The sliding doors behind the seated samurai part, and a stream of soldiers pours into the room, blades at the ready, faces concealed behind molded masks. The pudgy samurai keeps his gaze forward. He knows this game. Wherever he's been, death echoes in his wake. Whenever he un-sheaths his sword, death stands at his side. Wherever he lands his blade, death is sure to guide his hand. With a flick of the thumb he pushes the guard of his katana forward with a click. Come and get it.
The fifth entry in the blood-splattered Lone Wolf and Cub series carries the saga's familiar, picaresque form, as the wandering samurai (Tomisaburô Wakayama) and his son (Akihiro Tomikawa) roll across the Japanese countryside fending off ambushes, passing through nameless towns rife with corruption and murder and hacking their way out of seemingly inescapable situations.
The first act finds our pudgy protagonist and son pursued by deadly messengers, each of whom imparts their clan's need for his service before challenging the samurai to a show of swordsmanship. As each challenger falls under the flash of the infamous sword, bloodied hands pass on a hundred ryo and breathless gasps divulge pieces of a puzzle, which will slowly and steadily bring Lone Wolf and Cub to their final, inevitable bloodbath of a showdown in the final reels of the film.
Baby Cart in the Land of Demons (1973) has been described as the most spiritual of the series, with a focus on nature, stoicism and the come-what-may acceptance of suffering and death, as well as gorgeous imagery juxtaposing the beauty of life and the violence which seeps through its straining seams. Scenes are often shot through dense foliage or against brilliant sunsets. A particularly striking image, shot with a long lens, flattens a hillside of white tombstones so that the young Daigoro is almost consumed by the imposing graveyard. His father watches from afar, his expression flat and unrevealing. The stark reminder of death is never far. We must accept that it will come for all of us, eventually.
As with the other films in the series, the action is often punctuated with thrilling sequences. A brilliant gag involving a boat, a priest and a saw feels like a nod to a Tom & Jerry sketch, and that's only one of Itto's underwater battles. Despite its more heavy-handed references to Buddhist philosophy, the film is still light on its feet and fast moving, thanks to director Kenji Misumi, returning after a brief hiatus to take the reins again. With a number of Zatoichi films under his belt, he was more than capable when it came to handling action sequences, and this entry doesn't come up short on the beheadings or amputations. Arterial spray that exits newly flayed wounds in what can only be described as a "furious" explosion of vermillion blood--against grass, tatami mats, wooden columns, ceilings and sand dunes. No surface goes unscathed in a Lone Wolf and Cub film, and you might feel your arteries tighten as geysers squirt, slosh and spray through smashed noses, sliced trachea and punctured lungs.
After his famous and overworked brother Shintarô Katsu (Zatoichi himself!) pulled away from the series, Tomisaburô Wakayama pulled double-duty as leading man and producer. One imagines that portraying the near expressionless Itto Ogami must have been a Zen-like exercise in comparison to the stress of having to juggle so many aspects of the production. Yet Wakayama doesn't miss a beat, balancing Itto's trademark calm with sudden bouts of concentrated fury as the blade emerges and viscera begins to fly.
One of the film's more unsettling moments finds Tomisaburô with his hair down past his shoulders, giving him a feline-esque stature as he pounces from foe to foe like a cornered tomcat, slicing up jugulars and dicing limbs like onion stalks.
Is it the best film in the series? That's up for debate - despite their one-off stories, the films work best not viewed all in one sitting but rather over time, like a slow, ongoing journey. But whether you jive with the plot or not, those old familiar sights and sounds--the squeak of the baby cart wheels, the steady, lumbering lull of Wakayama's gait, and the sudden appearance of those notes--electronic echoes with the snap of excited percussion--you know they're off on their next adventure, walking the Demon Way in Hell, wherever it leads them.
By Thomas Davant
