Shogun Assassin (1980)

I'd just recently discovered the "Lone Wolf and Cub" series and having just watched all of them I found them to be some of the best of the genre that I'd ever encountered. I watched them in Japanese with English subtitles and found every one of them to be exceptional. When I saw that "Shogun Assassin" was based on the "Lone Wolf and Cub" series I was excited to see it, but oh what a letdown it turned out to be. Some hacks have taken the original series and cut clips out of each of them, then re-edited those clips into the most god-awful movie I've ever seen, and then claimed to be the "writers". I knew that something was off as soon as I saw that Retsudo, from the real series was shown as the "Shogun". In the originals he was the head of a clan who had stolen the post of royal executioner from Ogami Itto through deception. In the original Daigoro (the son) hardly ever speaks more than the word "Pa", yet in here he is the narrator. The dialog is just plain insipid and has no relationship to the original story. Skip this worthless dreck and find the original "Lone Wolf and Cub" series.

In reading all the glowing reviews I have to wonder if they were written by friends of the people who put this together, or by people who have never seen the original series or other great Samurai series such as the Zatoichi movies or other greats of the genre.

Fmovies: For a film edited from highlights of two films in a series of six, SHOGUN ASSASSIN is far, FAR better than it has any right to be. That said, track down the originals since they are all available on video in widescreen, subtitled editions. The cinematography will make you drool, and the swordfighting is probably the most impressive samurai-type swordwork ever put on film. Another plus is Lone Wolf, played by Tomisaburo Wakayama. Casting him for a handsome comic book hero is not what would come to mind immediately, but it is his middle-aged dumpiness that makes him utterly believeable during his fight scenes. Swordfight fans, you will reach Nirvana during this orgy of carnage! For a more impressive display of Wakayama's skills, check out LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH (frequently found in rental shops as LUPINE WOLF), the third film in the Lone Wolf series which was actually released in the states six years before SHOGUN ASSASSIN during the kung fu movie craze. In LIGHTNING SWORDS, the film remains totally unedited from the original and features a showdown between Lone Wolf and army that is equipped with not just swords, but arrows and rifles as well!!!

This film starts with the narration of Tizuro, lone Wolfs son. His narration gives quick details of his families life and the night his mother and Lone Wolfs wife Azame was murdered by a vicious shoguns ninja. Lone Wolf is understandably not pleased about this and sets out to avenge her death, taking his son with him. He becomes an assassin for hire(well he needs to pay the bills, right?). On his journey he has to face the masters of death, a trio of the shoguns very unpleasant samurai each with a unique weapon which are all really cool. I was surprised to learn that this is in fact edited together from the first two movies in the baby cart series. The American producers and editors did a great job and you would never know unless you were told. Anyway this is a fantastic movie, fast paced, quite well dubbed, great music, nice widescreen photography and has some awesome action/fighting scenes which are usually dripping in blood and gore. If your looking for some violent, gory, cool samurai action you will not find better than this. Highly recommended.

Shogun Assassin fmovies. Released today, film fans across the world would be throwing copies of Shogun Assassin onto bonfires because technically, it is 100x worse than the type of 'rip offs' that people keep accusing Tarantino of lately. Essentially, Shogun is the first fifteen minutes or so of Sword of Vengeance followed by the majority of Babycart at the River Styx copy and pasted into an 80 minute film, with the addition of bad dubbing and some seriously cool music. But, as it stands, Shogun Assassin was 'made' in 1980 and did the full trip around grind house theatres so it has gained a cult following. So today it is looked back on as classic hack and slash cinema, as Kill Bill will probably be in twenty years time as much as some purists hate to admit it.

Speaking from my current state of mind I would say screw Shogun Assassin and go for the six Lone Wolf and Cub films. Even as a cure for film geeks lust for blood and guts, Shogun Assassin seems kind of strange. I never really understood why Houston didn't c & p some of the much more epic scenes of carnage from Babycart to Hades or Babycart in Peril. Still, the fight with the Hidari brothers (or 'Masters of Death' as they are known in Shogun) is one of the coolest in all six films. John Carpenter later used the brothers as prototypes for his '3 Storms' in Big Trouble in Little China, but if he was 'homaging' River Styx or Shogun Assassin we will probably never know.

Ultimately, Shogun Assassin works in the same way as Kill Bill, as a gateway to grind house cinema for the masses. How many people realise, respect and take advantage of this is where the problems start. Regarding Kill Bill, thousands of people see the films and see them as original without realising their true purpose. But it is difficult to argue that both films are not taking advantage of underseen cinema.

Alas, three paragraphs and I haven't actually said if the film is any good. The truth is, I will probably never watch it again because there isn't much point if you are into the LW & C films. But I won't have been introduced to 70s Japanese samurai 'grind house' cinema, which I regard as the best action genre there is, if it wasn't for Shogun. So I can't say it is rubbish, and to be fair, if you haven't seen LW & C it is far from crap, showcasing some of the coolest fight scenes ever filmed along with some seriously awesome music (which is the main reason I still have love for Shogun). Of course, the dubbing completely ruins Wakayama's performance and the Yagyu female ninja leader is turned into a useless loose end.

But Shogun's existence is important and a godsend is stopping 70s Jap samurai cinema from falling into nothingness in the west. If you don't know samurai cinema, watch Shogun once and you will turn into a nerd like me and become instantly obsessed with Japanese cinema. I would never know and love a lot of the films I do now if it wasn't for Shogun, and for that I hold it in the highest regard. Well, sort of.

Shogun Assassin is a combination of the first 2 movies of the "Lone Wolf and Cub" saga, this "adaptation" was intended for the American grind house circuit and British cienemas, but probably it got a release in other western countries too.

Just the fact that this movie is just an adaptation, you would expect something dreadful and horrible....but it's not ! The dubbing is great, but sometimes it gets hilarious, the soundtrack is awesome and it was composed especially for the Shogun Assassin edit, not for the original movies !

The action is cool and well choreographed, with lots of sword fighting and lots of blood, including lots of bloody sword slashings, some finger chopping and decapitations !

The movie is not boring at all, check it out !

I think this film is almost as famous for its tour de force editing,taking a min-series and making it into a coherent masterpiece of 86 min as it is for its action sequences.

The basic story is about a Lone Wolf. A very proud samurai who worked as the official decapitator for the shogun.The paranoid shogun sends out his ninja to kill lone wolf, but get his wife instead.At this point there is the classic "choose the(toy) ball and join your mother, choose the sword and join me" the son joins him and we hear the story from his eyes from this point.It is pure carnage from here on in, as the evil shogun sets his ninja out on Lone Wolf along with the brutal Masters of death.

There is a lot of carnage and blood in this movie...I MEAN a lot. But the father son relationship is touching and strongly developed.

This movie is a classic that is only just starting to show its age, my 8 might be a bit low of a vote really.

If you like fast sword play and quick deaths watch this movie.