Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 3: today we're going to be talking about a film from
Speaker 3: the year nineteen eighty, the blood drenched samurai film Shogun Assassin. Rob,
Speaker 3: this was your pick. How did you get to Shogun Assassin?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Wow? Mainly because I had subscribed to Criterion Channel in
Speaker 2: order to watch Face behind the Mask for a previous episode,
Speaker 2: and they have all these little collections in their little
Speaker 2: playlists of movies to check out, and they had one
Speaker 2: that was just called synth Scores. So of course I
Speaker 2: had to dive in and see what kind of movies
Speaker 2: they had included there. And they included one film that
Speaker 2: I had heard of but I'd never seen, and that's
Speaker 2: Shogun Assassin. And so I started playing it like I
Speaker 2: think I was eating lunch by myself at the time,
Speaker 2: and it was one of those films where before I
Speaker 2: knew what had happened, I'd watched most of the film,
Speaker 2: you know, like I had other things I really needed
Speaker 2: to do that day, but I was already like sucked
Speaker 2: into it. It's just if you've never seen it. I
Speaker 2: highly recommend diving in as well, because I think it
Speaker 2: will captivate most people who watch it.
Speaker 3: It is incredible in many ways, and I can see
Speaker 3: why it would be classified primarily in terms of its soundtrack,
Speaker 3: because the music in this movie just it washes over
Speaker 3: you like a like a dark rainbow. It's just unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm really excited to talk about it here today.
Speaker 2: I made sure to open up a can of my
Speaker 2: Sun Tory Boss coffee here. I'll show it to you. Hear,
Speaker 2: Joe did not buy it from a convenience machine on
Speaker 2: the streets of Japan. This one is just from Super
Speaker 2: h Mart. But they're not sponsoring this episode, by the way,
Speaker 2: But I will be drinking my Sun Tory Boss coffee.
Speaker 3: Wait, what is that coffee or is it some kind
Speaker 3: of coffee?
Speaker 2: Plus, it's just a coffee. It's inexpensive, like colbrew black
Speaker 2: coffee in a can, nice with a fun ly logo
Speaker 2: on it.
Speaker 3: I have to try that one sometime. But oh so,
Speaker 3: Chogun Assassin is a movie that I think we've done
Speaker 3: films of this kind before, though I can't think at
Speaker 3: the moment what they were but this is a movie
Speaker 3: that is not an original artistic product, but rather is
Speaker 3: made out of other products that already existed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've talked about pictures on the show before that
Speaker 2: exist in different, sometimes drastically different cuts. We recently did
Speaker 2: that with Reptilicus. But yeah, today's episode is an extreme
Speaker 2: case of something like this. Nineteen eighties Shogun Assassin is
Speaker 2: a Western film release edited together from the first two
Speaker 2: films in the famous Japanese Lone Wolf and Cub series,
Speaker 2: those two films being both nineteen seventy two releases, Lone
Speaker 2: Wolf and Cubs sort Of Vengeance the first of six films,
Speaker 2: and Lone Wolf and Cub Baby cart at the River Styx,
Speaker 2: the second of six films. Warning that you know a
Speaker 2: lot of these film titles. The translation is maybe a
Speaker 2: little rough, but that's part of its time. So essentially,
Speaker 2: the American filmmakers involved here set out to take the
Speaker 2: best parts from these two films and stitch them together
Speaker 2: into a single coherent narrative featuring, you know, the best action,
Speaker 2: the coolest visuals, and all of this built around a
Speaker 2: rather simplified plot. I'll describe the ways that they simplified
Speaker 2: the plots a little bit as we proceed, but in
Speaker 2: essence they're just repackaging these two films for the grindhouse market.
Speaker 3: I would say this movie is very loosely plotted. You
Speaker 3: barely need to follow what's going on with the plot
Speaker 3: or the machinations. It is more like a demo reel
Speaker 3: of sights and sounds, and those sites are samurai action
Speaker 3: with blood jets squirting, and the sounds are the dark
Speaker 3: scinthed stylings of our composers who will get to later. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the plot is greatly reduced here, but in a way,
Speaker 2: it also makes it super fun to then dive into
Speaker 2: the full cuts of those first two Lone Wolf and
Speaker 2: Cub films, which is exactly what I did after watching
Speaker 2: Showgun Assassin. All of the Lone Wolf and Cub films
Speaker 2: are available on a Criterion channel as well as of
Speaker 2: this recording.
Speaker 3: But I'm curious how significantly different is the mood.
Speaker 2: I think the mood is pretty much the same, And
Speaker 2: I think that's the really glorious thing about Shogun Assassin
Speaker 2: is that it's easy to imagine all the ways that
Speaker 2: a project like this could go spectacularly wrong, the way
Speaker 2: that it could be disrespectful to the original pictures, but
Speaker 2: I do think that the essential vibe is there. So
Speaker 2: if you go from Showgun Assassin and you're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I would like more of this, well, the Lone Wolf
Speaker 2: and Cub series is more of this, you know, because
Speaker 2: it is, you know, the full plot, the full character
Speaker 2: development of everything that is in Showgun Assassin that you love,
Speaker 2: except for the score, a different score, but still effective
Speaker 2: scores in the original pictures.
Speaker 3: So regarding not the original films but Showgun Assassin specifically,
Speaker 3: I've read this movie is esthetic described in terms like
Speaker 3: poetic exploitation violence, and I think that's a good way
Speaker 3: to put it, because this movie feels like it has
Speaker 3: two souls at once. It is at once a work
Speaker 3: of art and a piece of trashy grindhouse gore. So
Speaker 3: on one hand, there really is a kind of poignant,
Speaker 3: almost literary quality to the way details are observed in
Speaker 3: a lot of scenes. Just one scene of many that
Speaker 3: comes to mind is when the young boy is trying
Speaker 3: to bring water from the river to his badly wounded father,
Speaker 3: and he's trying to carry it in his hands and
Speaker 3: it keeps leaking out between his fingers, so he eventually
Speaker 3: carries the water in his mouth to his father. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's like a almost kind of beauty, full novelistic detail,
Speaker 3: and also in terms of style, there is a quite
Speaker 3: exquisite vision at play with the composition of the shots
Speaker 3: and very again memorable details, strong misancen. But at the
Speaker 3: same time, there is a campy Tom Savini Friday the
Speaker 3: Thirteenth sensibility operating in quite high gear in most of
Speaker 3: the action scenes, with like a real desire to just
Speaker 3: see blood squirting and to get the camera all up
Speaker 3: in the ridiculous wounds, the cloven heads and all that.
Speaker 3: So it's an interesting combination. It's like some some gore
Speaker 3: geek exploitation trash and a thoughtful, meditative historical art film
Speaker 3: about a samurai father and son were merged into one entity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the arterial sprays and there are quite a
Speaker 2: few of them, will make your jaw drop and exclaim aloud.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, yeah, there are such beautifully
Speaker 2: poetic scenes in this picture, Like I cried, I teared
Speaker 2: up at times, you know, I shed tears just to
Speaker 2: showgun assassin. So it is both things at once. I
Speaker 2: think it's a great.
Speaker 3: Point, especially with the music. The music is a Digros theme,
Speaker 3: especially that one was it was making me a little misty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a strong track. We'll come back of
Speaker 2: that one for sure.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: One thing I promise not to do in this episode
Speaker 2: is to painstakingly talk about all the differences between Showgun
Speaker 2: Assassin and the first two Lone Wolf and Cub movies.
Speaker 2: We'll come back to some of these details in a bit,
Speaker 2: but just in broad strokes, I do want to mention
Speaker 2: that clips from the first film, sort of Vengeance, apparently
Speaker 2: amount to only like twelve minutes of Shogun Assassin, mostly
Speaker 2: dealing with the backstory of Lone Wolf and Cup of
Speaker 2: our Ronan character and the child.
Speaker 3: Oh well, but that's a lot of what the movie is.
Speaker 3: I would bet that when people watch this movie and
Speaker 3: then think back and reminisce about it, the primary thing
Speaker 3: they probably remember is the feeling created by the opening
Speaker 3: five minutes or so. Not that the rest of the
Speaker 3: movie isn't good, but that is the feeling of this
Speaker 3: movie is really established strongly at the beginning, again powerfully moody,
Speaker 3: with this strong synth bass melody that plays under Diegoro's
Speaker 3: the Child, the Child's narration as he describes the backstory,
Speaker 3: and we see these scenes very rapidly cut together. They
Speaker 3: condense a lot of story into not much space. But
Speaker 3: it's quite effective in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that narration by the child is quite excellent, and
Speaker 2: that is something that is original to Shogun Assassin. There
Speaker 2: is not something like that in the Lone Wolf and
Speaker 2: Cub movies. We don't really have his insight or reflection
Speaker 2: on what happens here.
Speaker 3: Though his narration continues throughout this movie. I mean like
Speaker 3: he gets to tell us how, you know. We see
Speaker 3: them pushing the cart through the jungle and they look
Speaker 3: around and see monkeys screaming at them, and the kid says,
Speaker 3: this is how I get my education.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'll come back to some of the details
Speaker 2: about the differences, at least the ones that are really
Speaker 2: key to understanding what's happening in the picture or why
Speaker 2: things are, you know, proceding the way they are. But yeah, basically,
Speaker 2: though more time is spent with the characters, of course,
Speaker 2: more time is spent with the politics and the background.
Speaker 2: More time is spent laying out the duties that ogami
Speaker 2: Eto has. That's our main character, the Showgun's executioner. In fact,
Speaker 2: the first ten minutes or so the first Lone Wolf
Speaker 2: and Cub movie is just ogami Eto about to execute
Speaker 2: a young lord, like a child that is the same
Speaker 2: age as his own son, on the orders of the Showgun.
Speaker 2: This is of course the sort of thing that if
Speaker 2: you are a recent viewer of the excellent Hulu FX
Speaker 2: mini series Showgun, which is of course more historically based
Speaker 2: perhaps in some ways than Showgun Assassin, you'll be familiar
Speaker 2: with this sort of thing. But it does just a
Speaker 2: great job in the original picture, just laying out like
Speaker 2: this is the kind of work he has to do,
Speaker 2: you know, he has to do bloody deets for the
Speaker 2: Showgun out of a sense of honor and duty, and
Speaker 2: at night he prays for the souls of those that
Speaker 2: he has killed. And then finally, I should also mention
Speaker 2: that both of these films had also already been released
Speaker 2: in the US by Toho with subtitles, so it's interesting
Speaker 2: to think about that as well. This is not It's
Speaker 2: not like Shogun Assassin was the absolute first time US
Speaker 2: audience has had a chance to see these films. You know,
Speaker 2: at least some moviegoers out there already were familiar with them.
Speaker 2: But this was kind of like a you know, a
Speaker 2: redistribution or repackaging of these films for a new audience,
Speaker 2: and it certainly seemed to have found its audience.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that makes me think, what is your understanding
Speaker 3: of the original reception history of this movie. Was it
Speaker 3: literally like a you know, midnight movie grindhouse kind of
Speaker 3: kind of thing.
