Daigoro the baby gets into it, with what just have been days if not weeks prepping the little tyke to know exactly when to kick his little feet to get those knives propelled out - is extraordinary on its own.  That this is only the start of a longer set piece as he is besieged by more craven assassins and still has trick after trick up his sleeve (when he tells his son "here we go" and kicks the cart off, you know s***'s about the get real), and the pacing as he slowly pushes the cart and the adversaries appear... ::insert Scorsese This is Cinema meme here::  

And what makes it more than just quite fun exploitation is that the filmmakers are constantly looking for creative ways to shoot a scene, and it's never uncalled for, while not making things too rushed in the pacing; this may not seem significant, in 80 minutes you might think things have to move so quickly, but Misumi and his team take their time with each set piece, to mount some stakes, like when they go on to the boat leading up to the big fire, and you feel like a lot has happened even as it is a slim piece of Pulp (or because it is so). 

There is even, a real shock, a bit of tenderness when Ogami warms himself and Daigoro with that one woman (hey, no fire you know).  I almost neglect to mention Matsuo and she is a great foe as well, a villain full of hubris and pride and yet rightfully thinks this guy is no match and... well, duh, you can guess how that goes.

Great, sometimes brutal, always such magnificently uncompromising and.... Fun.

3. BABY CART IN HADES (1972)

Maybe it was out of a sense of curiosity, but I decided to revisit the first Shogun Assassin, which is, like its sequel, an English dub of the Lone Wolf and Cub series from the early 1970s. The original Shogun Assassin was truly one of the bloodiest samurai films ever concocted, a work that was put together in cheap fashion by its American (re)director to include all of the ultra-violent scenes from two of the Lone Wolf and Cub movies for maximum impact. 

The result is a feat that few films can live up to, where the body count is in the hundreds, and the laughs are just as frequent. In that film, the lead character, Ogami (Tomisaburo Wakayama), was a wandering samurai betrayed by the head shogun and out to get revenge. He ends up killing everyone in his way except the shogun. It has no artistic value whatsoever, but its purely exploitive intentions make for a rollicking good time, especially with a group of friends. (It even got a brief, uproarious mention in Kill Bill Vol. 2 as a bedtime movie for a child). This is not the case, sad to say, with Shogun Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death.  (ERR: BABY CART TO HADES THANK YOU!)

This may be one of the rare cases where the first film is better than the sequel because of American tampering. This follow-up, instead of being a re-edit, is just a re-dub of the Lone Wolf and Cub movie Baby Cart to Hades. Of course, there should be some objective analysis of the sequel on its own terms, as many seeing it may have not seen the original, but even on this front the film proves to be a disappointment. The title indicates that Ogami might be after, chiefly, the shogun, and yet there is never even a mention of the shogun this time around. Here Ogami’s journeys finds him in the crosshairs of a plot to assassinate a governor.

Meanwhile, Ogami (again played by Wakayama) is at times not even really a big part of the plot anyway, or what appears to be the plot. Part of the problem with most cheesy, ultra-violent ‘70s samurai movies is that the storylines are incoherent, but the more wretched aspect to the picture is that it isn’t even tasteless enough to be entertaining; talk precedes almost every showdown between Ogami and his adversaries. In the climax, Ogami faces off against 40 opponents, like a machine going through the motion to music that reminds one of the early Nintendo video games, which may be enough to satisfy only some fans. What could have been a follow-up to the classic finale from Kurosawa’s Sanjuro between two master swordsmen turns into one big joke of prolonged hara-kiri.

Moving/slicing right along...

4. BABY CART IN PERIL (1972 - yes, they released *four* of these fuckers in one year, epic shit)

"Kill me.  Why don't you?"
"You died once before. It's no use killing a dead man."

I wish I had seen this at 13 or 14, that topless, super-tattooed killing lady-of-vengeance would have been formative for me.  Also, not for nothing, but if I ran into a rogue samurai who could make his sword light on fire before entering into combat, I would just make a break for it... so, clearly this woman has more balls than all of us, so to speak.

