Shogun Assassin

Shogun Assassin
File:Shogun assassin.jpg Cover of the UK DVD.
Directed by	Robert Houston
Written by	Kazuo Koike Goseki Kojima
Produced by	Shintaro Katsu Robert Houston
Starring	Tomisaburo Wakayama
Cinematography	Chishi Makiura
Edited by	Lee Percy Toshio Taniguchi
Music by	Hideaki Sakurai
Distributed by	Toho
Release date	1980 (1980)
Running time	86 minutes
Country	Template:Film Japan

Shogun Assassin, known in Japan as Kozure Ōkami (子連れ狼), is a jidaigeki film made for the British and American markets and released in 1980. In 2006 it was restored and re-released on DVD in North America by AnimEigo.

Shogun Assassin was edited and compiled from the first two films in the Lone Wolf and Cub series, using 12 minutes of the first film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (Kozure Ōkami: Kowokashi udekashi tsukamatsuru or Wolf with Child in Tow: Child and Expertise for Rent), and most of Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx (Kozure Ōkami: Sanzu no kawa no ubaguruma or Wolf with Child in Tow: Perambulator of the River of Sanzu). Both were originally released in 1972. There were six films in all in the series. These in turn were based on the long-running 1970s manga series, Lone Wolf and Cub, created by the writer Kazuo Koike and the artist Goseki Kojima.

The project was directed by Robert Houston and his partner David Weisman, a protégé of Andy Warhol and director of Ciao! Manhattan (1972). A fan of the original Kozure Ōkami films, Weisman had obtained the rights for $50,000 from the American office of Toho Studios. The film was distributed by Roger Corman's New World Pictures to the grindhouse movie circuit in the United States, and then later as a video cassette from MCA/Universal Home Video. When released in the United Kingdom by the Vipco video tape label in 1983, Shogun Assassin's extreme violence almost caused it to be banned by the Home Office. Vipco played this for publicity in the cover art of their 2000 release on DVD, which was stamped "Banned since 1983!"

The title character, Ogami Ittō, is played by Tomisaburo Wakayama, brother of the producer, Shintaro Katsu, who is known for playing Zatoichi in a series of 26 films starting in the 1960s.

Editing

Shogun Assassin was dubbed into English whereas the originals are in Japanese. The film, being compiled from separate stories, uses a much-simplified version of the situation. For instance, any mention of clan war is gone and the opponent Retsudo is simply called "The Shogun."

The filmmakers hired deaf lip readers to help compose dialogue to match the lip movements of the original Japanese actors, and filled in the narrative gaps by adding voice-over narration by Daigoro, performed by the 7-year-old son (Gibran Evans) of Shogun Assassin's poster illustrator, Jim Evans. American actress Sandra Bernhard and director (and former radio actor) Lamont Johnson provided voices in the dubbed edition.

Soundtrack

Mark Lindsay (former lead singer for Paul Revere and the Raiders) co-wrote a new musical score with producer W. Michael Lewis. The electronic music was performed on a Moog Modular synthesizer system at Wonderland, Lindsay's private recording studio. (The performance is credited to "The Wonderland Philharmonic".) However, certain music portions from the original Kozure Ôkami films are still part of the soundtrack.

Sequels

AnimEigo has released four sequels: Shogun Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death, actually the third film in the Baby Cart series, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades; Shogun Assassin 3: Slashing Blades of Carnage, which is the fourth film in the Baby Cart series, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril; Shogun Assassin 4: Five Fistfuls Of Gold, which is the dubbed version of the fifth film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons; and Shogun Assassin 5: Cold Road to Hell, the dubbed version of Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven in Hell, the sixth and final film in the series.

In popular culture

Several audio clips from Shogun Assassin are used on rapper GZA's classic album Liquid Swords (produced by RZA). In addition, the film is invoked in Kill Bill Volume 2 (for which RZA provided original music) in the end scenes where the protagonist and her daughter watch it as a bedtime story.

Also, a line from "Shogun Assassin" was sampled in Cage's "Agent Orange" on his 2003 album Movies for the Blind.

Critical reception

Vincent Canby of The New York Times, wrote "Shogun Assassin... is as furiously mixed up as What's Up Tiger Lily? the classic that Woody Allen made by attaching an English soundtrack to a grade-Z Japanese spy movie. Aside from the little-boy's narration, the movie's not much fun once you've gotten the picture, which is that of a tubby, outcast samurai wandering the length and breadth of Japan, pushing an antique baby carriage that contains his tiny, remarkably observant son."

Stuart Galbraith IV of DVD Talk said, "A radical reworking of not one but two Japanese movies combined into a single action-filled extravaganza, Shogun Assassin floored audiences with its dream-like, poetic action and pressure-cooker bloodletting."

J.C. Maçek III of WorldsGreatestCritic.com wrote, "Shogun Assassin as a product of artistic and stylistic films, is an artistic and stylistic film itself, with the dubbing (which includes even the voice of Sandra Bernhard) working as a genre-setting asset rather than a liability. This keeps the cartoonish, yet somehow still deadly, mood that penetrates each reel. In that this film was a huge influence on later works (like Kill Bill), it's safe to bet that you've got geysers of blood shooting from every wound and plenty of dismemberment and painful-looking slashes."

See also

• Jidaigeki
• Exploitation film

External links

• Shogun Assassin at IMDb
• Shogun Assassin review at Internal Bleeding
• "The Shogun Assassin Movies"
• Shogun Assassin Review at DVD Talk