Speaker 2: That's my understanding. This was like a grindhouse sensation, you know,
Speaker 2: in which the expectations for cinema were you know, at
Speaker 2: the extreme. People were tuning in to see those brilliant
Speaker 2: arterial sprays, the violence and some of the psychedelic sequences,
Speaker 2: you know. But and and it's through this that Shogun
Speaker 2: Assassin ended up really resonating with various various folks, everyone
Speaker 2: from like you know, Quentin Tarantino, members of Wu Tang
Speaker 2: clan and so forth. There's a lot here that's been
Speaker 2: sampled elsewhere and so forth. So I think it it
Speaker 2: also does a great job of just you know, introducing
Speaker 2: the world of Lone Wolf and cub to a different audience,
Speaker 2: a wider audience, if you will.
Speaker 3: You can think of it kind of like one of
Speaker 3: those sitcom episodes where they do a clip show from
Speaker 3: the other episodes, but here it's it's a clip show
Speaker 3: of Lone Wolf and Cub, so you get a you
Speaker 3: get a flavor of the different adventures.
Speaker 2: It's hard to imagine another project doing something like this, though,
Speaker 2: Like can you imagine taking say Predator one in Predator
Speaker 2: two and then editing them together into one film.
Speaker 3: It would be easier if they had the same main character.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I guess. Or how about Godfather one and
Speaker 2: two edited into a single ninety minute film? Call it
Speaker 2: Mafia Assassin.
Speaker 3: Brilliant? I love it.
Speaker 2: That's maybe more app because in an effort like you
Speaker 2: would have to like boil out, you know, reduce it
Speaker 2: and remove all of most of the politics and get
Speaker 2: down to just like an ultra simplified like you know, plot,
Speaker 2: which is what we have in Shogun Assassin. Well, on
Speaker 2: that note, why don't we go ahead and listen to
Speaker 2: a little trailer audio. This is from the This is
Speaker 2: the trailer to be clear, to Shogun Assassin, not the
Speaker 2: original Lone Wolf and Cub films. We're not going to
Speaker 2: listen to all of it because it is it's kind
Speaker 2: of long, but I want to make sure we get
Speaker 2: a little bit of that music and of course, the
Speaker 2: nearer saying the title of the picture.
Speaker 4: Return to the vanished kingdoms of ancient times, the journey
Speaker 4: through a lost empire of man, wizards, wish and barbaric passions.
Speaker 5: Behold the saga of a legendary warrior, a loving father
Speaker 5: who has the power of a dozen armies in one.
Speaker 4: Sweep of his mystic blade.
Speaker 6: This is a story of honor, disgrace, vengeance, massacre.
Speaker 5: A man who became a demon Shogun Assassin.
Speaker 2: All right, so, if you would like to watch Shogun
Speaker 2: Assassin and perhaps all six Lone Wolf and Cub films,
Speaker 2: it's all currently streaming on the Criterion channel. I've been
Speaker 2: really digging this resource recently. There's also a great looking
Speaker 2: Criterion collection box set of the six films. Showgun Assassin
Speaker 2: itself has been released on Blu ray and DVD, but
Speaker 2: I think that one might be harder to grab right now.
Speaker 2: But of course, if you have some sort of rental
Speaker 2: service at your disposal, be it Videodrome here in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: whatever your local video rental option is, or even maybe
Speaker 2: the public library, as a listener brought up in the
Speaker 2: recent Listener Mail episode, Yeah, don't discount your public library
Speaker 2: they might have some Showgun Assassin waiting for you. All right, Well,
Speaker 2: let's talk about some of the people involved here before
Speaker 2: we get into the plot and so forth. So again,
Speaker 2: this is a nineteen eighty film release composed edited together
Speaker 2: from two nineteen seventy two films. We can't do justice
Speaker 2: to all the folks involved in these different projects, so
Speaker 2: I want to mostly single out some of the key
Speaker 2: folks from the first two Lone Wolf and Cub films,
Speaker 2: as well as key people responsible for the Showgun Assassin cut. Okay,
Speaker 2: all right, So starting I think at the top where
Speaker 2: where credit is deserved. The director of both Lone Wolf
Speaker 2: and Cub films one and two this is Kenji Masumi,
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen twenty one through nineteen seventy five. Very
Speaker 2: well regarded Japanese film director, best known certainly internationally for
Speaker 2: his work on four of the six Lone Wolf and
Speaker 2: Cub films that's one, two, three, and five, as well
Speaker 2: as his Zatouichi films. His other movies also include nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy two's Hanzo the Razor, Sword of Justice and nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty six's Return of Damigen. This is a Tokusatsu film
Speaker 2: about a giant demon god. I haven't seen these films,
Speaker 2: but this was the second in a series that had
Speaker 2: started earlier that same year. Like a big statue type dude.
Speaker 3: Well, like a giant statue of a samurai warrior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, with a scowl on his face and so forth.
Speaker 3: See screenshots of one scene where he appears to be
Speaker 3: walking through a parted see ooh, I don't know. I'll
Speaker 3: have to flag this one. Come back to it, all right.
Speaker 2: We also have to credit the creators of Lone Wolf
Speaker 2: and Cub, two individuals worth singling out here. The first
Speaker 2: as Kazuo Kooki, who lived nineteen thirty six through twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: writer creator of He's the legendary Japanese manga writer, novelist, screenwriter, lyricist,
Speaker 2: and entrepreneur apparently best known for co creating the Lone
Speaker 2: Wolf and Cub series, not only writing it but also
Speaker 2: adapting it for the screen. In both of these the
Speaker 2: pictures that are used to create Shogun Assassin. He'd continued
Speaker 2: to do this with numerous other works of his that
Speaker 2: were adapted to the screen, including nineteen seventy two's Hanzo
Speaker 2: the Razor. He also wrote a Wolverine story for Marvel.
Speaker 2: I think I think it's from two thousand and three
Speaker 2: X Men Unlimited Volume one, issue fifty and he is
Speaker 2: a member of the Eisner Hall of Fame. And then
Speaker 2: the artists that were the manga artists that worked with
Speaker 2: him on this was Goseki Kojima, who lived nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: eight through two thousand. Yeah, he worked with him on
Speaker 2: the Lone Wolf and Cub film, so very much a
Speaker 2: part of the original alchemy of bringing this idea of
Speaker 2: life on the page. All right, now, turning to the
Speaker 2: folks heading up Showgun Assassin, we have we have a
Speaker 2: Shogun Assassin director and writer Robert Houston born nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 2: So this individual is an Academy Award winning director for
Speaker 2: a two thousand and four short form documentary titled Mighty
Speaker 2: Times The Children's March. This was produced by HBO and
Speaker 2: the Southern Poverty Loss and are dealing with the Birmingham,
Speaker 2: Alabama civil rights Marches of the nineteen sixties. Long before this, though,
Speaker 2: he played Bobby in Wes Craven's nineteen seventy seven Mutant
Speaker 2: Mayhem movie The Hills Have Eyes. What I included it
Speaker 2: a still for you here Joe's If anyone remembers, he's
Speaker 2: the blonde kid in the T shirt. Okay, yeah, that's him.
Speaker 2: That's our director.
Speaker 3: Wow, Pads crossing, I had no idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He appeared in a handful of late seventies and
Speaker 2: early eighties pictures before heading up the Showgun Assassin project
Speaker 2: for producer David Weisman, which would ultimately be released by
Speaker 2: Roger Korman's New World Pictures. His subsequent directorial and writing
Speaker 2: credits include an array of thrillers, erotica, an episode of
Speaker 2: Doogie Howser MD, and of course, Academy Award winning documentary
Speaker 2: shorts How Strange. Yeah, all right, now. David Weisman, who
Speaker 2: had just mentioned he is credited with as a writer
Speaker 2: and a producer on this. He lived nineteen forty two
Speaker 2: through twenty nineteen. He was apparently part of a splinter
Speaker 2: group from Andy Warhol's factory back in the sixties, and
Speaker 2: he went on to produce such films as nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: five's Kiss of the Spider Woman. All right, now, getting
Speaker 2: back into the original Japanese cast, the actors who bring
Speaker 2: this picture to life, it's lone Wolf and cubs. So
Speaker 2: let's start with Lone Wolf the character of Ogami Eto,
Speaker 2: the Shoguns executioner turned ronan. He's played by Tomisaburo Wakayama,
Speaker 2: and he lived nineteen twenty nine through nineteen nine two.
Speaker 3: He brings a lot to this movie in that he
Speaker 3: is an absolutely lethal action hero, but he does not
Speaker 3: I don't know he he doesn't have a very active aura.
Speaker 3: He brings a lot of stillness and patience. Do you
Speaker 3: know what I'm getting at here? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it's it's something that's easy to
Speaker 2: sort of not really process all the way, especially if
Speaker 2: you're just watching Shogun Assassin, and maybe if you just
Speaker 2: sort of have it on in the background or something.
Speaker 2: But it begins to make more and more sense once
Speaker 2: you really absorb the character, because you know, he he
Speaker 2: doesn't talk much, but it is a full body performance
Speaker 2: of kind of this mix of silent honor and determination,
Speaker 2: but all of it burning within this scowling husk of
Speaker 2: shame and sorrow, Like he is a man who's been
Speaker 2: brought low, who's been betrayed, who is marked for death,
Speaker 2: you know, and all these circumstances are out of his control,
Speaker 2: but inwardly he's remaining true to his principles while the
Speaker 2: whole world either turns their their backs on him or
Speaker 2: turns their blades on him. And then when he does
Speaker 2: unleash his fury, oh man, it's just this fluid artery
Speaker 2: severing machinery.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: It's the and right down to when he's finished, like
Speaker 2: the fluid sheathing of his sword. You know, it's like
Speaker 2: a final signature on a regal contract of death.
Speaker 3: Yes, his presence in the action scenes is very much
Speaker 3: like a he is a machine where the valve is
Speaker 3: closed and then suddenly it explodes open and there is
Speaker 3: a release of activity and then it closes again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's such a great performance. And when you
Speaker 2: when you learn a little bit more about Wakayama, like
Speaker 2: his background makes sense when you see this, because he
Speaker 2: was an accomplished kabuki actor, uh and a judo practitioner
Speaker 2: that you know that ended up then getting into film acting.
Speaker 2: So I can you can, I can see that, like
Speaker 2: that control of the body, fluid movements, and and then
Speaker 2: like his his ability to use these often like just
Speaker 2: smoldering facial expressions, you know, like where he's not just scowling,
Speaker 2: he's not just like well, I'm gonna look like a
Speaker 2: like like a badass for this scene. Like, no, there's
Speaker 2: the there there's stuff going on behind the eyes and
Speaker 2: you can sense it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's something more sad and also in a way
Speaker 3: threatening about the kind of the blankness that he often brings.
