The Shogun's former decapitator-in-chief turns Lone Wolf with his young son as they wander the dusty tracks as masterless samurai, always keeping an eye out for the Shogun's nasty ninja’s.
Shogun Assassin must surely be one of the most infamous video nasties, a product of an age not so long ago but which now seems curiously nostalgic to our desensitised modern eyes. “Blood gushes out all over the screen – as if being hosed into the camera!!” Vipco proudly announces on the cover of it’s previously banned 1980 rehash of the first two instalments of the Baby Cart series, itself a version of the original Lone Wolf and Cub manga comics.
Shogun Assassin is basically a violent repackaging of the Sword of Vengeance and Baby Cart at the River Styx films, edited together to maximise the violence and minimise the story for we bloodthirsty Westerners who, in the golden age of gore, didn’t want to be distracted by such mundane things as dialogue, storytelling or historical background. And so we have this bloody classic, re-released for the gore-devouring British general public in the early 90’s who by that time were presumably much more equipped to deal with such levels of violence post 80’s onslaught.
Director Kenji Misumi tells a grave and bleeding tale narrated with the solemn frankness of the aforementioned Cub (Masahiro Tomikawa.) “What a time you chose to be born, Daigoro”, the soon to be Lone Wolf tells his baby son, born into a time of unrest in the empire under the suspiciously unbalanced rule of the Shogun, sporting the obligatory dodgy grey hair and eye brows of the typically outsized proportions. With the tragedy that follows the expert, infamous and feared samurai takes to the road with his young son in tow as they both resolve to live the life of “demons”, making a living en route with the odd spot of contract killing.
What this intro does is set up a rather vague and slow but nevertheless effective build up to the violence it is working towards in the latter parts of the film, which borrows more heavily from the second Baby Cart film. This beginning is a much darker affair than the rest of the film and heavily tainted by the sadness of Lone Wolf, as we find out from Daigoro’s narration. The strange and silent but solid bond between father and son is both fascinating and touching from the eyes of a western society where such a situation would be unthinkable, let alone the subject of a film. But rather than feeling exploitative there is a peculiarly lovable edge to this bond of honour so alien to our society.
As the film moves towards the inevitable extreme violence the pace quickens and the editing becomes as choppy as the swordplay, which is all, of course, set to some pretty decent cheesy 80’s synthesised music. Despite there being much heavier levels of violence towards the end as the murderous duo are sent the Shogun’s most feared and so far undefeated ‘ Masters of Death’, the tone feels lighter and much less serious as the film moves away from the emotional element and gets well and truly into gear as the no holds barred execution it’s marketed as. This certainly hits the spot with the ridiculous levels of extreme violence and silly behaviour we’ve come to expect from this type of film, complete with intentionally humorous throat slitting monologue-“Ridiculous!”
Shogun Assassin is definitely worth a watch as it does pretty much what it sets out to do. Although it is very violent and bloody it’s not of course as shocking as it would have been back in those heady gross-out days of the 80’s. In that respect, however, it feels like a little bit of celluloid history what with all the re-editing and re-releasing and so it has a kind of funny quaintness about it in that respect. In the post-80’s age of liking my violence diluted with a touch of story I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed with the move from the more emotive beginning towards the cheesier end. But, this isn’t the Baby Cart’s this is Shogun Assassin and that folks is what it’s meant for, lots and lots of violence, yeah!
A classic piece of “previously banned” cinema, inevitably rather disjointed through editing but nonetheless a rather enjoyable and inventively violent treat - "Ridiculous!"