In this entry in Lone Wolf and Cub, Itto Ogami and his son Daigoro cross paths with a woman out for revenge and more of the Yagyu clan who will stop at nothing to take out Ogami (damn the dozens or more all of the henchmen who get wasted).  There is time also spent on the backstory of another assassin character who was once with Ogami in his previous life serving the Shogunate until he was banished and what happened when he and his pretty talented skills comes across Ogami, and the awfully sad backstory of the woman who keeps getting tattoos as part of her path towards vengeance/justice of a kind, despite how painful they are (she is told how much colder she will be in winter months), yet she doesn't flinch while getting them. 

The characterizations are what help to elevate this; though the script is adapted from and feels lifted in large parts from the Manga comic book, up to an including the big bearded villain who keeps ordering men to attack Ogami and makes all of the stubborn declarations that we come to expect in these movies, the action and the stakes for Ogami and his son punch through the pulp.  It is bloody, at times excessively so, but it all feels proportionate in a way to what Ogami is going through.  He has no home and wanders place to place, but the pains of his past life haunt him, and when this other man he faces off against asks for death and he doesn't grant it and it brings his response of "you're dead already," maybe he knows a part of himself is gone as well. 

In other words, everything should be heightened and in this case the sleaze of a bad-ass killer lady just showing off her mammaries during sword-fights where she slices and dices and makes head and body parts sporting globs of flesh feels more than appropriate, it is necessary to make this an entertaining MOVIE that keeps you riveted all 81 minutes.  I also liked how we see the boy lost early on and separated from his dad - is he going to be taken up by another loner assassin, or will Ogami find his boy?  There is a really striking part where this other samurai puts the boy in a field and it is set on fire - how the boy reacts, or really how he doesn't says it all to him and to us as well. 

The violence is outrageous, hilarious, scary, and so red that it wouldn't pass muster with a firehouse (like too bold I mean).  And it all leads to a climax set in a wide open sort of outdoor quarry that still deals claustrophobic somehow, especially as our hero gets really fucked up over the fights.  This is very much of its time, from the super-impositions and dissolves (what was with all of those like plastic balls floating in the foreground in front of the Lady assassin?  Was this supposed to be the first shot at revamping 3D), to the music that should be played as waiting room music at the Grindhouse Hospital.

I don't even call it a guilty pleasure, it just is pleasurable splattery-melodramatic juicy and full of fiber; it's like eating a bowl of Strawberry Frosted Flakes.

SPLAT!  SLASH!  WHO WILL CROSS THE DEMON NEXT???

5. BABY CART IN THE LAND OF DEMONS (1973)

I think I want to be Daigoro when I grow up.

I think on one level this movie shows just how potently and originally this series wraps you up in its vibes. If you can tap into the Vibes of what the filmmakers are doing, specifically and how much they are making you aware of the staging, like how often you can recognize the intentionally comic book levels of lighting stylization, and how much the environments are not overtaking characters but uplifting them in ways that is more than just shooting and doing what would be more naturalistic in these settings, and of course the violence and action choreography highlights how this takes place in some other world that is not ours but is ours at the same time. In terms of how skillfully the director and his camera team place you so much into the situations and how sort of believable it is to this Twisted kind of person like the Lone Wolf is remarkable.

On the other hand (look at it there on the floor, of course), it strikes me that this entry stands Out Among the others, maybe alongside the first and second ones, that this is about deepening the characterizations and in this case now the little boy (Tomikawa does so much with such subtle expressions) is somewhat older than he was in the first entry, so when you get to the part of the story where this little basically still a baby is tortured in front of the public over a wallet that this woman stole and told him to keep a promise not to say a word, you see what levels of what is twisted and yet full of the kind of Honor or whatever that code is to Itto and Daigoro that is intractable really. These two are completely in sync in how they are operating in society, and while papa is the one doing all of the violent acts, it is striking that the filmmakers, I imagine via the comic book as inspiration, show how weekly and ruthlessly this world is on them and on us as well. 

But it's not just the boy who we get invested in in that moment, I think the story is a whole even as it is indulging in some very soap opera type of developments, IE the one clan who has the daughter disguised as a prince and there might be another prince in the same castle or what have you, and what these rivaling plans mean with Ogami Itto getting these conflicting orders to seek out this person and that person for this letter and eventually to assassinate some more innocent people than really not among the types that he's been charged to kill over the series, it brings out a deeper connection to this Beyond just pure pulp... which it still is. 