Speaker 2: So yeah, just just a wonderful performance, you know. He
Speaker 2: he's mostly known for, you know, for for these films,
Speaker 2: the Lone Wolf and Cub films. He's in all of
Speaker 2: these Original Six pictures. He also had some starring roles
Speaker 2: and some other Toho Martial Arts films, but outside of Japan,
Speaker 2: he only ever appeared in two Western films. He pops
Speaker 2: up as a coach in nineteen seventy eight's The Bad
Speaker 2: News Bears Go to Japan. What, Yeah, I haven't seen
Speaker 2: that one. But then he also has has a turn
Speaker 2: as a as a key yakuza boss in Ridley Scott's
Speaker 2: Black Rain from nineteen eighty nine. Now I haven't seen
Speaker 2: that one either. It's, you know, one of Ridley's like
Speaker 2: non sci fi fantasy film, so I've never gotten around
Speaker 2: to it, but I've seen some stills. He looks like
Speaker 2: he has a really smoldering presence, and I think he
Speaker 2: gets to deliver a monologue that features the title of the.
Speaker 3: Picture Oh Wow, nineteen eighty nine. Michael Douglas, Andy Garcia,
Speaker 3: Kate Capshaw. Yeah, oh this looks worth seeing.
Speaker 2: I remember seeing trailers for it as a kid and
Speaker 2: thinking like, oh, it's more Blade Runner, and then I realize, oh, wait,
Speaker 2: it's not Blade Runner. This takes place in the real world,
Speaker 2: and then I don't watch it.
Speaker 3: But hey, the poster is hilarious. I see Michael Douglas
Speaker 3: there with his arms folded, like, yeah, what do you want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like something like an American cop must go
Speaker 2: to Japan to track a Yukuza killer or something. I
Speaker 2: don't know, but it may be great if you love
Speaker 2: it right in and let us know.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: So that's our lone wolf, our cub.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I'm imagining Michael Douglass doing like Fish out
Speaker 3: of Water scenes where he like tries sushi for the
Speaker 3: first time, Like, oh, what is this?
Speaker 2: I mean it was the nineteen eighties, but I hope
Speaker 2: that's not what Black Rain is. But I know maybe,
Speaker 2: so all right. Digoro is played by Akihiro Tamakawa born
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight. Child actor, cute kid, but like these
Speaker 2: are pretty much his only credits. But still I cannot
Speaker 2: stress enough how cute this kid is just such a
Speaker 2: cute kid. Show any clip that features Lone Wolf and
Speaker 2: Cub to anyone in your vicinity, and that will at
Speaker 2: least be their one of their comments.
Speaker 3: Cute kid.
Speaker 2: A lot of spraying blood.
Speaker 3: And so forth. He's even cute when he's operating like
Speaker 3: the switchblade NYE in his baby carriage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he gets to kill two. It's one of the
Speaker 2: interesting details, all right. The chief antagonist of this picture
Speaker 2: is this is kind of confusing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was mighty confused by.
Speaker 2: This because when you watch Shogun Assassin, they talk a
Speaker 2: lot about the Showgun, and they present the Showgun is
Speaker 2: kind of like this evil, paranoid, corrupted ruler who is
Speaker 2: just exacting his vengeance and paranoia on the entire nation.
Speaker 2: Like that's very much three and that's you know, ed
Speaker 2: works within the context of Shogun Assassin. But the character
Speaker 2: who they identify as the Showgun is absolutely not the
Speaker 2: Showgun in the Lone Wolf and Cub series.
Speaker 3: I was so confused because the movie, the way it's edited,
Speaker 3: makes it clear that he's supposed to be the Showgun.
Speaker 3: Because like when the narration mentions the show, they always
Speaker 3: showed this guy's face. And then I was reading summaries
Speaker 3: of the plot that like, say, no, this guy isn't
Speaker 3: the Shogun. He's like the head of the Ninja assassins.
Speaker 3: And I was like, well, that kind of makes sense
Speaker 3: because he doesn't really look like he doesn't have shogun regalia, no,
Speaker 3: not at all, And so yeah, it was I had
Speaker 3: no idea what was going on here, but I did
Speaker 3: call him the Shogun in my plot summary, So yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what we're gonna go with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's totally fair to call him the showgun within
Speaker 2: the confines of Shogun Assassin, but within the confines of
Speaker 2: the larger Lone Wolf and Cub series and the other
Speaker 2: six movies, this character is Yagyu Rotsuto, and he is. Yes,
Speaker 2: he's the head of this group of ninja assassins. He is.
Speaker 2: He's not the showgun. He's one of the Shogun's many vassals,
Speaker 2: but he is working his own political agenda within the system.
Speaker 3: He really just doesn't have shogun energy either. He does
Speaker 3: have big bag energy, but for a Western equivalent, he
Speaker 3: feels more like a like a resputant type character. Like
Speaker 3: he's supposed to be a wicked mad monk or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's the look he has, like this like
Speaker 2: demon white hair and scowl like he out scowls are
Speaker 2: our Ronan here, you know, like he's just it's a
Speaker 2: scowl off between these two. But yeah, Gratzudo is such
Speaker 2: a great villain in this picture. Even even though he's
Speaker 2: largely an orchestrator, we don't see him directly do anything.
Speaker 2: And that's ultimately kind of the tragedy here. Because this
Speaker 2: character is the long term antagonist of the series. There's
Speaker 2: not going to be any payoff with him. This guy
Speaker 2: is not getting assassinated. No, despite the title Showgun Assassin,
Speaker 2: the Showgun's not getting it in this picture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the target of our protagonist in the last scene
Speaker 3: in the movie is some guy that's like, who is this?
Speaker 2: I think in Showgun Assassin they present him as the
Speaker 2: Showgun's brother. Yes, but in the actual movie, the second
Speaker 2: Lone Wolf and Cub film, it's like a.
Speaker 3: Guy who is.
Speaker 2: Betraying an Indigo company in order to give trade secrets
Speaker 2: to the Showgun. So it's like an entire subplot that
Speaker 2: doesn't really direct I mean, it does impact the Shogun,
Speaker 2: but it's not the Shogun's brother.
Speaker 3: No, the in Shogun Assassin, they describe him as this
Speaker 3: evil lord who's the brother of the Showgun and is
Speaker 3: oppressing the people who hire the Lone Wolf.
Speaker 2: But now he's like a corporate defector.
Speaker 3: But like I don't recall if we ever meet him
Speaker 3: much in the movie before this, I mean maybe a little,
Speaker 3: but yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so at any rate, you can call him Shogun,
Speaker 2: you can call him Ratsudo. But this character is played
Speaker 2: by Yunosuki Ito, who lived nineteen nineteen through nineteen eighty,
Speaker 2: a well regarded Japanese character actor who appeared in more
Speaker 2: than two hundred films from between nineteen thirty two and
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine, with parts ranging from hammi performances, which
Speaker 2: I'm to understand are referred to as radish performances in
Speaker 2: Japanese culture, because yeah, apparently he wrote a memoir and
Speaker 2: it was like, you know, like memoir of a ratish
Speaker 2: performer or something, you know. But he played everything from
Speaker 2: like comedic characters to memorable villains. His credits include Kuisawa's
Speaker 2: films Ikiu in fifty two, Sandjuro in sixty two, High
Speaker 2: and Low in sixty three.
Speaker 3: He is.
Speaker 2: He's also known for a dual role in the classic
Speaker 2: ninja film Shinobi Nomono, which I think this is one
Speaker 2: that we mentioned in passing in our episodes on the Ninjas.
Speaker 2: This is a picture from nineteen sixty two and it
Speaker 2: was an award winning performance. There's also a picture called
Speaker 2: obamb exclamation Point from nineteen sixty four that's said to
Speaker 2: be a great example of his comedic work. I included
Speaker 2: a still from Obomb where you can see him like
Speaker 2: plugging his ears with his fingers and you know, clear
Speaker 2: comedic performance here he's.
Speaker 3: Doing kind of a Don Knat's face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that style of comedy. So yeah, I love
Speaker 2: Eto so much in this as the villain Ritsudo, but
Speaker 2: sadly he did not return to play the part in
Speaker 2: subsequent films. But here we have just this brooding, demonic
Speaker 2: visage of a man just grating with hatred. And I
Speaker 2: have to say the English dub in Shogun Assassin, I
Speaker 2: feel it does very accurately capture the essence of his
Speaker 2: original Japanese language dialogue as well. Just that just that grating,
Speaker 2: like teeth grinding level of a venom in his voice. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just like you want this guy or you maybe you
Speaker 2: don't want this guy to show up outside your door
Speaker 2: everything every time you do something wrong, like there in
Speaker 2: your place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they they fit him in well as the Shogun
Speaker 3: with the narration, at least because, as Digoro explains that
Speaker 3: the Shogun was paranoid and saw enemies everywhere, and this
Speaker 3: guy looks like that. He's his eyes are always shifting
Speaker 3: back and forth real quick to you know see he's
Speaker 3: coming from any corner. He looks suspicious and frightened and angry,
Speaker 3: and also has that general look of someone who's like
Speaker 3: the not wellness of their mind has affected their body,
Speaker 3: Like he looks kind of decrepit in some way.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so, Again, Shogun Assassin does not have time for
Speaker 2: all the politics. They simplify everything. But it's a good
Speaker 2: at it in terms of just presenting a picture that
Speaker 2: the grindhouse audience can enjoy in a villain they can
Speaker 2: ooh an a at.
Speaker 3: This movie has so many villains.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because we also have we have numerous heads
Speaker 2: of different Ninja Assassin clans and I'm not even we
Speaker 2: can't even get into all of those but one of
Speaker 2: the key ones. But I would say the key one
Speaker 2: that also ends up becoming an ally of sorts is
Speaker 2: the Supreme Ninja. This is Yagyu Sayaka, played by Keo
Speaker 2: Matsuo born nineteen forty three, our female ninja master of
Speaker 2: exceptional skill. She's perhaps best known for this role, but
Speaker 2: she was also in nineteen sixty nine's Outlaw Gangster VIP
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four is Gata Flesh. In nineteen seventy is
Speaker 2: the Vampire Doll.
Speaker 3: So she plays the head of a clan of ninja
Speaker 3: who are all women who sort of they do the
Speaker 3: operate in disguise and sneak attack stuff. And her ninja
Speaker 3: are said to be the best, and she is. I
Speaker 3: would say of all the enemies that Lone Wolf faces
Speaker 3: in the movie, she is the one who gets closest
Speaker 3: to getting the better of him.
Speaker 2: That's right, That's right. But also I think she gets
Speaker 2: a little too close.
Speaker 3: To his heart. Yeah, she gets in with a net.
Speaker 3: It's hard to beat a net, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's effective in combat against and they have a
Speaker 2: great fight scene. I mean, all the fight scenes are great.
Speaker 2: But other thing worth mentioning is that in Shogun Assassin
Speaker 2: she is I believe dubbed by comedian and actress Sandra
Speaker 2: Bernhardt nineteen fifty five. I'm not saying it's a great dub,
Speaker 2: but apparently this is Sandra Bernhard all right. There There
Speaker 2: are some other like heads of different ninja groups that
Speaker 2: we could mention if we have more time, but I
Speaker 2: do want to mention that we have not one, not two,
Speaker 2: but three Masters of Death in this picture that show
Speaker 2: up late in the movie as essentially like the main bosses.
