The samurai genre's most violent film series was sourced from a 1970 graphic novel, or manga, called Kozure Ōkami (Lone Wolf and Cub). Serialized in 28 volumes, writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima's manga books sold over eight million copies in Japan.
The eventual film series was produced by Hisaharu Matsubara and Shintarô Katsu, a prolific multi-talent already established as the star of the popular 'blind swordsman' film series Zatoichi (1962-1973). Playing Lone Wolf and Cub's undefeatable master swordsman Ogami Itto is Katsu's brother, martial arts expert Tomisaburô Wakayama. With the perpetually scowling Wakayama (literally) cutting a swath through innumerable on-screen foes, Katsu's series pushed the genre to new stylistic extremes.
The first of six Lone Wolf and Cub films is Sword of Vengeance (Kozure Ōkami: Kowokashi udekashi tsukamatsuru 1972). Ogami Itto begins as the official Shogunate executioner, a highly respected office. In one shocking scene, Itto must execute a little boy, a toddler. Snared in a murderous palace coup by the jealous Yagyū clan, Ogami finds himself a homeless widower, alone save for his tiny son Daigoro (4-year-old Akihiro Tomikawa). Pursued by Yagyū assassins, the dispossessed ronin wanders the roads pushing the tot in a wooden baby cart. They're the Lone Wolf and Cub.
The veteran Kenji Misumi directed four films in the series. His second installment Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx (Kozure Ōkami: Sanzu no kawa no ubaguruma, 1972) is a visually dazzling ballet of violence. Sparse compositions and long-lens photography visually isolate Ogami and Daigoro on grassy plains, under strange-colored skies. Hideaki Sakurai's jazzy music score makes no attempt to conjure a period flavor. Daigoro's lethal baby cart is tricked out with so many guns and hidden weapons that it could have been designed by James Bond's armorer 'Q.'
Ogami Itto's primary foe is a mysterious trio of oddly armed and costumed Yagyū killers. Several preliminary sword duels eventually climax in a major battle in a landscape of sand dunes. Slow motion and optical effects blend with intricate cutting patterns to show Ogami Itto performing dazzling feats of swordsmanship and acrobatics. Grotesque physical effects shock us with the sight of limbs hacked off and heads split in two. Flash edits of only three or four frames create an illusion of flesh being cut.
With its sharp contrast between gorgeous visuals and unrestrained mayhem Baby Cart at the River Styx is a giddy, intoxicating experience. The climactic battle in the sand dunes plays out in operatic grandeur. Dozens of Yagyū soldiers lie buried beneath the sand, waiting to leap from ambush. The trio of assassins first spies the tiny Daigoro standing atop a dune. He points away to the right -- where a blast of guitar music heralds the reveal of his father, challenging all three to combat. The finale reaches a new height of Bushidō absurdity: before expiring, the defeated opponent compliments Ogami Itto, for his 'perfect' slash to the jugular vein.
The full Kozure Ōkami/Lone Wolf and Cub series saw U.S. release only at neighborhood Japanese theaters, but Baby Cart at the River Styx was re-edited and dubbed into English for a New World Pictures release called Shogun Assassin (1980). Augmented with narration from the Daigoro character, the variant version began with a ten-minute prologue from the first episode Sword of Vengeance.
The Lone Wolf and Cub franchise continues. More manga novels were followed by a feature remake, two television series and a video game. The scowling Tomisaburô Wakayama performed in dozens of films before his death in 1992. In 1989, he played in a television version of the Lone Wolf and Cub story -- this time as the villain, Yagyū Retsudō.
By Glenn Erickson
