Shogun Assassin
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| Shogun Assassin | |
|---|---|
 Cover of the UK DVD. |
|
| Directed by | Robert Houston |
| Produced by | Shintaro Katsu Robert Houston |
| Written by | Kazuo Koike Goseki Kojima |
| Starring | Tomisaburo Wakayama |
| Music by | Hideaki Sakurai |
| Cinematography | Chishi Makiura |
| Editing by | Lee Percy Toshio Taniguchi |
| Distributed by | Toho |
| Release date(s) | 1980 |
| Running time | 86 min. |
| Country | Japan/US |
| Language | English (dubbed) |
| IMDb profile | |
Shogun Assassin (known in Japan as Kozure Ōkami 子連れ狼) is a very violent jidaigeki movie made for the American market and released in 1980. The film is considered a classic by many fans of the samurai-film genre.
Shogun Assassin was edited and compiled from the first two films in the Baby Cart series, using 12 minutes of 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.
Shogun Assassin was dubbed to 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." A foreboding synthesizer score of the type popular at the time was applied.
The title character, Ōgami 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.
Several audio clips from Shogun Assassin are used on GZA's Liquid Swords (produced by RZA). In addition, the film is invoked in Kill Bill Vol. 2 (for which RZA provided original music) in the end scenes where the protagonist and her daughter watch it as a bed-time story .
[edit] Quotes
The dubbing of the movie is typified by bad grammar as a result of literal translation and cultural misinterpretation. This has resulted in some quotable catchphrases from the movie:
- "They shall pay. With rivers of blood!"
- "Oh mad one! We see your trap!"
- "I am the Supreme Ninja"
- "Your technique is magnificent, when cut across the neck a sound like wailing winter winds is heard they say, I´d always hoped to cut someone like that some day, to hear that sound, but to have it happen to my own neck, is ridiculous"
- "When I was little, my father was famous, he was the greatest Samurai in the empire and he was the Shoguns decapitator, he cut off the head of a hundred and thirty-one lords. It was a bad time for the empire, the Shogun just stayed inside his castle and he never came out, people said his brain was infected by devils. My father would come home, and he’d forget about the killings, he wasn’t scared of the Shogun, but the Shogun was scared of him. Maybe that was the problem. Then one night, the Shogun send his ninja spies to our house. They were supposed to kill my father, but they didn’t. That was the night everything changed."
- "I have decided to escape, to defy the shogun. Today I will begin walking the road to hell. But you will choose your own path. So, soon you may be seeing heaven. Choose the sword, and you will join me. Choose the ball and you join your mother, in death. You don’t understand my words, but you must choose. So… come boy, choose life or death."
[edit] See also
[edit] External link
| Lone Wolf and Cub |
| Baby Cart film series |
|---|
| Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (1972) | Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972) | Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (1972) | Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril (1972) | Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons (1973) | Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven in Hell (1974) | Shogun Assassin (first and second films combined) (1980) |
| Television series / List of Lone Wolf and Cub episodes |
| Creators and Actors |
| Goseki Kojima | Kazuo Koike | Shintaro Katsu | Tomisaburo Wakayama | Yagyū Clan |
| Other related articles |
| Baby transport | Bushido | Dark Horse Comics | Jidaigeki | Samurai Executioner | Kill Bill | Road to Perdition | Tokugawa shogunate |