Speaker 3: Their outfits, in particular their hats might be quite familiar
Speaker 3: to fans of Big Trouble in Little China.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Three Storms in Big Trouble and Little China
Speaker 2: are clearly based in part in a large part on
Speaker 2: the look of the Masters of Death aka the Monks
Speaker 2: of Death a ka the Hidari Brothers. They're not sorcerers
Speaker 2: like the Three Storms. They are just masters of martial arts,
Speaker 2: and they depend on particular weapons. Let's see, what is it,
Speaker 2: the like the flying maces, the like the spike gloves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's like a like a gardening claws kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's a there's like a glove with spikes on the fist,
Speaker 3: and there's a club with in it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, these are the Masters of Death. The lead
Speaker 2: Master of Death is Binma Hidari, played by Minoru Oki
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen twenty three through two thousand and nine,
Speaker 2: Japanese actor best known for his work in the Lone
Speaker 2: Wolf and Cub films, because not only does he play
Speaker 2: the lead master or Monk of Death here, but he
Speaker 2: returned to the Lone Wolf and Cub series in films
Speaker 2: five and six to play his own version of the
Speaker 2: chief villain Yagyu ritsudo oh.
Speaker 3: Okay, so he replaces the actor who in this movie
Speaker 3: is is twisted into being the shogun.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, so the character shows up much later, and
Speaker 2: so I believe he is the actor playing the character
Speaker 2: when vengeance and or assassination finally does occur.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: He was also in nineteen sixty nine Horrors of Malformed Men,
Speaker 2: which we have mentioned on the show before. And I'll
Speaker 2: also mention that one of the other Masters of Death
Speaker 2: is This is the Karuma Hidari get which weapon he uses.
Speaker 2: Is played by Shin Kashida who lived nineteen thirty nine
Speaker 2: through nineteen eighty two, a supporting actor best known for
Speaker 2: this film as well as Godzilla versus Mecha Godzilla from
Speaker 2: seventy four Lady Snowblood two and then two different Dracula films.
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventy one's Lake of Dracula in nineteen seventy four
Speaker 2: is Evil of Dracula, which I think you could also
Speaker 2: maybe referred to as Principle of Dracula. That's one. It's
Speaker 2: on my list now. I really want to see Evil
Speaker 2: of Dracula. Okay, all right, but let's let's get back
Speaker 2: to the music here again. This is what drew me
Speaker 2: into watching Shogun Assassin in the first place. And we've
Speaker 2: already talked a little about just how about how effective
Speaker 2: the synth score is. Now. The original films were scored
Speaker 2: by Aikens Sakura and Hideka Sakurai, and I think some
Speaker 2: of their original music remains in Shogun Assassin. I could
Speaker 2: be wrong on that, but more to the point, we
Speaker 2: have this just deliriously great since score added to the picture.
Speaker 2: And this is the work of Mark Lindsay for nineteen
Speaker 2: forty two and W Michael Lewis.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I've ever used this term applied
Speaker 3: to music before, but sometimes we say of an actor
Speaker 3: that we admire that they're really committed to the role,
Speaker 3: meaning that they're They're not holding back anything for fear
Speaker 3: of embarrassment. They're not trying to be more subtle than
Speaker 3: is required. They just go headfirst all the way in.
Speaker 3: This is the first movie I've ever seen where I
Speaker 3: would say that about the music. The music is just
Speaker 3: committed to the feeling. They are not holding back anything.
Speaker 3: This just unabashed, pure feeling made into vibrations.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, it's just a terrific score. And it's interesting
Speaker 2: looking at these two individuals. So, Mark Lindsay was the
Speaker 2: vocalist and sax player for the American rock band Paul
Speaker 2: Revere and the Raiders from nineteen fifty eight through nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy five. Joe, are you familiar at all with Paul
Speaker 2: Revere and the Raiders.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean this was some of my parents' music.
Speaker 3: I remember when I was younger, Like, I remember kicks,
Speaker 3: you know, kicks just keep getting harder to find.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. I this was also some of my parents' music.
Speaker 2: I specifically remember going through the records at my grandmother's house.
Speaker 2: It would have been like the records of my mom's
Speaker 2: and also her sisters, and finding a Paul Revere and
Speaker 2: the Raiders album in there. And I remember just thinking, man,
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties just looks so lame, Like this is
Speaker 2: the lamest thing I've ever seen, because if you're not familiar,
Speaker 2: their whole shtick visually was dressing up as Revolutionary War soldiers.
Speaker 2: You know, they had these Revolutionary War costumes, which I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess maybe the.
Speaker 3: Best bit I've ever heard.
Speaker 2: Like was it cool at the time. I guess it
Speaker 2: was people dug it, But I remember just thinking this
Speaker 2: just looks super lame.
Speaker 3: Is there supposed to be Like, so if it's Paul Revere,
Speaker 3: is it like the British are coming? Like British invasion music?
Speaker 3: Is that something?
Speaker 2: I guess it's like, yeah, it's like a counter to
Speaker 2: the British invasion. And that would that would have been
Speaker 2: lost on me as a as a child looking at this,
Speaker 2: all I knew at the time was that what's the
Speaker 2: most boring thing in school? It's a it's American history
Speaker 2: at the time. I'm not saying that as an adult,
Speaker 2: American history is fascinating, but at the time, the idea
Speaker 2: of Revolutionary War themed music was not like a great
Speaker 2: cell But to be clear, Paul Revere and the Raiders
Speaker 2: not super lame. They had some real gems, some real jams,
Speaker 2: if you will.
Speaker 3: I understand it from the school perspective. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 3: the band is where their theme is. They're all math textbooks. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 2: It was like they were a textbook themed So anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they have some, they have some some. They have some
Speaker 2: great music. I went, I'd never really gotten into their stuff,
Speaker 2: but I did make sure that I listened to some
Speaker 2: of their tracks. They have a great nineteen seventy one
Speaker 2: cover of Indian Reservation so solid group. Mark turned to
Speaker 2: scoring in the nineteen seventies for a bet w Michael Lewis,
Speaker 2: for his part, was a music producer who got into
Speaker 2: scoring with nineteen seventy eight Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle,
Speaker 2: and he'd go on to score nineteen eighties New Year's Evil,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one's Enter the Ninja, and also the TV
Speaker 2: series In Search of starring Letter Game foy Oh.
Speaker 3: I saw that when I looked him up.
Speaker 2: Plus a couple of nineteen eighty seven releases Maximum Potential
Speaker 2: and Hot Child in the City.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I had to stop and remember what the name
Speaker 3: of this other Bermuda Triangle movie I was thinking of
Speaker 3: was no. The one I was thinking of is a
Speaker 3: made for TV movie from nineteen also from nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: eight called The Bermuda Depths, which starred Carl Weathers in
Speaker 3: the shortest shorts ever made, and also had burl Ives
Speaker 3: as I think a marine biologist or something. But it's
Speaker 3: ultimately it's about a giant turtle that attacks a boat.
Speaker 2: I think you made me watch the climax from this picture.
Speaker 3: It looked not the best.
Speaker 2: It looked incredible. Maybe we'll come back.
Speaker 3: To it maybe.
Speaker 2: So anyway, Yeah, the music for Shogun Assassin, I think
Speaker 2: it's just tremendous.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 2: De Goro's theme is not only I think the best
Speaker 2: track on the score, but it's just an amazing and
Speaker 2: emotional number in its own right. Like it's one of
Speaker 2: these where I was listening to it earlier today and
Speaker 2: I was like, is this one of my favorite songs?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 2: I think this is currently one of the greatest musical
Speaker 2: compositions of all time. My opinions will change, obviously, but
Speaker 2: right now it's really doing it for me.
Speaker 3: It's so good, Like I said, not holding anything back.
Speaker 3: You can imagine somebody being like, oh is this music?
Speaker 3: I don't know, should we make it a little more
Speaker 3: subtle little but no, it's just it's just the raw
Speaker 3: power of feeling unleashed. Something feels absolutely unabashed about it,
Speaker 3: and I love it.
Speaker 2: And it's perfect for a film that again, is a
Speaker 2: Samurai reduction. You know, did two films reduced into one?
Speaker 2: You know, just the most dizzying moments of psychedelia or
Speaker 2: bloody violence condensed into a single picture that I mean,
Speaker 2: it's really Again, it's a testament that they were to
Speaker 2: the film, the American filmmakers here, that they were able
Speaker 2: to take part one and part two in this series
Speaker 2: and make a single picture out of it that works
Speaker 2: this well. Yeah, the score here, by the way to
Speaker 2: Shogun Assassin is available wherever you stream your music, and
Speaker 2: there are CD and vinyl versions as well. I do
Speaker 2: not know if there is like a blood red vinyl
Speaker 2: edition of this soundtrack, but there needs to be.
Speaker 3: If you listen to it, at least the version that
Speaker 3: I heard on Spotify. It includes some of the narration
Speaker 3: from the movie as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so good. That also made me tear up,
Speaker 2: like on an airplane listening to this. You know, people
Speaker 2: are like, are you okay? And I'm like, I'm just
Speaker 2: listening to the Showgun Assassin soundtrack. Man, that's all. That's
Speaker 2: all that's going on here. I'm good.
Speaker 3: This is funny. How similar are experienceiances were? I also
Speaker 3: had embarrassing emotional episodes Digo's theme specifically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's get into that plot of Shogun Assassin.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, we have already mentioned how strong the
Speaker 3: movie kicks off. So the introductory segment has a child's
Speaker 3: voice narrating as we see a montage of scenes play out.
Speaker 3: And this is the voice of Digoro, the Cub of
Speaker 3: Lone Wolf and Cub. So the introductory narration plays over
Speaker 3: this dark melody on synthesizer bass, the sound of absolute doom,
Speaker 3: and we hear the child's voice say, when I was little,
Speaker 3: my father was famous. He was the greatest samurai in
Speaker 3: the empire, and he was the Shogun's decapitator. He cut
Speaker 3: off the heads of one hundred and thirty one lords
Speaker 3: for the Shogun. And as this narration is going on,
Speaker 3: we see our protagonist walk into the frame the silent
Speaker 3: Ogami Eto. His eyes are down cast, he moves slowly.
Speaker 3: He has a blank, lugubrious expression, and then we see
Speaker 3: Itto's blade twisting and gleaming in the light, and then
Speaker 3: suddenly there's like a shadow playlet entirely in red and
Speaker 3: just the silhouettes of the human figures in the foreground,
Speaker 3: and we see a man kneeling to receive a death
Speaker 3: sentence and another man, presumably our protagonist here, bringing a
Speaker 3: sword down on his neck.
Speaker 2: And to be clear, if you have to have your
Speaker 2: head cut off, this is the guy you want to
Speaker 2: do it. This guy is the ultimate pro.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of our series on the Invention of
Speaker 3: the guillotine, where we were talking about how bad a
Speaker 3: lot of professional executioners were and like they just couldn't
Speaker 3: like it took them way too many tries to get
Speaker 3: it done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a gami eto one swipe every time, guaranteed.
