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Jim's Real Detroit Column 8/5/99

Japanese historical action films are known as Chambara. Throughout the years the genre has both drawn on and been an influence on American and spaghetti westerns. The first “Eastern Western,” Akira Kurosawa’s lyrical three-and-a-half hour epic Seven Samurai (1954), was easily “Americanized” as The Magnificent Seven and more importantly was the biggest influence in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969). In Italy, Serge Loeone filled his “man with no name” films with Chambara-like stylized action and violence. The 1970s saw the reverse influence become increasingly apparent, as Japanese directors began to fill their films with rivers of blood and anti-heroes who echoed Clint Eastwood’s violent coolness in the Leone movies.

In Japan, one of the most interesting mergings of the styles was the six-film series Lone Wolf and Cub. Shintaro Katsu (who played the title character in the Zatoichi movies) developed Kazuo Koike’s 110 volume manga (comic book) for the screen as a vehicle for his brother Tomisaburo Wakayama. Of the six films, four were directed by Kenji Misumi, who had directed several of the Zatoichi films. The Lone Wolfs are known for their explicit yet beautiful violence, and stunning cinematography.

The story concerns the Shogun’s head decapitator, Itto Ogami (Wakayama), whose position is envied by all, including the unscrupulous and power-hungry Yagyu clan. The Yagyu’s plant some phony evidence that brands Ogami as a traitor. In an attempt to arrest Ogami, the Shogun’s men kill his wife, but Ogami escapes with his young son Daigoro. Ogami roams feudal Japan, pushing his son around in a cart full of hidden weapons that would make James Bond proud (the films are also known as The Baby Cart series). He cuts a bloody, severed-limb-filled path and soon becomes known as the Lone Wolf, a unstoppable hired assassin willing to work for money or revenge.

In the early ’80s, Roger Corman’s New World Cinema bought the rights to the first two Lone Wolf and Cub films (probably to capitalize on the success of the television adaptation of James Clavell’s Shogun). Shogun Assassin merged the two together--cutting the running time in half, dubbed them into English with little regard for the original plot, and added an electronic score by Mark Lindsay (of Paul Revere and the Raiders). The highly entertaining result retains the visual style, and whatever is lost from the story is more than made up for by the amazingly high body count.

Here’s the U.S. titles for the series (probably the easiest way to find them at a video store): Sword of Vengeance (1972) Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972) Baby Cart to Hades (1972) Baby Cart in Peril (1972) Baby Cart in the Land of Demons (1973) White Heaven in Hell (1974)

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