I love all of the early parts of the movie where you see our Intrepid anti-hero interacting with and taking out each of the five people, and even the fact that this is the fifth movie and he has to go through five people to get the levels of information he needs. But I also just love these Larger than Life personalities, like the actor playing the head of the wagyu Clan who has this deep voice that is meant to send chills down your spine even though he is screwing up left and right throughout these movies. I love the visual of that one head of the clan who gets dragged under water through a elaborate level of subterfuge that I'm not even sure James Bond would attempt. And I love how the climax of this really is pitiless and unsparing for the characters.

And at the center of it is Wakayama's performance which is unflappable and so intensive, and yet if you look in his eyes there is thinking and there is processing of what he's being told, even as we expect his character is going to go the way he does. But he and this little boy are such a treasure of a team and there's just so much to love about this entry I could go on for even longer.

AND AT LONG LAST:

6. WHITE HEAVEN IN HELL (1974)

Or: DOWNHILL SLICER

So here we are at the end - even though to my understanding it was not exactly meant to be that way, it just got left on a cliffhanger - but taking at least the climax of the film, it does serve as a kind of emotional finale if not in terms of the story.  By the end of White Heaven in Hell (as Orson Welles said of Paper Moon, forget releasing the film just release the title), we don't know who will go down fully for the count between Ogami Itto (the incomparably mean-looking and unstoppably burly Wakayama) and the head of the Yagyu clan, Retsudo (Minoru Oki, who gets a bit more to do than in some of the other entries in this series simply because he has to try and mete out two of his remaining kids, Kaori and the bastard son who has joined a rival clan, Hyoei, all both very capable performers by the way).  Maybe we have to go to the comic book series to find out their fates.

But looking at this as another entry in the series, it really does a lot very well, particularly in continuing the method of keeping the locations wildly captivating and engrossing, but not just that finale where everyone uses skis to attack our intrepid Lone Wolf (maybe the filmmakers were so bitten with the On Her Majesty's Secret Service bug, or they just loved Downhill Racer that much, who knows, but I assume it is also from the Manga as that writer was involved in the films).  

It is how evocatively we see how even a common-looking field in broad daylight is made exciting and unpredictable whenever Itto is in the path of someone's sights; a major highlight for me was the fate of one woman who had the bad luck of gifting little Daigoro a whistle (seemingly one of the few actually nice and caring characters in the series - of course they can't stick around for long).  Every location, all of the lighting, is in such thoughtful and artistically ambitious directions that you wonder why more "B-Movie" level productions can't go for more than meets the eye.

If I rank this just a little below some of the other Lone Wolf and Cub movies it is in some part not the movie's fault, since it does stand as the Finale and it doesn't mean to be.  But I also found the substance of the story a bit of a comedown after what possibilities and beyond were realized in the previous entry In the Land of Demons (I think there was a slight dip in quality as well from 2 to 3, your mileage may vary of course).  Maybe it is because I was hoping for a little more from the story strand with Retsudo's daughter, who is not in the film for as long as I might have hoped - her major attack strategy against Ogami seems quite brilliant, but as with any of the other Big Baddies of the series he knocks down her seemingly unique trick within seconds - and from Hyoei (not the actor Kimura's fault, he gives a pretty one-note character his all).

Maybe it was also because that strand with Hyoei and the Tsuchigumo clan seemed to have more potential as far as a more pressing threat than even the dwindling Yagyu Clan (yes still in How Does He Get So Many Men to be Wasted Sword Fodder So Badly numbers).  But at the same time, how can I complain too much when the (pun intended) execution of the story still rocks the proverbial socks off everyone in sight?  

There is so much grandiosity and commitment from the stunt performers to the camera-people to the composer of that gigantic snowy climax; yet there are plenty of other memorable set pieces here as well, and every composition is made with the idea of "can this go even further to make this darker, a little more psychologically twisted, a shade more to sticking with this Long Hard Road Into Hell feel palpable" with panache.  Even as this director has not been with the series before, he still manages with his dedicated crew to make the most of what he has.  

I adore this series, imperfect as it is, and I am glad to finally watch it and have moments - and Wakayama and little Tomkawa as Daigoro - to push the form of adapting Japanese Manga, and violent comic books in general, into another level.  It is hard to call this needless junk when it grabs you by the lapels and won't let go.