Speaker 3: If you want some oof historical reading, look up Jack Ketch.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I remember some of these details. And it
Speaker 2: was also I recently visited the revisited the Tower of London,
Speaker 2: so I guess I got to read more about some
Speaker 2: of these these execution facts. Yeah, but they did not
Speaker 2: have the Shogun's mastered decapitator on hand.
Speaker 3: So Digoro's narration goes on he says it was a
Speaker 3: bad time for the empire. The shogun just stayed inside
Speaker 3: his castle and he never came out. People said his
Speaker 3: brain was infected by devils and that he was rotting
Speaker 3: with evil. The shogun said the people were not loyal.
Speaker 3: He said he had a lot of enemies, but he
Speaker 3: killed more people than that. Then we see a castle.
Speaker 3: The gate swing open, revealing sort of a court to
Speaker 3: a bunch of entourage of people and a ruler. And
Speaker 3: here's where I was originally going to break and discuss.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, is the guy we're seeing here the shogun?
Speaker 3: But we already had that conversation, not originally, but in
Speaker 3: show Assassin, that is what is implied he is the shogun.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, So we're just going to continue referring to
Speaker 2: him as the shogun just for the simplicity's sake here.
Speaker 2: And you know, oh, I do love this narration because
Speaker 2: there is a simplicity to it that also works not
Speaker 2: only for the project that is Shogun Assassin, but also
Speaker 2: the idea that this is a child's recollection and the
Speaker 2: child is working from, you know, a much simpler view
Speaker 2: of right and wrong and good and evil in his
Speaker 2: known universe.
Speaker 3: Interesting yeah, And I guess implied by that, you're saying
Speaker 3: this might be sort of a child's memory of the shogun,
Speaker 3: in which he looks almost like a monster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think you could lean into that kind
Speaker 2: of interpretation.
Speaker 3: So he's got wild, uncombed white hair and beard that's
Speaker 3: blowing around in the wind like a mass of cobwebs. Also,
Speaker 3: he has flaring white eyebrows, his teeth are clenched, he's
Speaker 3: got dark eyes. His eyes just keep jerking back and forth,
Speaker 3: suspicions viciously. The shogun is not well. And then we
Speaker 3: see the shogun soldiers leading bound men up a mountain
Speaker 3: side with their hands tied behind their back, to a
Speaker 3: chaotic mass execution in the gravel beside a small tarn.
Speaker 3: The narration goes on. It was a bad time, everybody
Speaker 3: living in fear, but still we were happy. My father
Speaker 3: would come home to mother, and when he had seen her,
Speaker 3: he would forget about the killings. He wasn't scared of
Speaker 3: the shogun, but the shogun was scared of him. Maybe
Speaker 3: that was the problem. And so here we see a
Speaker 3: brief glimpse of the family's life at home, the mother
Speaker 3: nursing the baby son, at their house, rain pouring into
Speaker 3: the small bamboo forest outside, and I think the sort
Speaker 3: of weather is a metaphor. Here there's love and comfort inside,
Speaker 3: but not outside where the weather is bad. And the
Speaker 3: father comes home and undresses. He takes his baby in
Speaker 3: his arms, and the mother says that she had a
Speaker 3: bad dream, but the father calms her and says, to
Speaker 3: the bay, maybe what a time you chose to be born?
Speaker 3: I grow. The narration goes on at night. Mother would
Speaker 3: sing for us while father would go into his temple
Speaker 3: and pray for peace. He'd pray for things to get better.
Speaker 3: Then one night the shogun sent his ninja spies to
Speaker 3: our house. They were supposed to kill my father, but
Speaker 3: they didn't. Here we see ninja scaling the wall and
Speaker 3: sneaking into their home. And there some if you go
Speaker 3: back to our ninja episodes from a while back, we
Speaker 3: see some stuff we talked about there, some equipment like
Speaker 3: the ninja are carrying swords between their teeth out and
Speaker 3: they climb up on ropes on grappling hooks. And so
Speaker 3: the father is praying in his temple while with the
Speaker 3: baby in his arms, and then he hears his wife
Speaker 3: scream from the other end of the house. By the
Speaker 3: time he gets there, she's mortally wounded and the ninja
Speaker 3: are gone, and the dying mother tells the father that
Speaker 3: he must protect their son. The narration tells us that
Speaker 3: was the night everything changed. That was when my father
Speaker 3: left his samurai life and became a demon. He became
Speaker 3: an assassin who walks the road of vengeance, and he
Speaker 3: took me with him. And then at this moment we
Speaker 3: see a scene of the dynamic that will be treated
Speaker 3: as sort of the ground reality for the rest of
Speaker 3: the movie. The father trudging along lonely, desolate roads pushing
Speaker 3: a wooden cart and the baby son riding in the cart.
Speaker 3: Daigo says, I don't remember most of this myself. I
Speaker 3: only remember the shogun's ninja hunting us wherever we go,
Speaker 3: and the body's falling and the blood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is the like, this is the key
Speaker 2: component of Lone Wolf and Cub that has been highly influential.
Speaker 2: So if you out there are a fan of the
Speaker 2: Mandalorian series, like the Mandalorian is quite clearly and you know,
Speaker 2: the creators are very upfront about this, very much inspired
Speaker 2: by Lone Wolf and Cub. You know, a warrior protecting
Speaker 2: a child, you know, hunted by enemies, but you know,
Speaker 2: standing by the child to protect them, and especially with
Speaker 2: lone Wolf and Cub I couldn't help. But also compare
Speaker 2: it to the two thousand and six novel by Cormick McCarthy,
Speaker 2: The Road, in which a father and his son traverse
Speaker 2: a doomed landscape where there's ever present danger and the
Speaker 2: father's entire existence is to still down to the protection
Speaker 2: of his son. Quote he knew only that his child
Speaker 2: was his warrant, he said. If he is not the
Speaker 2: word of God, God never spoke. You know that kind
Speaker 2: of vibe. So, I mean, I don't know the court
Speaker 2: McCarthy ever watched Shogun Assassin, but you know, I think
Speaker 2: they're scratching the same itch here. But I think it's
Speaker 2: something that you know, a lot of us can relate to.
Speaker 2: You know, certainly, if if there is a child in
Speaker 2: your life, where there has been a child in your
Speaker 2: life where you had this role as a protector, like,
Speaker 2: it's easy to sort of lean in into this. I
Speaker 2: think ultimately you know very distilled idea of what your
Speaker 2: responsibility is. You know, in the same way that zombie
Speaker 2: films are enthralling because it simplifies good and evil into like,
Speaker 2: you know, and in us versus them, it's like this kind
Speaker 2: of the lone wolf and cub model reduces everything down
Speaker 2: to I must protect my child from ninjas, you know,
Speaker 2: and you know, we'll get to some degree that is accurate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so, and we get that demonstrated here because
Speaker 3: here we go to the very first action scene in
Speaker 3: the film, the attack by ninja wearing baskets over their heads,
Speaker 3: which is amazingly creepy and memorable. So it begins with
Speaker 3: one man running toward the father and son from a distance.
Speaker 3: They're on the road. He's pushing the cart there just
Speaker 3: in the middle of nowhere, and there's someone running toward them,
Speaker 3: sword in hand, his head completely covered in a basket
Speaker 3: like a helmet with a mask in the front. There's
Speaker 3: kind of a grating in the basket, but you can't
Speaker 3: see his face. And there's a long build up as
Speaker 3: the ninja draws closer, and then finally when he's in
Speaker 3: within striking distance, the father just suddenly flicks his sword
Speaker 3: and cleaves the ninja's head through the basket, with the
Speaker 3: ninja catching the blade between his hands as he dies,
Speaker 3: and then a second ninja leaps out from behind the first,
Speaker 3: springs from his dying partner's shoulders and tries to land
Speaker 3: a killing stroke while his while the father's sword is stuck.
Speaker 3: But the father is too crafty. He pulls a hidden
Speaker 3: second weapon from the cart, which is a bamboo pole
Speaker 3: with a retractable blade in it, and he skewers the
Speaker 3: attacker in mid air. And so then as the first
Speaker 3: ninja collapses with his dying breath, he tells the father,
Speaker 3: you are marked for death. Wherever you go, you cannot
Speaker 3: escape the showgun.
Speaker 2: Ah, it's such a strong start. This scene is not
Speaker 2: only is it from the second film Lone Wolf and
Speaker 2: Cub Baby cart at the River sticks. It is the
Speaker 2: cold open to that picture, like you just go straight
Speaker 2: to this encounter. And it's a little longer in the
Speaker 2: original cut obviously, But I have several thoughts of this same.
Speaker 2: First of all, in the Showgun Assassin cut, I believe
Speaker 2: the secondary assassin that leaps over the shoulders of the
Speaker 2: first I believe he says Ninja is he, which is
Speaker 2: great within the context of Showgun Assassin, But of course
Speaker 2: in reality, I don't know that as a ninja you
Speaker 2: would say ninja as you attack somebody, but still I
Speaker 2: love it. Secondly, yeah, okay, back to the first assassin though, Yeah,
Speaker 2: he apparently tries to pull off this maneuver that is
Speaker 2: known in Japanese manga, anime, and cinema as a shinkin shiradori.
Speaker 2: This is where you catch the blade with between your
Speaker 2: palms before it can cut into you, and then if
Speaker 2: you're really savvy, maybe you do a special twist to
Speaker 2: sort of like throw the attacker to the side. This
Speaker 2: has become like a standard not only in manga, in
Speaker 2: Japanese cinema, but throughout like action picture the action picture world.
Speaker 2: Like for instance, in Blade two, the day Walker pulls
Speaker 2: this move off kind of laid in the picture to
Speaker 2: great effect, but in reality, I'm to understand this is
Speaker 2: impossible for a human swordsman to pull off. I think
Speaker 2: there's a MythBusters episode where they look into it, and
Speaker 2: I think the word the term shinkin shihradori. I think
Speaker 2: it originally referred to some sort of maneuver that keeps
Speaker 2: your opponent from even drawing their sword, So like that's
Speaker 2: the time to stop it, not with coming through the
Speaker 2: air at your head. Yeah, But what makes this sequence
Speaker 2: so amazing is that you know, you're going up against
Speaker 2: the greatest swordsman that's ever lived. You're trying to counter
Speaker 2: his deathly sword strike, and he does not get all
Speaker 2: of that counter move. Yeah, it's like maybe he stops
Speaker 2: it from cleaving his head all the way through, but
Speaker 2: it has already entered the brain point.
Speaker 3: But it almost seems like this was the plan, Like
Speaker 3: the plan is that the father will get his sword
Speaker 3: stuck in the first ninja and the second one will
Speaker 3: use that moment to strike. Did you get it the
Speaker 3: same way?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? And that's a little more clear in the original
Speaker 2: cut of this action sequence, but I think it still
Speaker 2: comes through in Shogun Assassin as well. But yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a great start to the combat because this is going
Speaker 2: to set the tone.
Speaker 3: So after the intro, we see the father and son
Speaker 3: sitting together at a campfire in the middle of a
Speaker 3: thick forest. They're eating something white. I think it's rice
Speaker 3: balls or maybe buns or something, and they're just sitting
Speaker 3: there staring blankly into the fire, and the child's voice
Speaker 3: over continues. He says, my father hardly ever talks anymore.
Speaker 3: We just go a little farther. Every day at night
Speaker 3: we make a fire and have our tea, and we
Speaker 3: listen for the ninja who never make a sound. I
Speaker 3: like that part. Same Diego says, sometimes he tells me
Speaker 3: about the past and about mother. Try not to think
Speaker 3: about it. But my father can't help it. Sometimes he
Speaker 3: gets lost in the past. And here we're about to
Speaker 3: see a couple of flashback scenes from before Lone Wolf
Speaker 3: and cub Win on the Run. The first is after
Speaker 3: the death of Azami Diego's mother. This is the sword
Speaker 3: and ball scene where the father he's grieving. He's not
Speaker 3: in his right mind, and he has Digro with him
Speaker 3: in his temple. They're both dressed in white, and the
Speaker 3: father says, today I begin walking the road to hell,
Speaker 3: but you will choose your own path. And he offers
Speaker 3: a sword and a toy ball. And so the idea is,
Speaker 3: he says, choose the sword and the child will join
Speaker 3: his father on the road to hell. Choose the toy
Speaker 3: and the child will join his mother in heaven. And
Speaker 3: there's some suspense, but the cub he crawls and he
Speaker 3: reaches for the sword, and the father is both troubled
Speaker 3: and relieved, and he hugs his son and says that
Speaker 3: his mother would be proud, and they will defy the
Speaker 3: shogun together, assassin and with son.
Speaker 2: It's a great sequence.
Speaker 3: He says that, like it's like the name of their business. Yeah,
Speaker 3: well it is.
Speaker 2: It does pretty bod. I forget exactly what the wording is.
Speaker 2: But they have that banner on their cart. That's like
Speaker 2: sword for hire, son for hire. You need a hold
Speaker 2: of toddler, got you covered? You need a local enemy
Speaker 2: cut in half. We can talk.
Speaker 3: So the other flashback is what followed immediately followed that immediately,
Speaker 3: which is the moment of defiance. So the shogun's emissary
Speaker 3: comes to the father and reads a decree that he
Speaker 3: must either swear eternal loyalty to the shogun or commit
Speaker 3: harakiri with his son. And obviously he's gonna do neither one.
Speaker 3: He's got his head down and he starts to laugh
Speaker 3: and then slowly raises his face up, looking very stern
Speaker 3: and almost evil, and he says, you are wrong. I
Speaker 3: have a third choice. And then the other guys they
Speaker 3: immediately get like freaked out. Uh oh. And in one
Speaker 3: arm he picks up his infants, and in the other
Speaker 3: arm he draws his sword and the officials who read
Speaker 3: the decree they call for guards. They're like, ah, stop him,
Speaker 3: can't you see he's a devil. I'm not sure quite
Speaker 3: what was meant by that, but it's yeah, they're seeing
Speaker 3: him as some kind of demon. And this leads to
Speaker 3: a brutal sword fight one against many to escape the building,
Speaker 3: and the father has his son in the crook of
Speaker 3: one arm the whole time. It's very stylized violence. We
Speaker 3: see a sword blade break off inside a guard's neck.
Speaker 3: There are jets of bright red blood that erupt like
Speaker 3: geysers from the adversary's wounds. You can see why this
Speaker 3: was effective on the midnight movie circuit. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know if arterial sprays like this are realistic
Speaker 2: or hyper realistic. I thankfully do not know, but it
Speaker 2: certainly sizzles on the screen, and you get this idea
Speaker 2: that a human's life blood is just this high pressure substance,
Speaker 2: absolutely straining for release by a skilled swordsman like ogami Eto.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of blood jets in this movie. However,
Speaker 3: the father cuts his way out of the compound, he
Speaker 3: is suddenly faced with the shogun and his entourage. The shogun.
Speaker 3: So he like cuts through the gate and the gate
Speaker 3: opens and the Shogun is there with all of his men.
Speaker 3: The Shogun calls him mad one and says he can
Speaker 3: never escape his fate, but he offers him a deal.
Speaker 3: He says, you agree to a one on one duel
Speaker 3: with my son with the Shogun's son, and if Lone
Speaker 3: Wolf can win this duel, he will be awarded his freedom,
Speaker 3: and Lone Wolf accepts.
Speaker 2: Now, again, I'm not going to go into a lot
Speaker 2: of detail about the differences between the original pictures and
Speaker 2: Shogun Assassin, but I do feel like I need to
Speaker 2: jump in on this one and point out that in
Speaker 2: the original again, Ogami is cornered not by the Shogun
Speaker 2: but by Ratsuto and his men, and he's given a
Speaker 2: choice here. He's like, Okay, this is the way it
Speaker 2: can go down for you, Ogami. Either you go ahead
Speaker 2: and commit your honorable suicide right now, or my soldiers
Speaker 2: are going to cut you down with their quote wall
Speaker 2: of swords. And Ogami says, no, neither of those is
Speaker 2: going to happen, and he tears off these outer white
Speaker 2: robes and reveals that he wears black robes with the
Speaker 2: hollyhock crest of the Tokugawa schokunate. So he's like, look,
Speaker 2: I'm wearing the colors in the crest of the shogun.
Speaker 2: You can't kill me. You can't even point your swords
Speaker 2: at me without dishonoring yourself. And so they're at a standstill,
Speaker 2: and so a compromise is made. Okay, you remove those
Speaker 2: robes and we will settle this via a formal duel. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because otherwise you might say, well, why didn't they just
Speaker 2: cut him down? Well, in the original picture it made
Speaker 2: more sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we go to the duel from here. The
Speaker 3: duel takes place in the afternoon in a meadow of
Speaker 3: tall grass blowing in the wind, and we see the
Speaker 3: to samurai square off at a distance. The shogun's sun
Speaker 3: is scowling, hateful, determined. The Lone Wolf wears the cub
Speaker 3: on a basket on his back, and they they draw
Speaker 3: their swords and charge at one another. But Lone Wolf
Speaker 3: has a trick up his sleeve. Here. Right when they
Speaker 3: are about to meet on the field, Lone Wolf bows
Speaker 3: his head and reveals a mirror mounted on Diigero's head,
Speaker 3: which reflects the low sun and blinds their enemy, and
Speaker 3: then lone wolf chops off the lord's son's head and
Speaker 3: his body is just standing there, headless with jets of
Speaker 3: blood blasting out of the next stump in slow motion
Speaker 3: in the Golden sunset.
Speaker 2: Oh it's beautiful.
Speaker 3: I mean in a grisly way. It is so beautiful.
Speaker 2: And one thing that's pointed out in the sor I'm
Speaker 2: going to do one more of these. Well, something that's
Speaker 2: pointed out in the original picture is that this is
Speaker 2: like a swordsman that is of comparable ability to a gami,
Speaker 2: but he has the sun to his back, and therefore
Speaker 2: he has an advantage and will probably prevail. But Ogami
Speaker 2: via the cub and his mirror turns his advantage into
Speaker 2: a disadvantage by reflecting the sunlight back into his eyes.
Speaker 3: That does make more sense of it, because this part
Speaker 3: I was thinking, well, he's just like cutting the slicing
Speaker 3: through everybody, like butter. Why is this guy such a challenge,
Speaker 3: But it would make sense if we know something about
Speaker 3: him and that he has an advantage on the Yeah,
Speaker 3: though they do show the sun, they don't talk about it,
Speaker 3: but they do show the sun being low and in
Speaker 3: his face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, either way, even if you don't know all those details,
Speaker 2: it is another super stylistically violent execution.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So this scene fades back into a scene of
Speaker 3: lone wolf and cub at a campfire in the wilderness,
Speaker 3: and the camera slowly pulls back from them as father
Speaker 3: turns his head. And then on the soundtrack they had
Speaker 3: to add this in. We get a guttural, animalistic growl.
Speaker 3: It's a wolf growling. Probably just a dog, right. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 3: here the introductory I would say this is the part
Speaker 3: where the introductory part of the movie gives way to
Speaker 3: the main plot. Though, as we said earlier, the idea
Speaker 3: that this movie has a plot, it's very loose. Basically,
Speaker 3: the plot is the father wanders the country pushing his
Speaker 3: son in a wooden cart. They stop at places where
Speaker 3: the father can take contracts. He works as an assassin,
Speaker 3: and he makes money. He makes money to live this way,
Speaker 3: but he doesn't seem to really want to become rich
Speaker 3: or like find a way out. He sort of seems
Speaker 3: to squander the money he makes. From what I can.
Speaker 2: Tell, Yeah, I mean I think part of it is
Speaker 2: like he's I mean, he has no future, like his
Speaker 2: son is the only future that matters, and he will
Speaker 2: do everything for him, but like he has lost all honor.
Speaker 2: He's a wandering ronan. What is he going to do
Speaker 2: with this money except, you know, pay for the next
Speaker 2: night's sleep, pay for the next bath, and so forth.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, meanwhile, the Shogun keeps hiring new ninjas and
Speaker 3: assassins to send after him and his son. So we
Speaker 3: follow several episodes of that where assassins are sent after them.
Speaker 3: The main mission of this film, especially in the second half,
Speaker 3: is a job that the Lone Wolf takes from a
Speaker 3: group of locals asking him to kill a Lord Kirou,
Speaker 3: the Shogun's cruel brother, who is oppressing them. But Lord
Speaker 3: Kirou is guarded by three ninja brothers known as the
Speaker 3: Masters of Death, whom we mentioned earlier. The visual inspiration
Speaker 3: clearly or at least part of the DNA that inspired
Speaker 3: the Three Storms from Big Trouble in Little China, the
Speaker 3: large wide hats, the specialized weapons, and the deadly auras.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they do just cut everyone to ribbons. They
Speaker 2: jump into action. The Masters of Death are awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so the final showdown at the end of
Speaker 3: the movie will be the Father versus the three Masters
Speaker 3: of Death and a scene in the desert. Strangely, I
Speaker 3: was kind of wondering where that's supposed to take place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never been to any of these, but there
Speaker 2: are a few different sand dunes in Japan, and I'm
Speaker 2: not sure which one we're looking at here, but I
Speaker 2: think I've seen it pop up in a few different
Speaker 2: Japanese films and TV shows.
Speaker 6: Over the years.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I guess we've sort of sketched the general
Speaker 3: outline of the plot, but maybe we can talk about
Speaker 3: a few scenes that we just wanted to explore in
Speaker 3: a little bit of detail. One that I wanted to
Speaker 3: mention is closer to the beginning, and it's the scene
Speaker 3: where a lone Wolf and cub visit a bath house
Speaker 3: in town because so Digoro is explaining in the narration
Speaker 3: that visiting a town is dangerous because they don't fit
Speaker 3: in and the shogun's ninja are everywhere. But then he says,
Speaker 3: but sometimes you have to take a chance if you
Speaker 3: want to take a bath. So they go to this
Speaker 3: bathhouse and the manager tries to turn them away, thinking
Speaker 3: that they are penniless beggars, but then lone Wolf flashes
Speaker 3: his wad of gold. He does have a lot. He
Speaker 3: like gets it out of the cart, and the guy
Speaker 3: changes his tune. He eagerly goes to wash Digoro's feet,
Speaker 3: and then Diego kicks water in the guy's face. And
Speaker 3: I like this scene because of the little moments of
Speaker 3: the child almost playing, Like the way he stomps around
Speaker 3: in the tub. It's clear that for the rest of
Speaker 3: his life there is very little room for play, but
Speaker 3: here you get to see him play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these little moments of play, they're very effective here,
Speaker 2: and they've of course been very effective in the Mandalorian,
Speaker 2: very much copying this blueprint. You know, the cuteness of
Speaker 2: the child, the baby, Yoda, the Grogu, you know, very
Speaker 2: much patterned on this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Also there's a moment here at the so they're
Speaker 3: like taking a bath. They're soaking in this big wash
Speaker 3: tub and it's supposed to be relaxing. You see the
Speaker 3: steam rising and they're kind of reclined. But there's an
Speaker 3: interesting moment where like the camera pulls back and reveals
Speaker 3: the father's arm is draped outside the tub and he's
Speaker 3: like gripping his sword. And there's never any attack in
Speaker 3: this scene. It's just that this is who he must
Speaker 3: be now.
Speaker 2: Yeah o Gomi and never truly rest. He always has
Speaker 2: his sword at his side in a moment that peace
Speaker 2: can disappear.
Speaker 3: And so there are more plots, like there is a
Speaker 3: theme established that Lone Wolf's enemies want to take his
Speaker 3: son away from him. They think this will take away
Speaker 3: his power, and so there's one plot to steal de
Speaker 3: Gooro and this leads to a fight scene in a
Speaker 3: river where like these guys come and say, like, where
Speaker 3: is your son? We're going to take him, and then
Speaker 3: the father goes to fight them, and then it's discovered
Speaker 3: that they're like hiding armor underneath their clothing, but he
Speaker 3: fights them anyway, and it turns into like a final
Speaker 3: duel between him and one of the lords who opposes
Speaker 3: him standing in the middle of a river. At the
Speaker 3: base of this, I was going to say waterfall, but
Speaker 3: I think it might actually be a kind of a
Speaker 3: man made like spillway sort of thing, and Lone Wolf
Speaker 3: wins this fight by hiding his blade beneath the water
Speaker 3: before he turns to move it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we get another like super style to kill here.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also, after this duel is just the Shogun's just standing
Speaker 3: on a bridge over the water like I will get you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they keep the dream of an encounter occurring with
Speaker 2: the showgun alive, though it's again it's not gonna happen,
Speaker 2: not in this film.
Speaker 3: Yeah. There's another great scene, which is the scene of
Speaker 3: recruiting the Ninja women. So one of the bad guys,
Speaker 3: I think this is Lord Kouragawa working for the Shogun.
Speaker 3: He meets with a woman who calls herself the Supreme Ninja,
Speaker 3: the Supreme Ninja. She commands an army of women who
Speaker 3: are all themselves Ninja warriors, and the Lord shows up
Speaker 3: to task them with destroying Lone Wolf and cub but
Speaker 3: she well, first of all, they tell her that he
Speaker 3: fought a duel with the Shogun's air, and she says
Speaker 3: what was the outcome of the duel? And he says terrible.
Speaker 3: But the Supreme Ninja offer the Shogun's emissary a demonstration
Speaker 3: of her of the prowess of her lady warriors. So
Speaker 3: she's like, show me your strongest man, and this silent
Speaker 3: fighter and a brown cloak and a conical hat comes forward.
Speaker 3: We learned this is Juni, the strongest fighter of I
Speaker 3: think it's Lord Kouragawa. Here and so the Supreme Ninja
Speaker 3: addresses Juni and says, Okay, you've got to try to
Speaker 3: find a way to escape from this room. But like
Speaker 3: as she says this, her women are gathering around him,
Speaker 3: and things are about to go very poorly for Junei.
Speaker 3: He tries to escape using a grappling hook in the rafters.
Speaker 3: He throws it up to the ceiling and swing out
Speaker 3: of the chamber. But the women cut the rope, they
Speaker 3: rip off his cloak, they pull swords out of their dresses,
Speaker 3: and then they just run around slicing pieces off of
Speaker 3: this dude, one at a time, so like we see
Speaker 3: his fingers hit the floor and then the skin from
Speaker 3: his face falls down to the floor like a rubber mask.
Speaker 3: Oh it's rough. They cut him into a lot of pieces.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this scene is so grizzly and wonderful. They just
Speaker 2: systematically take him apart, reducing him to a limbless, faceless
Speaker 2: husk that like rolls across the floor, and you know,
Speaker 2: then there's nothing left to do but dispatch him.
Speaker 3: And then the Supreme Ninja says, this is your best man.
Speaker 3: Lone Wolf would swallow him and then begin the most
Speaker 3: deranged Harley quinn laughter. It goes on for a long
Speaker 3: time and then stops quite suddenly, and she's calm, and
Speaker 3: she says, my women will execute him.
Speaker 2: So basically this lays the groundwork for the next trio
Speaker 2: of sequences, as the has three different groups of the
Speaker 2: female Ninja's attempt to take out lone Wolf and cut.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So so first, well, this is outside. They're on
Speaker 3: the road. Eventually they're pushing the cart between Dikon fields,
Speaker 3: and I like how at the Dikon fields the women
Speaker 3: are like down in the stream washing the dikon in
Speaker 3: the water, and there's this creepy scarecrow with this like
Speaker 3: wide eyed face on its headsack. It's interesting environmental details.
Speaker 3: But actually, before they get to the Dikon fields, there's
Speaker 3: an ambush by traveling entertainers on the roadside. And I
Speaker 3: thought this was funny because in our in our Ninja episode,
Speaker 3: we were talking about some classic story of Ninja running
Speaker 3: around and spying by pretending to be traveling entertainers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a perfect cover.
Speaker 3: So in this case, the father and son go by
Speaker 3: and the entertainers are they're like dancers or acropats of
Speaker 3: some kind. They're jumping around cart wheeling and somersaulting and stuff.
Speaker 3: Whatever these people are they I think they somehow hypnotize
Speaker 3: Lone Wolf with the spinning patterns on their clothing as
Speaker 3: they spin around. So it gets very strawberry alarm clock
Speaker 3: for a minute here. But of course these are really
Speaker 3: the Supreme Ninja's assassins in disguise, and they try to
Speaker 3: launch a sneak attack, but Lone Wolf is too quick,
Speaker 3: even though he was briefly hypnotized by the clothing. His
Speaker 3: sword flashes and they are done. And this is the
Speaker 3: scene where Diego starts counting the dead Ninja.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: He says, I try to count them so I can
Speaker 3: pray for their souls. Father tells me not to count them,
Speaker 3: but I have to to know how many to pray for.
Speaker 3: And then he I think he says, they're up to
Speaker 3: three hundred and forty five ninja.
Speaker 2: It's quite a count.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So then we get to the attack of the
Speaker 3: Dikon fields. So they're like going down the road in
Speaker 3: the cart and these women come up in different waves.
Speaker 3: Like the first wave of women throws these flying killer
Speaker 3: hats with blades on them, the blades on the brim
Speaker 3: and Lone Wolf fights them off, kills them, and then
Speaker 3: there are the next wave has knives hidden inside the dikon, which, okay,
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: The dicons are like piercing the cart and all and
Speaker 2: oh and I have to mention in the original the
Speaker 2: second Lone Wolf picture, when they're preparing the dicons by
Speaker 2: the river, they're singing a little song and the lyrics
Speaker 2: are something like what the side dish for tonight? Oh
Speaker 2: it's dikon.
Speaker 3: Uh so yeah. There are these little a lot of
Speaker 3: little tricks and secrets and reveals in this fight scene,
Speaker 3: like secret knives popping out of the baby carriage, and
Speaker 3: our protagonists fight through it all until they get to
Speaker 3: the Supreme Ninja. She herself comes out to h to
Speaker 3: administer the final attack on Lone Wolf here, which she
Speaker 3: does with a net.
Speaker 2: That's right, she nets him. The net prevents him from
Speaker 2: immediately being able to draw his sword, and of course
Speaker 2: he does eventually draw his sword, but they engage in
Speaker 2: this short, intense close combat sword fight where it's clear
Speaker 2: that they're pretty evenly matched, and we get to see
Speaker 2: her effectively pull off that sword clap shinkin Shihradori maneuver
Speaker 2: against Ogami clapping his sword blade before it can hit her,
Speaker 2: and then she even does the twist and sends him
Speaker 2: a sprawling So it's a fun little like you know,
Speaker 2: evenly matched, you know, very close confines battle here.
Speaker 3: But then it gets kind of looney tunes right at
Speaker 3: the end, like they sort of fight to a draw.
Speaker 3: But when lone Wolf is finally ready to like land
Speaker 3: a sword blow on her, he like hits her, but
Speaker 3: it doesn't actually hit her. She avoids it by jumping
Speaker 3: out of her clothes. She's not naked, she's like still
Speaker 3: wearing some kind of full body stalking, but just leaves
Speaker 3: her original clothes standing there and leaps up in the
Speaker 3: air out of them, lands in a field nearby, and
Speaker 3: then starts fast motion running backwards as if the tape
Speaker 3: were in reverse up a hill.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh my god, this outcome is so wild. I
Speaker 2: can't stress enough how bonkers it is. I think looney
Speaker 2: tunes is the right word, because it's not like she
Speaker 2: peels out of her clothing in a realistic manner. It
Speaker 2: is like her outer garments are a jet fighter and
Speaker 2: she has ejected from them.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, and then runs like a spring snake in
Speaker 3: the can.
Speaker 2: Like a spring snake and then the running backwards. I
Speaker 2: guess the idea is, like you, she can't lose sight
Speaker 2: of her opponent something. So yeah, she's just running backwards
Speaker 2: and doesn't take her eyes off of Lone Wolf for
Speaker 2: quite a while, like at least a half a mile
Speaker 2: running backs across the field. It's amazing.
Speaker 3: But she's going really fast, so we don't have to
Speaker 3: watch her go, you know, normal normal speed to a
Speaker 3: half mile.
Speaker 2: And he just sort of like looks at her, like
Speaker 2: just watches her.
Speaker 3: I've seen that trick before.
Speaker 2: Well matched.
Speaker 3: Then they also have to fight some more ninja in
Speaker 3: the woods. This is a more I don't know. There's
Speaker 3: a bunch of guys in the in the hats again,
Speaker 3: and in this fight they use the cart as a weapon,
Speaker 3: like it's got blades that come out the sides and
Speaker 3: chop all the ninja's legs off. But after all this
Speaker 3: we come to the part I mentioned this near the
Speaker 3: top of the episode. We come to the part where
Speaker 3: Lone Wolf is injured, and this leads to a sequence
Speaker 3: where the boy has to take care of his father,
Speaker 3: like his father is hiding in this little hut, and
Speaker 3: so I mentioned the scene earlier of the boy trying
Speaker 3: to bring him water from the river and he ends
Speaker 3: up having to carry it in his mouth. But there
Speaker 3: also he goes looking for food and he finds a
Speaker 3: food offering at a shrine, but then he and he
Speaker 3: wants to take it, but he doesn't want to be disrespectful,
Speaker 3: so he leaves an offering of his own in its place.
Speaker 3: He takes off some of his clothing and leaves it
Speaker 3: at the shrine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a very sweet section, and of course
Speaker 2: we have that great Digoro's theme playing, and yeah, we
Speaker 2: see him, you know, bring water and then food back
Speaker 2: to Ogami as Ogami lays, perhaps dying we don't know
Speaker 2: at this point, but helping him to recuperate.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 3: This leads to the part where Daikoro gets kidnapped to
Speaker 3: the Supreme Ninja and the Shogun's Lord. They decide, okay,
Speaker 3: we've got to steal him to steal the Lone Wolf's power.
Speaker 3: So they take Digor away and they lure the Lone
Speaker 3: Wolf out to find them in the middle of the night,
Speaker 3: and he finds them standing around a well where Digoro
Speaker 3: is suspended by a rope over the opening to the well.
Speaker 3: How's lone Wolf going to get out of this one. Well,
Speaker 3: he so, I think there's a clever little thing that
Speaker 3: I missed the first time around, but I was rewatching
Speaker 3: the scene and I realized what it was. So he
Speaker 3: says something to Digoro, and then Digoro kicks his sandal
Speaker 3: off and it falls down the well. And I think
Speaker 3: that is letting the father know how long the drop is,
Speaker 3: like the timing of the drop, because what happens is
Speaker 3: he draws his sword and he quickly slashes a bunch
Speaker 3: of the bad guys and then stomps on the rope
Speaker 3: as Digoro is falling to stop him from falling, to
Speaker 3: stop him before he hits the water at the bottom.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is another thing where it's I mean,
Speaker 2: the editing here is tight and effective. In the original film,
Speaker 2: I think maybe more instantly make sense what's happening, but yeah,
Speaker 2: you still get the sense of it here.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he slashes all of his enemies here except
Speaker 3: for the Supreme Ninja who's just standing there watching, but
Speaker 3: she does not attack, and neither does Lone Wolf, and
Speaker 3: they kind of regard each other, and then Lone Wolf
Speaker 3: frees his son and they walk away and Daigo says
Speaker 3: in the narration that was the first time I ever
Speaker 3: saw my father spare an enemy, So I think there's
Speaker 3: some mutual respect.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, and we'll come back to this character again too.
Speaker 2: But from here we kind of proceed into mostly dealing
Speaker 2: with the Masters of Death.
Speaker 3: There's a long sequence on a boat. I don't think
Speaker 3: we need to go into all the details of the
Speaker 3: boat journey and the fight on the boat, but there's
Speaker 3: like rebels who are fighting against someone and the Masters
Speaker 3: of Death mess them up on a boat. There's eventually
Speaker 3: a fire and everybody has to jump off the boat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and after the everyone has to jump off the boat.
Speaker 2: This is I think where we eventually get this sequence
Speaker 2: where the Supreme Ninja, Lone Wolf, and Cub meet up
Speaker 2: again and they're all wet and cold and they huddle
Speaker 2: together for warmth, which is a scene where you don't
Speaker 2: really know where this scene is going at first. Is
Speaker 2: this going to be like some sort of you know,
Speaker 2: just pure exploitation moment, But it ends up being quite
Speaker 2: sweet in its own way, Like there's these three lost
Speaker 2: individuals huddling for warmth against in a dark world.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, it's complex there, because so he doesn't harm
Speaker 3: the Supreme Ninja, and she doesn't want to harm him anymore,
Speaker 3: but she has to go away, and he knows that
Speaker 3: that means her death when she goes back to the
Speaker 3: Shogun to like report what has happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's bittersweet. And this is of course another
Speaker 2: thing where this is a little more complex and nuanced
Speaker 2: in the second film, but we get a nice, you know,
Speaker 2: edited down version of it here. But I think they
Speaker 2: ultimately spare us nothing of the violence inflicted by and
Speaker 2: upon the Masters of Death. All of that makes it
Speaker 2: to the finished picture.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah. So the final conflict in the film
Speaker 3: is we get the Masters of Death leading their person
Speaker 3: they're serving as a bodyguard for in this sort of
Speaker 3: caravan through the desert. They're going up and down these
Speaker 3: sand dunes, and then suddenly there is an attack first
Speaker 3: I think by some rebels against this group, and the
Speaker 3: Masters of Death just chop them up. They don't do well.
Speaker 2: Are these the ones that they're initially hiding under the
Speaker 2: sand to pop up and get the Masters of Death?
Speaker 2: The Masters of Death are just like stabbing them in
Speaker 2: the sand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of dune. Yeah yeah, But this finally
Speaker 3: leads to the Masters of Death must face off against
Speaker 3: Blown Wolf, and I mentioned this earlier, but in this
Speaker 3: part the music infuses it with such vigor. There is
Speaker 3: this relentless synthe size or vamp and a high lead
Speaker 3: over this galloping drum beat. It's really good. Like the
Speaker 3: movie itself, I think pre dates this convention in video games,
Speaker 3: but it feels like boss music. It's like in Mega Man.
Speaker 3: It's the kind of music that kicks in in Mega
Speaker 3: Man when you like enter the chamber to fight Spark Mandroll,
Speaker 3: don't you know what I mean. Like, it's like it
Speaker 3: picks up the tempo and it's like really trying to
Speaker 3: get your blood pumping now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is pretty relentless. At the end of
Speaker 2: the day, we know this can only go down one way.
Speaker 2: They may be Masters of Death, but they are not
Speaker 2: going to come out on top against okami Eto. His
Speaker 2: his skill and his heart is just too powerful for
Speaker 2: them to overcome. So he stylishly defeats one of the
Speaker 2: three brothers, then the other of the three brothers, and
Speaker 2: finally it's a He's squaring off with the final of
Speaker 2: the Masters of Death. This is the guy with the
Speaker 2: claws claws. Yeah, yeah, and you know they have a
Speaker 2: nice back and forth and then ultimately Lone Wolf cuts
Speaker 2: him on the neck with this like perfect cut. That
Speaker 2: and the spray, the arterial spray out of this cut
Speaker 2: is like a fine mist. This part of the of
Speaker 2: the film that this is another like just super weird,
Speaker 2: great moment. And it's like this serene eroticism of death.
Speaker 2: A cut so perfect that one's life blood leaves the
Speaker 2: body in a kind of like high pressure howling mist
Speaker 2: like a dream. Such a cuts like the ultimate aspiration
Speaker 2: of any killer. And oh the irony. The master of
Speaker 2: death himself dies by this cut without ever getting to
Speaker 2: inflict its perfection himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a line in the film where they're talking
Speaker 3: about about like the sound of a winter wind blowing
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he says, I have the quote here when cut
Speaker 2: across the neck, a sound like wailing winter winds is heard.
Speaker 2: They say, I'd always hope to cut someone like that
Speaker 2: someday to hear that sound, but to have it happen
Speaker 2: to my own neck is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Ridiculous, It's wonderful. But doesn't he also say something like
Speaker 3: he's like it was an honor to have been killed
Speaker 3: by you. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because again, if you want to have your next sliced,
Speaker 2: this is the guy you want doing it. You want
Speaker 2: it in the hands.
Speaker 3: Of a master. Oh but then we also do in
Speaker 3: a kind of anti climactic way, we get to see
Speaker 3: a lone wolf doing a grizzly finish to his contract,
Speaker 3: and then the movie's just kind of over.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we get like one final line from the boy.
Speaker 2: He says, what I guess, I wish it was different,
Speaker 2: But a wish is only a wish.
Speaker 3: No justice for the Showgun.
Speaker 2: No again, if you if you were attracted to this
Speaker 2: film because you thought a showgun was going to be assassinated, No,
Speaker 2: doesn't happen. And the character that is labeled the showgun,
Speaker 2: he also does not get his come uppance in this film.
Speaker 2: I think it ultimately happens later on in the series,
Speaker 2: but played by a different actor. Yeah, but now I
Speaker 2: kind of want to finish that journey. I'm going to
Speaker 2: have to, you know, on my own time, go through
Speaker 2: the next four of these pictures. I enjoy the first
Speaker 2: two and of course Showgun Assassin so much.
Speaker 3: Well that sounds great. I might have to check them
Speaker 3: out too.
Speaker 2: It's a fun ride, a demon ride to hell.
Speaker 3: Oh hey, but one last thought. I think I said
Speaker 3: this earlier, but even if you don't watch this movie,
Speaker 3: which you know it's a hyper violent kind of thing,
Speaker 3: it might not be your style, and that's fine. I
Speaker 3: would recommend checking out the soundtrack if you can. The
Speaker 3: music is great, especially if you love synthesizer stuff.
Speaker 2: Absolutely to terrific score. But I have to warn you
Speaker 2: the score, it may suck you in. The Next thing,
Speaker 2: you know, you're watching Showgun Assassin, then you're watching the
Speaker 2: Lone Wolf and Cup series. That's how it gets started.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, this was a lot of fun. I'd
Speaker 2: love to hear from everyone out there. I know we
Speaker 2: have listeners who are very well acquainted with the Lone
Speaker 2: Wolf and Cup series and are more familiar with the
Speaker 2: Samurai and Ninja pictures than we are. So hey, write in,
Speaker 2: We would love to hear from you. We'd love your
Speaker 2: thoughts on Shogun Assassin, Lone Wolf and Cub the series. Oh,
Speaker 2: if you've read the manga, write in about that as well.
Speaker 2: I have not, so I don't have any familiarity with it,
Speaker 2: but of course it is considered legendary in its own right.
Speaker 2: Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 2: primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most
Speaker 2: serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema. And if you want to keep up
Speaker 2: with what we're doing on Weird House Cinema, you can
Speaker 2: always follow us on a letterbox dot com. Our username
Speaker 2: there is weird House. You'll find a list of all
Speaker 2: the films we've done so far, and sometimes a peek
Speaker 2: ahead at what's coming out next. And hey, we are
Speaker 2: in December, so you know what that means. We're gonna
Speaker 2: get at least one Christmas movie in there? Is it
Speaker 2: gonna have Santa in it? Can make no promises. Will
Speaker 2: there be a Christmas tree somewhere in the background of
Speaker 2: a scene? Probably that's probably probably how it's going.
Speaker 4: To go down.
Speaker 3: Has it been a year since I come in?
Speaker 2: Piece it has? Yeah? That was our Christmas action film
Speaker 2: from last year. Wasn't it that one had Christmas music
Speaker 2: in it?
Speaker 3: I think it was.
Speaker 2: Christmas was more a part of the texture of the
Speaker 2: picture than some people give it credit.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
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