Shogun Assassin (1980)

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General		Extras
Category	Cult	Theatrical Trailer Gallery-Photo Trailer-Madman Trailers
Rating
Year Of Production	1980
Running Time	81:31 (Case: 86)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Robert Houston Kenji Misumi
Studio Distributor	Toho Company Madman Entertainment	Starring	Tomisaburo Wakayama Kayo Matsuo Minoru Ohki Akiji Kobayashi Shin Kishida Akihiro Tomikawa Lamont Johnson Marshall Efron Sandra Bernhard Vic Davis Lennie Weinrib Lainie Cooke Sam Weisman
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$24.95	Music	W. Michael Lewis Mark Lindsay Kunihiko Murai

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Unknown	English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     The Lone Wolf and Cub series of films made between 1972 and 1974 were based on a manga comic created by Kazuo Koike, who would later create the Crying Freeman. The films were violent, bloody, action packed subversions of the samurai myths so popularised by Akira Kurosawa and others. In 1980 parts of the first two films in the series, Sword of Vengeance and Baby Cart at the River Styx, originally released in Japan in 1972, were edited together, new dialogue written and dubbed into English and a new score by Mark Lindsay (Paul Revere and the Raiders) and W. Michael Lewis added. The result was Shogun Assassin.

     Ogami Itto (Tomisaburo Wakayama) is an expert samurai and the Shogun’s executioner. However, the Shogun begins to distrust Ogami and sends a team of ninja to kill him but they only succeed in killing his wife. Ogami distains an order to commit suicide and instead kills the Shogun’s son in a duel before going on the road as an assassin for hire with his infant son Daigoro (Masahiro Tomikawa) in a baby cart. But no-where is safe for the lone wolf and his cub; the Shogun will not forget and they are constantly hunted by the Shogun’s ninjas, including deadly female ninjas led by the Supreme Ninja (Kayo Matsuo). Just to complicate things further, Ogami accepts a thousand gold coin fee to kill the Shogun’s brother Lord Kurondo although he is protected by the three Masters of Death (Minoru Ohki, Akiji Kobayashi and Shin Kishida). Ogami must fend off the attacks of numerous assailants, protect his son from harm and take out the Masters of Death in order to fulfil his contract.

     Shogun Assassin takes about 10 minutes from the first film in the series, Sword of Vengeance, to set the back story before using the female ninjas and Masters of Death from Baby Cart at the River Styx. This means the film is very episodic and the motivation for Ogami’s fallout with the Shogun only sketchily drawn, but this really does not matter for a number of reasons. The first is a voice over from Daigoro that is not in the original films but works very well; it not only joins together the pieces but also adds humanity, and a little humour, to what is otherwise a sombre film. The second is the performances: Tomisaburo Wakayama is simply wonderful and totally believable, Masahiro Tomikawa fantastic for one so young and Kayo Matsuo both enigmatic and beautiful. The third is the superb action sequences.

     Shogun Assassin was banned in the UK for years as a video nasty but this fails to do the film justice. It is undeniably violent: there are severed limbs, cleaved skulls and massive sprays of blood at every turn. But while they are there, the film does not dwell on them, or render them in loving, slow motion detail (mostly anyway); there are many more recent films that have far more nasty, voyeuristic depictions of decapitations and lingering pain than Shogun Assassin. Instead, in Shogun Assassin there is no depiction of pain and the action is swift, sharp, and over. The film is also beautiful to look at, the cinematography of Chishi Makiura showing the vibrant colours and seasons of the Japanese landscape to full effect.

     Fans of the wonderful Lone Wolf and Cub series of films will find that Shogun Assassin omits much of the motivations and character moments of the first two films in favour of the action. However, in its own right and for those not familiar with the Lone Wolf and Cub films, Shogun Assassin is a very entertaining film. It has a great cast, looks beautiful, the action sequences are inventive and very well staged and it retains enough of the relationship between Ogami and Daigoro to give the film a heart that not many action films possess. It is well worth a look.

Video

     Shogun Assassin is presented in a ratio of 2.35:1, the original Toho theatrical ratio of the Lone Wolf and Cub films, and is 16x9 enhanced. It looks beautiful. Colours are vibrant with brilliant greens and yellows, skin tones are natural, blacks solid and shadow detail very good. There is mild grain, the odd scratch and occasional artefact but for a 30 year old film it looks great.

     As all dialogue was rewritten and dubbed into English, lip synchronisation is sometimes off but this is an action film and so is not distracting.

     There are no subtitles but from the Set Up Menu you can select the option to turn on a subtitle translating the Japanese signs.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono at 224 Kbps that does a great job. Dialogue is clear, swords swish, clash and cut and the rumble of the baby cart wheels on the unpaved roads is very satisfactory. The new score by Mark Lindsay and W. Michael Lewis took some themes from the original score but is otherwise electronic rock, reminiscent of the Alan Parsons Project. Perhaps it should not work as well as it does, but it provides very effective support for the film. There is no surround or subwoofer use.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Original Theatrical Trailer (2:25)

Stills Gallery

     18 black and white film stills.

Madman Trailers

     Included is Death Trance (2:30), Branded to Kill (0:45) and Shadowless Sword (2:58).

     The Region 1 seems to have the same good video and audio and slightly more numerous extras, including different trailers, a restoration Gallery, Program Notes and Daigoro’s History Lesson. I don’t know that these are substantial enough to give a win to Region 1. Perhaps a draw.

     Shogun Assassin has a great cast, looks beautiful, the action sequences are inventive and very well staged and it retains enough of the relationship between Ogami and Daigoro to give the film a heart that not many action films possess. The video and audio are fine, the extras minimal. Shogun Assassin may be a hybrid, but it is very entertaining in its own right and I enjoyed it far more that I expected to. It is well worth a look.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall