WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Shogun Assassin 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:07.880 Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema rewind. This is 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:10.880 Rob Lamb, and today we have an episode that originally 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:14.680 published twelve six, twenty twenty four. It is our discussion 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:20.160 of the nineteen eighty Grindhouse mainstay Shogun Assassin. This, of course, 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:23.360 is a Western release compiled from the first two Lone 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.639 Wolf and Cub films. It's so much fun, so just 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:33.440 sizzling action and hasn't really captivating electronics score, So let's 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:35.040 jump right into this episode. 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:43.480 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:48.919 Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.320 This is Rob Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:54.920 today we're going to be talking about a film from 0:00:54.960 --> 0:01:01.440 the your nineteen eighty the blood drenched samurai film, Shogun Assassin. Rob, 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.160 this was your pick. How did you get to Showgun Assassin? 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:04.760 Oh? 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:09.760 Wow? Mainly because I had subscribed to Criterion Channel in 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:13.840 order to watch Face behind the Mask for a previous episode, 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.399 and they have all these little collections in their little 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:18.480 playlists of movies to check out, and they had one 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.600 that was just called synth Scores, So of course I 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:23.880 had to dive in and see what kind of movies 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:27.480 they had included there, and they included one film that 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:30.960 I had heard of but I'd never seen, and that's 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:34.560 Showgun Assassin. And so I started playing it like I 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:36.720 think I was eating lunch by myself at the time, 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:38.600 and it was one of those films where before I 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.199 knew what had happened, I'd watched most of the film, 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:43.920 you know, like I had other things I really needed 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.039 to do that day, but I was already like sucked 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:50.920 into it. It's just if you've never seen it, I 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:54.680 highly recommend diving in as well, because I think it 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.000 will captivate most people who watch it. 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.640 It is incredible in many ways, and I can see 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:03.880 why it would be classified primarily in terms of its soundtrack, 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:07.960 because the music in this movie just it washes over 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.680 you like a like a dark rainbow. It's just unbelievable. 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:14.920 Yeah, so I'm really excited to talk about it here today. 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.400 I made sure to open up a can of my 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:21.720 Sun Tory Boss coffee here. I'll show it to you. Hear, 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:26.000 Joe did not buy it from a convenience machine on 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:27.960 the streets of Japan. This one is just from Super 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:32.280 h Mark. But they're not sponsoring this episode, by the way, 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:34.799 but I will be drinking my sun Tory Boss coffee. 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:36.680 Wait, what is that just coffee or is it some 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:37.400 kind of coffee? 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:41.240 Plus, it's just a coffee, it's inexpensive, like col Brew 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.720 black coffee in a can, nice with a fun lytle 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:45.360 logo on it. 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:48.280 I'll have to try that one sometime. But oh so, 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.720 Chokin Assassin is a movie that I think we've done 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:54.720 films of this kind before, though I can't think at 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.040 the moment what they were. But this is a movie 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:01.760 that is not an original artistic product, but rather is 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.520 made out of other products that already existed. 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.720 Yeah, we've talked about pictures on the show before that 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:13.080 exist in different, sometimes drastically different cuts. We recently did 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:17.000 that with Reptilicus. But yet today's episode is an extreme 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:21.200 case of something like this. Nineteen eighties Shogun Assassin is 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:25.040 a Western film release edited together from the first two 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.560 films in the famous Japanese Lone Wolf and Cub series, 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:33.000 those two films being both nineteen seventy two releases Lone 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.000 Wolf and Cubs sort of Vengeance the first of six films, 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.880 and Lone Wolf and Cub Baby cart at the River Styx, 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:42.640 the second of six films. Warning that you know a 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:47.120 lot of these film titles. The translation is maybe a 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:48.600 little rough, but that's part. 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:49.000 Of its chime. 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.280 So essentially, the American filmmakers involved here set out to 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:57.000 take the best parts from these two films and stitch 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:01.600 them together into a single coherent narrative featuring the best action, 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.600 the coolest visuals, and all of this built around a 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:10.880 rather simplified plot. I'll describe the ways that they simplified 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:14.320 the plots a little bit as we proceed, but in essence, 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.360 they're just repackaging these two films for the grindhouse market. 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:22.840 I would say this movie is very loosely plotted. You 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.679 barely need to follow what's going on with the plot 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:28.599 or the machinations. It is more like a demo reel 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.839 of sights and sounds, and those sites are samurai action 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.800 with blood jets squirting, and the sounds are the dark 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.400 synth stylings of our composers who will get to later. 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:41.080 Yeah. 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:45.479 Yeah, the plot is greatly reduced here, but in a 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:47.640 way it also makes it super fun to then dive 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:50.760 into the full cuts of those first two Lone Wolf 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:53.240 and Cub films, which is exactly what I did after 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.480 watching Shogun Assassin. All of the Lone Wolf and Cub 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.840 films are available on a Criterion channel as well as 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:01.279 a this recording. 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:04.680 But I'm curious how significantly different is the mood. 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:08.080 I think the mood is pretty much the same. And 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:11.040 I think that's the really glorious thing about Showgun Assassin 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.320 is that it's easy to imagine all the ways that 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:17.599 a project like this could go spectacularly wrong, the way 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:21.120 that it could be disrespectful to the original pictures. But 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.120 I do think that the essential vibe is there. So 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:26.560 if you go from Showgun Assassin and you're like, yeah, 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:28.680 I would like more of this, well, the Lone Wolf 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.200 and Cub series is more of this, you know, because 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:35.040 it is, you know, the full plot, the full character 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.520 development of everything that is in Showgun Assassin that you love, 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.840 except for the score, a different score, but still effective 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:44.640 scores in the original pictures. 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:49.880 So regarding not the original films, but Showgun Assassin specifically, 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:53.400 I've read this movie is esthetic described in terms like 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:57.960 poetic exploitation violence, and I think that's a good way 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.760 to put it, because this movie feels like it has 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:05.039 two souls at once. It is at once a work 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:09.120 of art and a piece of trashy grindhouse gore. So 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.520 on one hand, there really is a kind of poignant, 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:16.520 almost literary quality to the way details are observed in 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.320 a lot of scenes. Just one scene of many that 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.120 comes to mind is when the young boy is trying 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.360 to bring water from the river to his badly wounded father, 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:27.800 and he's trying to carry it in his hands and 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.000 it keeps leaking out between his fingers, so he eventually 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.520 carries the water in his mouth to his father. I mean, 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:38.200 it's like an almost kind of beautiful novelistic detail. And 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.960 also in terms of style, there is a quite exquisite 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.839 vision at play with the composition of the shots and 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:50.000 very again memorable details strong misancen But at the same 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:55.440 time there is a campy Tom Savini Friday the Thirteenth 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:59.640 sensibility operating in quite high gear in most of the 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.719 action scenes, with like a real desire to just see 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.960 blood squirting and to get the camera all up in 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:09.760 the ridiculous wounds, the cloven heads and all that. So 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:15.840 it's an interesting combination. It's like some gore geek exploitation 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:21.040 trash and a thoughtful, meditative, historical art film about a 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.400 samurai father and son were merged into one entity. 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:27.920 Yeah, like the arterial sprays and there are quite a 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:34.400 few of them, will make your jaw drop and exclaim aloud. 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.120 But at the same time, yeah, there are such beautifully 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.800 poetic scenes in this picture. Like I cried. I teared 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:44.320 up at times, you know, I shed tears just to 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:47.480 Showgun Assassin. So it is both things at once. I 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:48.320 think it's a great. 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:52.520 Point, especially with the music. The music is a Digors theme, 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.160 especially that one was it was making me a little misty. 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:57.960 Yeah, that is a strong track. We'll come back to 0:07:58.000 --> 0:07:58.760 that one for sure. 0:07:59.520 --> 0:07:59.680 Now. 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:01.720 One thing thing I promise not to do in this 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:05.760 episode is to painstakingly talk about all the differences between 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.400 Shogun Assassin and the first two Lone Wolf and Cub movies. 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.040 We'll come back to some of these details in a bit, 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.080 but just in broad strokes, I do want to mention 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.760 that clips from the first film, sort of Vengeance, apparently 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.400 amount to only like twelve minutes of Shogun Assassin, mostly 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:25.600 dealing with the backstory of Lone Wolf and Cup of 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:28.880 our ronan character and the child. 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:31.400 Oh well, but that's a lot of what the movie is. 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:35.080 I would bet that when people watch this movie and 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.920 then think back on it and reminisce about it, the 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:42.280 primary thing they probably remember is the feeling created by 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:44.760 the opening five minutes or so. Not that the rest 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.840 of the movie isn't good, but that is the feeling 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:51.959 of this movie is really established strongly at the beginning, 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:57.680 again powerfully moody, with this strong synth based melody that 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:03.400 plays under Diegoro's the child. The child's narration as he 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.120 describes the backstory, and we see these scenes very rapidly 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:09.600 cut together. They condense a lot of story into not 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:13.880 much space, but it's quite effective in my opinion. 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.840 Yeah, that narration by the child is quite excellent, and 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:21.319 that is something that is original to Shogun Assassin. There 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:24.120 is not something like that in the Lone Wolf and 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:28.960 Cub movies. We don't really have his insight or reflection 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:31.080 on what happens. 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.880 Here, though his narration continues throughout this movie. I mean 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:36.560 like he gets to tell us how, you know, we 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.480 see them pushing the cart through the jungle and they 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:41.800 look around and see monkeys screaming at them, and the 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:43.880 kid says, this is how I get my education. 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:49.440 Yeah, so I'll come back to some of the details 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:51.640 about the differences and at least the ones that are 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.960 really key to understanding what's happening in the picture or 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:57.480 why things are, you know, proceding the way they are. 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:01.160 But yeah, basically, though, more time is spent with the characters, 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.440 of course, more time is spent with the politics and 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:07.520 the background. More time is spent laying out the duties 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:13.760 that ogami Eto has. That's our main character, the Showgun's executioner. 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.120 In fact, the first ten minutes or so the first Lone, 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:20.880 Wolve and Cup movie is just ogami Eto about to 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:26.200 execute a young lord, like a child that is the 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.800 same age as his own son, on the orders of 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.719 the Shogun. This is of course the sort of thing 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.440 that if you are a recent viewer of the excellent 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:41.040 Hulu FX miniseries Showgun, which is of course more historically 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:45.520 based perhaps in some ways than Shogun Assessin, you'll be 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:47.880 familiar with this sort of thing. But it does just 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:49.839 a great job in the original picture just laying out 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:52.000 like this is the kind of work he has to do, 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.559 you know, he has to do bloody deets for the Showgun. 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:58.080 Out of a sense of honor and duty, and at 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.320 and at night he prays for this of those that 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.040 he has killed. And then finally, I should also mention 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.040 that both of these films had also already been released 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:11.720 in the US by Toho with subtitles, so it's interesting 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:13.120 to think about that as well. This is not it's 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:15.760 not like Shogun Assassin was the absolute first time US 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.000 audience has had a chance to see these films. You know, 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:24.920 at least some moviegoers out there already were familiar with them. 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.040 But this was kind of like a you know, a 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:31.079 redistribution or repackaging of these films for a new audience, 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:33.080 and it certainly seemed to have found its audience. 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.400 Well, yeah, that makes me think, what is your understanding 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:39.000 of the original reception history of this movie. Was it 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:41.760 literally like a you know, a midnight movie grindhouse kind 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:42.520 of kind of thing. 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:46.160 That's my understanding. This was like a grindhouse sensation, you know, 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:51.360 in which the expectations for cinema were you know, at 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:54.320 the extreme. People were tuning in to see those brilliant 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:58.600 arterial sprays, the violence and some of the psychedelic sequences, 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:03.559 you know. And and it's through this that Shogun Assassin 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:08.000 ended up really resonating with various various folks, everyone from 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:11.400 like you know, Quentin Tarantino, members of a Wu Tang clan, 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.480 and so forth. There's a lot here that's been sampled 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.400 elsewhere and so forth. So I think it it also 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:19.960 does a great job of just you know, introducing the 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.880 world of Lone Wolf and Cub to a different audience, 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:25.160 a wider audience, if you will. 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:26.760 You can think of it kind of like one of 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.080 those sitcom episodes where they do a clip show from 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:31.680 the other episodes, but here it's it's a clip show 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:33.959 of Lone Wolf and Cub, so you get you get 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:35.959 a flavor of the different adventures. 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.880 It's hard to imagine another project doing something like this though, 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:43.000 Like can you imagine taking say Predator one and Predator 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.920 two and then editing them together into one film. 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:49.840 It would be easier if they had the same main character, 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:52.440 but yeah. 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.600 I guess. Or how about Godfather one and to edited 0:12:54.679 --> 0:13:02.760 into a single ninety minute film call it Mafia sa brilliant. 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:03.280 I love it. 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:06.640 That's maybe more apt because in an effort like you 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:09.480 would have to like boil out, you know, reduce it 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:11.959 and remove all of most of the politics and get 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:15.800 down to just like an ultra simplified, like you know, plot, 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.680 which is what we have in Shogun Assassin. M Well, 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:21.760 on that note, why don't we go ahead and listen 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.320 to a little trailer audio. This is from the This 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:26.960 is the trailer to be clear, to Shogun Assassin, not 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.160 the original Lone Wolf and Cub films. We're not going 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:30.760 to listen to all of it because it is it's 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:32.520 kind of long, but I want to make sure we 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:34.920 get a little bit of that music, and of course 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:37.240 the narrator saying the title of. 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:45.680 The picture, return to the vanished kingdoms of ancient times, 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:55.520 the journey to a lust empire. 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:07.240 Of mad wizards and bombaric passions. Behold the saga of 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:13.880 a legendary warrior, a loving father who has the power 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:16.320 of a dozen armies in one. 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:18.040 Sweep of his mystic blade. 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:35.640 This is a story of honor, disgrace, vengeance, massacre, and 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:41.040 the man who became a demon Shogun Assassin. 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:51.360 All right, So, if you would like to watch Shogun 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:55.560 Assassin and perhaps all six Lone Wolf and Cub films, 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:59.480 it's all currently streaming on the Criterion Channel. I've been 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.760 really digging this resource. Recently, there's also a great looking 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:06.840 Criterion collection box set of the six films. Showgun Assassin 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:09.800 itself has been released on Blu ray and DVD, but 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.600 I think that one might be harder to grab right now. 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:15.240 But of course, if you have some sort of rental 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:18.720 service at your disposal, be it videodrome here in Atlanta, 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.560 whatever your local video rental option is, or even maybe 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.600 the public library, as a listener brought up in the 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:29.920 recent Listener Mail episode, Yeah, don't discount your public library. 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:41.560 They might have some Showgun Assassin waiting for you. All right, Well, 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:44.320 let's talk about some of the people involved here before 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.720 we get into the plot and so forth. So again, 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:52.560 this is a nineteen eighty film release composed edited together 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:56.720 from two nineteen seventy two films. We can't do justice 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.320 to all the folks involved in these different projects, so 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:01.200 I want to most single out some of the key 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:03.600 folks from the first two Lone Wolf and Cub films, 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:07.240 as well as key people responsible for the Showgun Assassin cut. Okay, 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.680 all right, so starting I think at the top where 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:17.440 credit is deserved. The director of both Lone Wolf and 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:21.080 Cub films one and two. This is Kenji Masumi, who 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:25.240 lived nineteen twenty one through nineteen seventy five. Very well 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:30.080 regarded Japanese film director, best known certainly internationally for his 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.080 work on four of the six Lone Wolf and Cub 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:36.160 films that's one, two, three, and five, as well as 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:40.360 his Zatoichi films. His other movies also include nineteen seventy 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:44.080 two's Hanzo the Razors Sword of Justice and nineteen sixty 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:49.840 six's Return of Damijin. This is a Tokusatsu film about 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:53.280 a giant demon god. I haven't seen these films, but 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:55.760 this was the second in a series that had started 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:59.480 earlier that same year. Like a big statue type. 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:03.800 Dude, Well, like a giant statue of a samurai warrior. 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:07.879 Yeah, exactly, with a scowl on his face and so forth. 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.480 See screenshots of one scene where he appears to be 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:16.560 walking through a parted See ooh, I don't know. I'll 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.760 have to flag this one. Come back to it, all right. 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:24.560 We also have to credit the creators of Lone Wolf 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:29.480 and Cub. Two individuals worth singling out here. The first 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:33.520 as Kazuo Kooki, who lived nineteen thirty six through twenty 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:41.320 nineteen writer, creator of the He's the legendary Japanese manga writer, novelist, screenwriter, lyricist, 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:45.280 and entrepreneur, apparently best known for co creating the Lone 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:47.960 Wolf and Cub series, not only writing it but also 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.359 adapting it for the screen. In both of these the 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:55.000 pictures that are used to create Shogun Assassin. He'd continued 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.840 to do this with numerous other works of his that 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.280 were adapted to the screen, including nineteen seventy two's Hanzo 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:06.000 the Razor. He also wrote a Wolverine story for Marvel 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:08.920 I think I think it's from two thousand and three 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:13.480 X Men Unlimited Volume one, issue fifty, and he is 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:16.680 a member of the Eisner Hall of Fame. And then 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:18.760 the artists that were the manga artists that worked with 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.200 him on this was Goseki Kojima, who lived nineteen twenty 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:25.679 eight through two thousand. Yeah, he worked with him on 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:27.639 the Lone Wolf and Cub film, so very much a 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:32.720 part of the original alchemy of bringing this idea of 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:36.840 life on the page. All right, now turning to the 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:42.480 folks heading up Shogun Assassin, we have a Showgun Assassin 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:47.679 director and writer Robert Houston born nineteen fifty five. So 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:52.240 this individual is an Academy Award winning director for a 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:56.280 two thousand and four short form documentary titled Mighty Times 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.919 The Children's March. This was produced by HBO and the 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.840 Southern Poverty Loss Or dealing with the Birmingham, Alabama civil 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:06.160 rights Marches of the nineteen sixties. Long before this, though, 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.439 he played Bobby in Wes Craven's nineteen seventy seven Mutant 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:14.080 Mayhem movie The Hills Have Eyes. What I included a 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:18.080 still for you here, Joe. If anyone remembers, he's the 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:22.040 blonde kid in the T shirt. Okay, yeah, that's him. 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:23.200 That's our director. 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:26.000 Wow, paths Crossing. I had no idea. 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.879 Yeah. He appeared in a handful of late seventies and 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.280 early eighties pictures before heading up the Showgun Assassin project 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:38.199 for producer David Weissman, which would ultimately be released by 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:42.280 Roger Corman's New World Pictures. His subsequent directorial and writing 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:47.480 credits include an array of thrillers, erotica, an episode of 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:51.680 Doogie Howser MD, and of course, Academy Award winning documentary. 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:52.520 Shorts How Strange? 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:57.399 Yeah, All right now? David Weisman, who has mentioned He 0:19:57.480 --> 0:19:59.640 is credit ded with as a writer and a producer 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:02.880 on this He lived nineteen forty two through twenty nineteen. 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:05.879 He was apparently part of a splinter group from Andy 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:09.080 Warhol's factory back in the sixties, and he went on 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:11.520 to produce such films as nineteen eighty five's Kiss of 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:15.760 the Spider Woman. All right, now, getting back into the 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:20.320 original Japanese cast, the actors who bring this picture to life, 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.639 it's Lone Wolf and Cub. So let's start with Lone Wolf. 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:29.520 The character of ogami Eto, the Shogun's executioner turned ronan. 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:34.880 He's played by Tomisaburo Wakayama, and he lived nineteen twenty 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:36.440 nine through nineteen ninety two. 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:39.199 He brings a lot to this movie in that he 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:44.560 is an absolutely lethal action hero, but he does not, 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:50.000 I don't know, he doesn't have a very active aura. 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.800 He brings a lot of stillness and patience. Do you 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:54.960 know what I'm getting at here? 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:58.680 Yeah? Yeah, And I think it's it's something that's easy 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:03.040 to sort of not really process all the way, especially 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:05.200 if you're just watching Shogun Assassin, and maybe if you 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:07.240 just sort of have it on in the background or something. 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:10.440 But it begins to make more and more sense once 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:16.080 you really absorb the character, because you know, he doesn't 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:19.560 talk much, but it is a full body performance of 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:22.960 kind of this mix of silent honor and determination, but 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:27.080 all of it burning within this scowling husk of shame 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:29.720 and sorrow. Like he is a man who's been brought low, 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:35.120 who's been betrayed, who is marked for death, you know, 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:37.640 and all of these circumstances are out of his control, 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.800 but inwardly he's remaining true to his principles while the 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.520 whole world either turns their backs on him or turns 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:47.400 their blades on him. And then when he does unleash 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:53.520 his fury, oh man, it's just this fluid artery severing machinery. 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:53.840 You know. 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:56.399 It's the and right down to when he's finished, like 0:21:56.440 --> 0:21:58.200 the fluid sheathing of his sword. 0:21:58.560 --> 0:21:58.720 You know. 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:02.119 It's like a final signature on a regal contract of death. 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:02.840 Yes. 0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:03.320 Uh. 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:07.560 His presence in the action scenes is very much like 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:10.720 a he is a machine where the valve is closed 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:14.040 and then suddenly it explodes open and there is a 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:16.720 release of activity and then it closes again. 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:21.800 Yeah, it's it's such a great performance. And when you 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:24.520 when you learn a little bit more about Wakayama. Uh, 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:27.080 Like his background makes sense when you see this, because 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:30.399 he was an accomplished kabooki actor uh and a judo 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:34.360 practitioner that you know that ended up then getting into 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:37.159 film acting. You know, so I can you can, I 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:39.879 can see that, like that control of the body, uh, 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:42.760 you know, fluid movements, and and then like his his 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:46.320 ability to use these often like just smoldering facial expressions 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:48.800 you know, uh, like where he's not just scowling, He's 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:51.480 not just like, well, I'm gonna look like a like 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:53.520 like a bad ass for this scene. Like, no, there's 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:56.760 there there, there's stuff going on behind the eyes and 0:22:56.800 --> 0:22:57.480 you can sense it. 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:00.919 Yeah, there's something more uh sad and also in a 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:04.159 way threatening about the kind of the blankness that he 0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:05.040 often brings. 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:10.760 So yeah, just just a wonderful performance, you know. He 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:15.119 he's mostly known for, you know, for these films, the 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:16.719 Lone Wolf and Cub films. He's in all of these 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:20.000 original six pictures. He also had some starring roles and 0:23:20.040 --> 0:23:26.120 some other Toho Martial Arts films, but outside of Japan, 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:29.919 he only ever appeared in two Western films. He pops 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:32.600 up as a coach in nineteen seventy eight's The Bad 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:33.720 News Bears Go to Japan. 0:23:34.080 --> 0:23:34.159 What. 0:23:34.920 --> 0:23:39.639 Yeah, I haven't seen that one. But then he also 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:42.680 has has a turn as a as a key yakuza 0:23:42.720 --> 0:23:46.399 boss in Ridley Scott's Black Rain from nineteen eighty nine. Now, 0:23:46.440 --> 0:23:48.600 I haven't seen that one either. It's, you know, one 0:23:48.600 --> 0:23:52.080 of Ridley's like non sci fi fantasy films, so I've 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:55.040 never gotten around to it, but I've seen some stills. 0:23:55.359 --> 0:23:57.720 He looks like he has a really smoldering presence, and 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:01.000 I think he gets to deliver a monologue that features 0:24:01.080 --> 0:24:02.159 the title of the picture. 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:11.080 Oh Wow, nineteen eighty nine, Michael Douglas, Andy Garcia, Kate Capshaw. Yeah, oh, 0:24:11.480 --> 0:24:12.760 this looks worth seeing. 0:24:13.680 --> 0:24:16.919 I remember seeing trailers for it as a kid and 0:24:17.000 --> 0:24:19.399 thinking like, oh, it's more Blade Runner, and then I realized, 0:24:19.400 --> 0:24:21.720 oh wait, it's not Blade Runner. This takes place in 0:24:21.720 --> 0:24:23.640 the real world, and then I don't watch it. 0:24:24.760 --> 0:24:29.080 But hey, the poster is hilarious. I see Michael Douglas 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:31.760 there with his arms folded, like, yeah, what do you want. 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:35.399 Yeah, it's like something like an American cop must go 0:24:35.440 --> 0:24:38.720 to Japan to track a yukuza killer or something. I 0:24:38.760 --> 0:24:41.440 don't know, but it may be great if you love 0:24:41.440 --> 0:24:43.639 it right in and let us know. All right, So 0:24:43.680 --> 0:24:45.280 that's our Lone Wolf, our Cub. 0:24:46.720 --> 0:24:49.920 Sorry, I'm sorry. I'm imagining Michael Douglas doing like Fish 0:24:49.920 --> 0:24:52.439 out of Water scenes where he like tries sushi for 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:55.760 the first time. He's like, oh, what is this? 0:24:56.280 --> 0:24:58.080 I mean it was the nineteen eighties, but I hope 0:24:58.119 --> 0:25:01.560 that's not what Black Rain is, but I know maybe, 0:25:01.560 --> 0:25:07.800 so all right. Digoro is played by Akihiro Tamakawa born 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:08.760 nineteen sixty eight. 0:25:09.280 --> 0:25:09.879 Child actor. 0:25:10.119 --> 0:25:12.920 Cute kid, but like these are pretty much his only credits. 0:25:13.560 --> 0:25:16.919 But still I cannot stress enough how cute this kid is. 0:25:17.119 --> 0:25:21.080 Just such a cute kid. Show any clip that features 0:25:21.160 --> 0:25:25.480 Lone Wolf and Cub to anyone in your vicinity, and 0:25:25.480 --> 0:25:28.480 that will at least be their one of their comments. 0:25:28.480 --> 0:25:29.000 Cute kid. 0:25:29.800 --> 0:25:32.240 A lot of spraying blood and so forth. 0:25:32.359 --> 0:25:35.880 He's even cute when he's operating like the switchblade knives 0:25:35.920 --> 0:25:37.159 in his baby carriage. 0:25:37.440 --> 0:25:39.919 Yeah, he gets to kill too. Just one of the 0:25:39.920 --> 0:25:47.400 interesting details, all right. The chief antagonist of this picture 0:25:48.720 --> 0:25:50.440 is this is kind of confusing. 0:25:51.040 --> 0:25:53.000 Yeah, I was mighty confused by. 0:25:52.840 --> 0:25:57.840 This because when you watch Shogun Assassin, they talk a 0:25:57.840 --> 0:26:00.440 lot about the Shogun, and they present the show is 0:26:00.520 --> 0:26:06.959 kind of like this evil, paranoid, corrupted ruler who is 0:26:07.119 --> 0:26:11.520 just exacting his vengeance in paranoia on the entire nation. 0:26:12.600 --> 0:26:14.439 Like that's very much three and that's you know, ed 0:26:14.480 --> 0:26:19.280 works within the context of Shogun Assassin. But the character 0:26:19.359 --> 0:26:22.800 who they identify as the Showgun is absolutely not the 0:26:22.840 --> 0:26:26.000 Shogun in the Lone Wolf and Cub series. 0:26:26.560 --> 0:26:31.480 I was so confused because the movie, the way it's edited, 0:26:31.560 --> 0:26:33.680 makes it clear that he's supposed to be the Shogun, 0:26:33.720 --> 0:26:36.720 because like when the narration mentions the Shogun, they always 0:26:36.720 --> 0:26:40.000 showed this guy's face. And then I was reading summaries 0:26:40.040 --> 0:26:42.800 of the plot that like, say, no, this guy isn't 0:26:42.800 --> 0:26:45.600 the Shogun. He's like the head of the Ninja assassins, 0:26:46.119 --> 0:26:47.800 And I was like, well, that kind of makes sense 0:26:47.840 --> 0:26:52.480 because he doesn't really look like he doesn't have shogun regalia, no, 0:26:52.520 --> 0:26:56.000 not at all, And so yeah, it was I had 0:26:56.040 --> 0:26:57.880 no idea what was going on here, but I did 0:26:57.920 --> 0:27:00.760 call him the Shogun in my plot summaries. Yeah, that's 0:27:00.760 --> 0:27:01.600 what we're gonna go with. 0:27:01.720 --> 0:27:04.200 Yeah, it's totally fair to call him the showgun within 0:27:04.280 --> 0:27:07.440 the confines of shogun assassin, but within the confines of 0:27:07.480 --> 0:27:10.600 the larger Lone Wolf and Cub series and the other 0:27:10.680 --> 0:27:17.160 six movies, this character is Yagyu Rotsuto, and he is. Yes, 0:27:17.240 --> 0:27:21.800 he's the head of this group of ninja assassins. He is. 0:27:21.920 --> 0:27:25.359 He's not the Showgun, he's one of them Showgun's many vassals, 0:27:26.119 --> 0:27:30.440 but he is working his own political agenda within the system. 0:27:30.880 --> 0:27:35.080 He really just doesn't have shogun energy either. He does 0:27:35.119 --> 0:27:38.879 have big bad energy, but for a Western equivalent, he 0:27:38.920 --> 0:27:41.800 feels more like a like a resputant type character, like 0:27:41.840 --> 0:27:44.919 he's supposed to be a wicked mad monk or something. 0:27:45.480 --> 0:27:48.520 Yeah, because that's the look he has, like this like 0:27:48.640 --> 0:27:54.000 demon white hair and scowl like he out scowls are 0:27:54.160 --> 0:27:56.159 our Ronan here, you know, like he's just it's a 0:27:56.200 --> 0:28:01.080 scowl off between these two. But yeah, Ratsuto is such 0:28:01.119 --> 0:28:04.200 a great villain in this picture. Even even though he's 0:28:04.280 --> 0:28:07.320 largely an orchestrator, we don't see him directly do anything. 0:28:07.680 --> 0:28:10.960 And that's ultimately kind of the tragedy here. Because this 0:28:11.119 --> 0:28:15.080 character is the long term antagonist of the series. There's 0:28:15.119 --> 0:28:17.040 not going to be any payoff with him. This guy 0:28:17.119 --> 0:28:21.280 is not getting assassinated, No, matter. Despite the title Showgun Assassin, 0:28:21.920 --> 0:28:23.879 the Showgun's not getting it in this picture. 0:28:24.359 --> 0:28:27.080 Yeah, the target of our protagonist in the last scene 0:28:27.080 --> 0:28:29.160 in the movie is some guy. It's like, who is this? 0:28:29.720 --> 0:28:31.760 I think in Shogun Assassin they present him as the 0:28:31.760 --> 0:28:36.320 Shogun's brother. Yes, but in the actual movie, the second 0:28:36.359 --> 0:28:39.040 len Wolf and Cub film, it's like a guy who 0:28:39.160 --> 0:28:45.400 is betraying an Indigo company in order to give trade 0:28:45.440 --> 0:28:48.720 secrets to the Showgun. So it's like an entire subplot 0:28:48.760 --> 0:28:51.600 that doesn't really directly. I mean, it does impact the Showgun, 0:28:51.640 --> 0:28:52.920 but it's not the Shogun's brother. 0:28:53.200 --> 0:28:53.240 No. 0:28:53.440 --> 0:28:56.760 The in Shogun Assassin they describe him as this evil 0:28:56.880 --> 0:28:59.600 lord who's the brother of the Showgun and is oppressing 0:28:59.640 --> 0:29:01.960 the people who hire the Lone Wolf. 0:29:02.040 --> 0:29:04.320 But now he's like a corporate defector. 0:29:05.880 --> 0:29:07.880 But like, I don't recall if we ever meet him 0:29:08.000 --> 0:29:10.480 much in the movie before this, I mean maybe a little, 0:29:10.520 --> 0:29:13.200 but yeah. 0:29:12.320 --> 0:29:15.720 Yeah, so at any rate, you can call him Shogun, 0:29:15.760 --> 0:29:18.960 you can call him Ratsudo. But this character is played 0:29:19.000 --> 0:29:23.120 by Yunosuki Ito, who lived nineteen nineteen through nineteen eighty, 0:29:23.560 --> 0:29:26.440 a well regarded Japanese character actor who appeared in more 0:29:26.480 --> 0:29:29.800 than two hundred films from between nineteen thirty two and 0:29:29.880 --> 0:29:34.520 nineteen seventy nine, with parts ranging from hammi performances, which 0:29:34.640 --> 0:29:38.720 I'm to understand are referred to as radish performances in 0:29:38.840 --> 0:29:43.800 Japanese culture because yeah, apparently he wrote a memoir and 0:29:43.840 --> 0:29:46.000 it was like, you know, like a memoir of a 0:29:46.080 --> 0:29:49.600 radish performer or something, you know. But he played everything 0:29:49.600 --> 0:29:54.120 from like comedic characters to memorable villains. His credits include 0:29:54.200 --> 0:29:59.160 Kurosawa's films Ikiu and fifty two Sandjuro and sixty two 0:29:59.520 --> 0:30:02.960 High and Low, sixty three He Is. He's also known 0:30:02.960 --> 0:30:06.520 for a dual role in the classic ninja film Shinobi Nomono, 0:30:06.680 --> 0:30:08.800 which I think this is one that we mentioned in 0:30:08.840 --> 0:30:11.720 passing in our episodes on the Ninjas. This is a 0:30:11.720 --> 0:30:13.840 picture from nineteen sixty two, and it was an award 0:30:13.840 --> 0:30:19.480 winning performance. There's also a picture called Obamb exclamation Point 0:30:19.520 --> 0:30:21.480 from nineteen sixty four that said to be a great 0:30:21.480 --> 0:30:25.280 example of his comedic work. I included a still from 0:30:25.320 --> 0:30:28.360 Obamb where you can see him like plugging his ears 0:30:28.360 --> 0:30:32.640 with his fingers and you know, clear comedic performance here he's. 0:30:32.560 --> 0:30:34.280 Doing kind of a Don Knat's face. 0:30:34.640 --> 0:30:38.560 Yeah, Yeah, it's that style of comedy. So yeah, I 0:30:39.080 --> 0:30:42.720 love Eto so much in this as the villain Ritsudo, 0:30:42.800 --> 0:30:45.000 but sadly he did not return to play the part 0:30:45.040 --> 0:30:49.240 in subsequent films. But here we have just this brooding, 0:30:49.320 --> 0:30:53.640 demonic visage of a man just grading with hatred. And 0:30:53.720 --> 0:30:56.640 I have to say the English dub in Shogun Assassin, 0:30:56.760 --> 0:30:59.400 I feel it does very accurately capture the essence of 0:30:59.440 --> 0:31:03.280 his original Japanese language dialogue as well. Just that just 0:31:03.280 --> 0:31:09.080 that grating, like teeth grinding level of a venom in 0:31:09.120 --> 0:31:12.440 his voice. Yeah, just like you want this guy or 0:31:12.480 --> 0:31:14.120 you maybe you don't want this guy to show up 0:31:14.120 --> 0:31:16.360 outside your door everything every time you do something wrong, 0:31:16.560 --> 0:31:17.720 like thee in your place. 0:31:18.560 --> 0:31:18.760 Yeah. 0:31:19.000 --> 0:31:19.120 Uh. 0:31:19.600 --> 0:31:23.720 They they fit him in well as the Shogun with 0:31:23.880 --> 0:31:27.000 the narration, at least because, as Daigoro explains that the 0:31:27.040 --> 0:31:30.440 Shogun was paranoid and saw enemies everywhere, and this guy 0:31:30.480 --> 0:31:33.520 looks like that. He's his eyes are always shifting back 0:31:33.600 --> 0:31:36.240 and forth real quick to you know, see enemies coming 0:31:36.280 --> 0:31:40.680 from any corner. He's he looks suspicious and frightened and angry, 0:31:40.840 --> 0:31:44.560 and also has that that general look of someone who's 0:31:44.680 --> 0:31:48.160 like the not wellness of their mind has affected their body, 0:31:48.280 --> 0:31:51.000 like he looks kind of decrepit in some way. 0:31:51.200 --> 0:31:53.880 Absolutely so again, Showgun Assassin does not have time for 0:31:53.880 --> 0:31:56.840 all the politics. They simplify everything. But it's it's a 0:31:56.840 --> 0:31:59.160 good at it in terms of just presenting a picture 0:31:59.200 --> 0:32:02.880 that the grindhouse audience can enjoy in a villain they 0:32:02.920 --> 0:32:04.480 can who anah at. 0:32:04.480 --> 0:32:06.320 This movie has so many villains. 0:32:06.840 --> 0:32:10.400 Oh yeah, because we also have we have numerous heads 0:32:10.400 --> 0:32:13.720 of different Ninja assassin clans and I'm not even we 0:32:13.720 --> 0:32:16.160 can't even get into all of those, but one of 0:32:16.200 --> 0:32:18.040 the key one, but I would say the key one 0:32:18.080 --> 0:32:22.080 that also ends up becoming an ally of sorts is 0:32:22.160 --> 0:32:26.800 the Supreme Ninja. This is Yagyu Sayaka played by Keo 0:32:27.000 --> 0:32:31.320 Matsuo born nineteen forty three, our female ninja master of 0:32:31.360 --> 0:32:35.040 Exceptional Skill. She's perhaps best known for this role, but 0:32:35.120 --> 0:32:38.440 she was also in nineteen sixty nine's Outlaw Gangster VIP 0:32:39.000 --> 0:32:41.960 nineteen sixty four's gat of Flesh. In nineteen seventy is 0:32:42.000 --> 0:32:42.880 the Vampire Doll. 0:32:43.520 --> 0:32:46.040 So she plays the head of a clan of ninja 0:32:46.040 --> 0:32:48.440 who are all women who sort of they do the 0:32:48.560 --> 0:32:52.640 operate in disguise and sneak attack stuff and her ninja 0:32:52.680 --> 0:32:55.200 are said to be the best, and she is. I 0:32:55.240 --> 0:32:58.840 would say, of all the enemies that Lone Wolf faces 0:32:58.840 --> 0:33:01.400 in the movie, she is the one who gets closest 0:33:01.440 --> 0:33:02.560 to getting the better of him. 0:33:03.000 --> 0:33:05.520 That's right, that's right. But also I think she gets 0:33:05.520 --> 0:33:06.920 a little too close to his heart. 0:33:09.080 --> 0:33:11.200 She gets in with a net. It's hard to beat 0:33:11.200 --> 0:33:11.880 a net, you know. 0:33:12.240 --> 0:33:12.440 Yeah. 0:33:12.520 --> 0:33:14.320 Yeah, she's effective in combat against and they have a 0:33:14.320 --> 0:33:17.120 great fight scene. I mean, all the fight scenes are great. 0:33:17.160 --> 0:33:20.800 But other thing worth mentioning is that in Shogun Assassin, 0:33:20.880 --> 0:33:24.400 she is I believe, dubbed by comedian and actress Sandra 0:33:24.440 --> 0:33:28.880 Bernhardt in nineteen fifty five. I'm not saying it's a 0:33:28.880 --> 0:33:34.640 great dub, but apparently this is Sandra Bernhard. 0:33:34.960 --> 0:33:35.320 All right. 0:33:36.280 --> 0:33:39.719 There are some other heads of different ninja groups that 0:33:40.320 --> 0:33:42.320 we could mention if we have more time. But I 0:33:42.360 --> 0:33:45.920 do want to mention that we have not one, not two, 0:33:45.960 --> 0:33:49.320 but three masters of death in this picture that show 0:33:49.400 --> 0:33:54.520 up late in the movie as essentially like the main bosses. 0:33:55.080 --> 0:33:58.760 Their outfits, in particular their hats might be quite familiar 0:33:58.800 --> 0:34:00.640 to fans of Big Trouble and Little China. 0:34:01.080 --> 0:34:03.680 Yeah, the Three Storms and Big Trouble Little China are 0:34:03.720 --> 0:34:07.040 clearly based in part in large part on the look 0:34:07.080 --> 0:34:09.840 of the Masters of Death aka the Monks of Death 0:34:10.200 --> 0:34:15.600 aka the Hidari Brothers. They're not sorcerers like the Three Storms. 0:34:15.920 --> 0:34:19.920 They are just masters of martial arts and they depend on 0:34:20.600 --> 0:34:23.120 particular weapons. Let's see, what is it, the like the 0:34:23.160 --> 0:34:27.840 flying maces, the like the spike gloves. 0:34:28.040 --> 0:34:31.879 Yeah, there's like a like a Gardening Claus kind of thing. Yeah, 0:34:31.880 --> 0:34:34.360 there's a there's like a glove with spikes on the fist, 0:34:34.480 --> 0:34:36.440 and there's a club with nails in it. 0:34:36.800 --> 0:34:37.280 Yeah. 0:34:37.440 --> 0:34:40.720 So yeah, these are the Masters of Death. The lead 0:34:41.120 --> 0:34:46.040 Master of Death is Binma Hidari played by Minoru Oki, 0:34:46.480 --> 0:34:48.480 who lived nineteen twenty three through two thousand and nine, 0:34:48.560 --> 0:34:51.160 Japanese actor best known for his work in the Lone 0:34:51.200 --> 0:34:53.960 Wolf and Cub films. Because not only does he play 0:34:54.000 --> 0:34:57.080 the lead Master or Monk of Death here, but he 0:34:57.200 --> 0:34:59.680 returned to the Lone Wolf and Cub series in films 0:34:59.680 --> 0:35:03.520 five six to play his own version of the chief villain, 0:35:04.080 --> 0:35:05.000 Yagyu Ritsudo. 0:35:05.480 --> 0:35:08.400 Oh. Okay, so he replaces the actor who in this 0:35:08.520 --> 0:35:12.600 movie is is twisted into being the Shogun. 0:35:12.680 --> 0:35:15.560 Right yeah, so yeah. The character shows up much later 0:35:15.640 --> 0:35:17.880 and so I believe he is the actor playing the 0:35:18.000 --> 0:35:22.440 character when vengeance and or assassination finally does occur. 0:35:22.719 --> 0:35:23.680 Okay. 0:35:24.080 --> 0:35:27.080 He was also in nineteen sixty nine Horrors of Malformed Men, 0:35:27.160 --> 0:35:29.879 which we've mentioned on the show before. And I'll also 0:35:30.000 --> 0:35:33.640 mention that one of the other Masters of Death, this 0:35:33.680 --> 0:35:36.839 is the Karuma Hidari I forget which weapon he uses, 0:35:36.920 --> 0:35:39.719 is played by Shin Kashida, who lived nineteen thirty nine 0:35:39.760 --> 0:35:42.560 through nineteen eighty two, a supporting actor best known for 0:35:42.719 --> 0:35:45.400 this film, as well as Godzilla Versus Mecha Godzilla from 0:35:45.440 --> 0:35:50.640 seventy four, Lady Snowblood two, and then two different Dracula films, 0:35:50.680 --> 0:35:53.839 nineteen seventy one's Lake of Dracula in nineteen seventy four 0:35:53.920 --> 0:35:56.120 is Evil of Dracula, which I think you could also 0:35:56.280 --> 0:36:00.879 maybe referred to as Principle of Dracula. That's one. It's 0:36:00.880 --> 0:36:03.200 on my list now. I really want to see Evil 0:36:03.239 --> 0:36:04.000 of Dracula. 0:36:04.120 --> 0:36:07.320 Okay, all right. 0:36:07.160 --> 0:36:10.520 But let's get back to the music here again. This 0:36:10.600 --> 0:36:14.799 is what drew me into watching Shogun Assassin in the 0:36:14.840 --> 0:36:17.400 first place. And we've already talked a little about just 0:36:17.480 --> 0:36:20.520 how about how effective the synth score is. Now the 0:36:20.560 --> 0:36:26.279 original films were scored by Iikens Sakura and Hideika Sakurai, 0:36:26.880 --> 0:36:29.799 and I think some of their original music remains in 0:36:29.800 --> 0:36:32.719 Showgun Assassin. I could be wrong on that. But more 0:36:32.719 --> 0:36:36.040 to the point, we have this just deliriously great synth 0:36:36.080 --> 0:36:38.320 score added to the picture. And this is the work 0:36:38.360 --> 0:36:42.360 of Mark Lindsay born nineteen forty two and W Michael Lewis. 0:36:42.960 --> 0:36:43.080 So. 0:36:43.160 --> 0:36:46.160 I don't know if I've ever used this term applied 0:36:46.239 --> 0:36:49.640 to music before, but sometimes we say of an actor 0:36:50.719 --> 0:36:53.680 that we admire that they're really committed to the role, 0:36:53.920 --> 0:36:57.960 meaning that they're they're not holding back anything for fear 0:36:58.000 --> 0:37:01.719 of embarrassment. They're not trying to be more subtle than 0:37:01.800 --> 0:37:05.400 is required. They just go headfirst all the way in. 0:37:06.000 --> 0:37:07.800 This is the first movie I've ever seen where I 0:37:07.800 --> 0:37:11.400 would say that about the music. The music is just 0:37:11.560 --> 0:37:15.239 committed to the feeling. They are not holding back anything. 0:37:15.360 --> 0:37:19.800 This just unabashed, pure feeling made into vibrations. 0:37:20.440 --> 0:37:26.200 Absolutely. Yeah, it's just a terrific score and it's interesting 0:37:26.239 --> 0:37:29.040 looking at these two individuals. So. Mark Lindsay was the 0:37:29.120 --> 0:37:32.320 vocalist and sax player for the American rock band Paul 0:37:32.400 --> 0:37:35.240 Revere and the Raiders from nineteen fifty eight through nineteen 0:37:35.280 --> 0:37:39.000 seventy five. Joe, are you familiar at all with Paul 0:37:39.000 --> 0:37:39.800 Revere and the Raiders. 0:37:39.880 --> 0:37:42.640 Oh yeah, yeah, I mean this was some of my parents' music. 0:37:42.880 --> 0:37:45.680 I remember when I was younger, Like, I remember kicks, 0:37:45.719 --> 0:37:47.920 you know, kicks just keep getting harder to find. 0:37:47.840 --> 0:37:51.400 Mm hmm. I this was also some of my parents' music. 0:37:51.560 --> 0:37:55.279 I specifically remember going through the records at my grandmother's house. 0:37:55.320 --> 0:37:57.640 It would have been like the records of my mom's 0:37:57.680 --> 0:38:01.040 and also her sisters, and find a Paul Revere and 0:38:01.120 --> 0:38:04.600 the Raiders album in there, And I remember just thinking, man, 0:38:04.719 --> 0:38:07.680 the nineteen sixties just looks so lame, Like this is 0:38:07.719 --> 0:38:10.560 the lamest thing I've ever seen, because if you're not familiar, 0:38:10.800 --> 0:38:16.960 their whole shtick visually was dressing up as Revolutionary War soldiers. 0:38:17.000 --> 0:38:21.520 You know, they had these Revolutionary War costumes, which I mean, 0:38:21.560 --> 0:38:25.319 I guess maybe I've ever heard like was it cool 0:38:25.360 --> 0:38:27.200 at the time. I guess it was people dug it. 0:38:27.320 --> 0:38:30.520 But I remember just thinking this just looks super lame. 0:38:30.880 --> 0:38:34.560 Is there supposed to be? Like, so if it's Paul Revere, 0:38:34.719 --> 0:38:37.920 is it like the British are coming? Like British invasion music? 0:38:38.120 --> 0:38:38.960 Is that all thing. 0:38:39.040 --> 0:38:41.040 I guess it's like, yeah, it's like a counter to 0:38:41.080 --> 0:38:43.799 the British invasion, and that would that would have been 0:38:43.840 --> 0:38:45.960 lost on me as a as a child looking at this, 0:38:46.080 --> 0:38:48.799 all I knew at the time was that what's the 0:38:48.800 --> 0:38:53.799 most boring thing in school? It's it's American history. At 0:38:53.800 --> 0:38:56.160 the time. I'm not saying that as an adult, American 0:38:56.200 --> 0:38:59.560 history is fascinating, but at the time, the idea of 0:38:59.760 --> 0:39:03.359 Revolutionary War themed music was not like a great cell 0:39:04.000 --> 0:39:07.640 But to be clear, Paul Revere and the Raiders not 0:39:07.760 --> 0:39:10.160 super lame. They had some real gems, some real jams, 0:39:10.200 --> 0:39:10.880 if you will. 0:39:11.800 --> 0:39:14.200 I understand it from the school perspective. Yeah, it's like 0:39:14.719 --> 0:39:17.680 the band is where their theme is. They're all math textbooks. 0:39:18.320 --> 0:39:20.560 Yeah, it was. It was like they were textbook themed. 0:39:21.600 --> 0:39:23.960 So anyway, Yeah, they have some, they have some. They 0:39:23.960 --> 0:39:26.359 have some great music. I went, I'd never really gotten 0:39:26.360 --> 0:39:27.719 into their stuff, but I did make sure that I 0:39:27.760 --> 0:39:29.839 listened to some of their tracks. They have a great 0:39:29.920 --> 0:39:34.239 nineteen seventy one cover of Indian Reservation So solid group. 0:39:35.000 --> 0:39:37.560 Mark turned to film scoring in the nineteen seventies for 0:39:37.600 --> 0:39:40.799 a bet w Michael Lewis, for his part, was a 0:39:40.880 --> 0:39:44.239 music producer who got into scoring with nineteen seventy eight 0:39:44.320 --> 0:39:47.279 Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle, and he'd go on to 0:39:47.280 --> 0:39:51.080 score nineteen eighties New Year's Evil, nineteen eighty one's Enter 0:39:51.120 --> 0:39:54.960 the Ninja, and also the TV series In Search of 0:39:55.200 --> 0:39:56.719 starring Letter Tame like Oh. 0:39:56.760 --> 0:39:58.319 I saw that when I looked him up. 0:40:00.160 --> 0:40:02.759 A couple of nineteen eighty seven releases Maximum Potential and 0:40:02.840 --> 0:40:03.960 Hot Child in the City. 0:40:04.520 --> 0:40:06.399 Sorry, I had to stop and remember what the name 0:40:06.440 --> 0:40:09.000 of this other Bermuda Triangle movie I was thinking of was. 0:40:09.520 --> 0:40:09.600 No. 0:40:09.719 --> 0:40:11.319 The one I was thinking of is a made for 0:40:11.400 --> 0:40:15.479 TV movie from nineteen also from nineteen seventy eight called 0:40:15.520 --> 0:40:19.480 The Bermuda Depths, which starred Carl Weathers in the shortest 0:40:19.520 --> 0:40:24.560 shorts ever made and also had burl ives as I 0:40:24.560 --> 0:40:28.400 think a marine biologist or something. But it's ultimately it's 0:40:28.440 --> 0:40:30.600 about a giant turtle that attacks a boat. 0:40:31.160 --> 0:40:35.120 I think you made me watch the climax from this picture. 0:40:35.640 --> 0:40:37.040 And it looked not the best. 0:40:37.640 --> 0:40:42.640 It looked incredible. Maybe we'll come back to it, maybe 0:40:43.680 --> 0:40:47.200 so anyway, Yeah, the music for Shogun Assassin, I think 0:40:47.200 --> 0:40:51.640 it's just tremendous. Again, de Goro's theme is not only 0:40:51.680 --> 0:40:53.960 I think the best track on the score, but it's 0:40:54.000 --> 0:40:56.319 just an amazing and emotional number in its own right. 0:40:56.680 --> 0:40:58.680 Like it's one of these where I was listening to 0:40:58.719 --> 0:41:01.360 it earlier and it was like, is this one of 0:41:01.360 --> 0:41:04.120 my favorite songs? Now I think this is currently one 0:41:04.120 --> 0:41:07.640 of the greatest musical compositions of all time. My opinions 0:41:07.640 --> 0:41:10.480 will change, obviously, but right now it's really doing it 0:41:10.520 --> 0:41:10.759 for me. 0:41:11.200 --> 0:41:13.799 It's so good, Like I said, not holding anything back. 0:41:13.840 --> 0:41:17.920 You can imagine somebody being like, oh, is this music. 0:41:18.080 --> 0:41:19.799 I don't know, should we make it a little more 0:41:19.840 --> 0:41:23.759 subtle little but no, it's just it's just the raw 0:41:23.920 --> 0:41:29.719 power of feeling unleashed. Something feels absolutely unabashed about it, 0:41:29.800 --> 0:41:30.640 and I love. 0:41:30.480 --> 0:41:33.040 It, And it's perfect for a film that again is 0:41:33.080 --> 0:41:37.680 a Samurai reduction. You know, it had two films reduced 0:41:37.719 --> 0:41:42.040 into one. You know, just the most dizzying moments of 0:41:42.520 --> 0:41:47.480 psychedelia or bloody violence condensed into a single picture that 0:41:48.360 --> 0:41:50.640 I mean, it's really Again, it's a testament that they 0:41:50.640 --> 0:41:53.080 were to the film, that the American filmmakers here, that 0:41:53.120 --> 0:41:55.680 they were able to take part one and Part two 0:41:56.440 --> 0:41:58.560 in this series and make a single picture out of 0:41:58.560 --> 0:42:01.920 it that works this well. Yeah, the score here by 0:42:01.960 --> 0:42:04.480 the way to Shogun Assassin is available wherever you stream 0:42:04.520 --> 0:42:07.760 your music, and there are CD and vinyl versions as well. 0:42:08.160 --> 0:42:09.960 I do not know if there is like a blood 0:42:10.000 --> 0:42:13.600 red vinyl edition of this soundtrack, but there needs to be. 0:42:13.920 --> 0:42:16.960 If you listen to it, at least the version that 0:42:17.040 --> 0:42:19.760 I heard on Spotify. It includes some of the narration 0:42:19.880 --> 0:42:20.960 from the movie as well. 0:42:21.400 --> 0:42:24.279 Yeah, it's so good. That also made me tear up, 0:42:24.360 --> 0:42:27.960 like on an airplane listening to this. You know, people 0:42:28.000 --> 0:42:29.680 are like, are you okay, And I'm like, I'm just 0:42:29.680 --> 0:42:32.640 listening to the Shogun Assassin soundtrack, man, that's all. That's 0:42:32.640 --> 0:42:33.879 all that's going on here. I'm good. 0:42:34.120 --> 0:42:36.480 This is funny. How similar are our experiences were? I 0:42:36.960 --> 0:42:41.680 also had embarrassing emotional episodes Digoros theme specifically. 0:42:42.040 --> 0:42:53.920 Yeah, all right, let's get into that plot of Shogun Assassin. 0:42:54.480 --> 0:42:56.640 All right, Well, we have already mentioned how strong the 0:42:56.640 --> 0:43:01.360 movie kicks off. So the introductory segment has a child's 0:43:01.440 --> 0:43:05.520 voice narrating as we see a montage of scenes play out, 0:43:05.920 --> 0:43:08.880 and this is the voice of Digoro, the Cub of 0:43:08.960 --> 0:43:12.719 Lone Wolf and Cub. So the introductory narration plays over 0:43:12.760 --> 0:43:17.800 this dark melody on synthesizer bas the sound of absolute doom, 0:43:18.480 --> 0:43:21.640 and we hear the child's voice say, when I was little, 0:43:21.840 --> 0:43:25.320 my father was famous. He was the greatest samurai in 0:43:25.400 --> 0:43:29.839 the empire, and he was the Shogun's decapitator. He cut 0:43:29.880 --> 0:43:32.440 off the heads of one hundred and thirty one lords 0:43:32.480 --> 0:43:36.840 for the shogun. And as this narration is going on, 0:43:37.040 --> 0:43:41.240 we see our protagonist walk into the frame the silent 0:43:41.280 --> 0:43:45.600 ogami Eto. His eyes are downcast, he moves slowly. He 0:43:45.640 --> 0:43:50.400 has a blank, lugubrious expression. And then we see Ito's 0:43:50.440 --> 0:43:54.800 blade twisting and gleaming in the light. And then suddenly 0:43:54.800 --> 0:43:59.000 there's like a shadow playlet entirely in red and just 0:43:59.040 --> 0:44:02.080 the silhouettes of the human figures in the foreground, and 0:44:02.080 --> 0:44:04.640 we see a man kneeling to receive a death sentence 0:44:05.000 --> 0:44:08.560 and another man, presumably our protagonist here, bringing a sword 0:44:08.680 --> 0:44:09.560 down on his neck. 0:44:10.080 --> 0:44:12.960 And to be clear, if you have to have your 0:44:12.960 --> 0:44:15.160 head cut off, this is the guy you want to 0:44:15.160 --> 0:44:17.480 do it. This guy is the ultimate pro. 0:44:17.840 --> 0:44:20.759 It reminds me of our series on the Invention of 0:44:20.800 --> 0:44:24.279 the guillotine, where we were talking about how bad a 0:44:24.280 --> 0:44:27.560 lot of professional executioners were and like they just couldn't 0:44:27.840 --> 0:44:30.000 like it took them way too many tries to get 0:44:30.000 --> 0:44:30.560 it done. 0:44:30.920 --> 0:44:34.680 Yeah, a gami eto one one swipe every time, guaranteed. 0:44:35.040 --> 0:44:37.719 If you want some real oof historical reading, look up 0:44:37.880 --> 0:44:38.760 Jack Ketch. 0:44:39.320 --> 0:44:43.799 Oh yeah, I remember some of these details. And it 0:44:43.880 --> 0:44:47.600 was also I recently visited the revisited the Tower of London, 0:44:47.840 --> 0:44:49.560 so I got I got to read more about some 0:44:49.640 --> 0:44:52.719 of these these execution facts. Yeah, but they did not 0:44:52.880 --> 0:44:56.359 have the shoguns mastered decapitator on hand. 0:44:57.280 --> 0:45:00.640 So Diegoro's narration goes on. He says it was a 0:45:00.680 --> 0:45:04.200 bad time for the empire. The shogun just stayed inside 0:45:04.200 --> 0:45:07.200 his castle and he never came out. People said his 0:45:07.239 --> 0:45:10.360 brain was infected by devils and that he was rotting 0:45:10.400 --> 0:45:13.920 with evil. The shogun said the people were not loyal. 0:45:14.320 --> 0:45:16.359 He said he had a lot of enemies, but he 0:45:16.480 --> 0:45:19.720 killed more people than that. Then we see a castle. 0:45:20.200 --> 0:45:22.680 The gate swing open, revealing sort of a court to 0:45:22.760 --> 0:45:26.239 a bunch of entourage of people and a ruler. And 0:45:26.360 --> 0:45:28.800 here's where I was originally going to break and discuss. 0:45:28.840 --> 0:45:31.360 Wait a minute, is the guy we're seeing here the shogun? 0:45:31.400 --> 0:45:35.480 But we already had that conversation, not originally, but in 0:45:35.560 --> 0:45:38.600 Shogun Assassin, that is what is implied. He is the Shogun. 0:45:38.960 --> 0:45:41.800 Yes, yeah, so we're just going to continue referring to 0:45:41.840 --> 0:45:44.640 him as the Shogun just for the simplicity's sake here. 0:45:45.040 --> 0:45:49.280 And you know, oh, I do love this narration because 0:45:49.640 --> 0:45:52.239 there is a simplicity to it that also works not 0:45:52.280 --> 0:45:55.440 only for the project that is Shogun Assassin, but also 0:45:56.120 --> 0:45:59.040 the idea that this is a child's recollection and the 0:45:59.120 --> 0:46:03.080 child is working for from a much simpler view of 0:46:03.440 --> 0:46:07.920 right and wrong and good and evil in his known universe. 0:46:09.080 --> 0:46:11.919 Interesting. Yeah, and I guess implied by that, you're saying 0:46:11.920 --> 0:46:14.040 this might be sort of a child's memory of the 0:46:14.080 --> 0:46:16.320 Shogun in which he looks almost like a monster. 0:46:16.960 --> 0:46:19.000 Yeah, yeah, I think you could lean into that kind 0:46:19.000 --> 0:46:19.719 of interpretation. 0:46:20.120 --> 0:46:23.799 So he's got wild, uncombed white hair and beard that's 0:46:24.040 --> 0:46:27.440 blowing around in the wind like a mass of cobwebs. Also, 0:46:27.480 --> 0:46:31.160 he has flaring white eyebrows, his teeth are clenched, he's 0:46:31.200 --> 0:46:34.279 got dark eyes, and his eyes just keep jerking back 0:46:34.280 --> 0:46:39.080 and forth, suspicions suspiciously the Shogun is not well. And 0:46:39.120 --> 0:46:42.799 then we see the shogun soldiers leading bound men up 0:46:42.800 --> 0:46:45.360 a mountain side with their hands tied behind their back 0:46:45.680 --> 0:46:49.200 to a chaotic mass execution in the gravel beside a 0:46:49.239 --> 0:46:53.760 small tarn. The narration goes on. It was a bad time, 0:46:54.320 --> 0:46:58.279 everybody living in fear, but still we were happy. My 0:46:58.400 --> 0:47:01.040 father would come home to mother, and when he had 0:47:01.080 --> 0:47:04.240 seen her, he would forget about the killings. He wasn't 0:47:04.280 --> 0:47:07.399 scared of the shogun, but the shogun was scared of him. 0:47:08.080 --> 0:47:11.279 Maybe that was the problem. And so here we see 0:47:11.280 --> 0:47:13.799 a brief glimpse of the family's life at home, the 0:47:13.840 --> 0:47:17.280 mother nursing the baby's son at their house, rain pouring 0:47:17.320 --> 0:47:20.279 into the small bamboo forest outside, and I think the 0:47:20.440 --> 0:47:22.880 sort of weather is a metaphor. Here there's love and 0:47:22.920 --> 0:47:26.400 comfort inside, but not outside where the weather is bad. 0:47:27.239 --> 0:47:29.799 And the father comes home and undresses. He takes his 0:47:29.840 --> 0:47:32.400 baby in his arms, and the mother says that she 0:47:32.520 --> 0:47:35.000 had a bad dream, but the father calms her and 0:47:35.080 --> 0:47:37.680 says to the baby, what a time you chose to 0:47:37.719 --> 0:47:42.839 be born? Igoro. The narration goes on. At night, mother 0:47:42.880 --> 0:47:45.239 would sing for us, while father would go into his 0:47:45.320 --> 0:47:48.440 temple and pray for peace. He'd pray for things to 0:47:48.480 --> 0:47:52.120 get better. Then one night the shogun sent his ninja 0:47:52.160 --> 0:47:55.560 spies to our house. They were supposed to kill my father, 0:47:56.080 --> 0:48:00.080 but they didn't. Here we see ninja scaling the wall 0:48:00.120 --> 0:48:03.239 and sneaking into their home. And there, if you go 0:48:03.320 --> 0:48:05.600 back to our Ninja episodes from a while back, we 0:48:05.640 --> 0:48:08.440 see some stuff we talked about there, some equipment, like 0:48:08.480 --> 0:48:12.719 the ninja are carrying swords between their teeth out and 0:48:12.800 --> 0:48:16.000 they climb up on ropes on grappling hooks. And so 0:48:16.080 --> 0:48:19.160 the father is praying in his temple while with the 0:48:19.200 --> 0:48:21.800 baby in his arms, and then he hears his wife's 0:48:21.840 --> 0:48:24.160 scream from the other end of the house. By the 0:48:24.160 --> 0:48:27.000 time he gets there, she's mortally wounded and the ninja 0:48:27.080 --> 0:48:29.799 are gone, and the dying mother tells the father that 0:48:29.880 --> 0:48:33.560 he must protect their son. The narration tells us that 0:48:33.760 --> 0:48:37.480 was the night everything changed forever. That was when my 0:48:37.560 --> 0:48:41.520 father left his samurai life and became a demon. He 0:48:41.600 --> 0:48:45.000 became an assassin who walks the road of vengeance, and 0:48:45.040 --> 0:48:48.000 he took me with him. And then at this moment 0:48:48.120 --> 0:48:52.120 we see a scene of the dynamic that will be 0:48:52.160 --> 0:48:54.439 treated as sort of the ground reality for the rest 0:48:54.480 --> 0:48:58.640 of the movie. The father trudging along lonely, desolate roads, 0:48:58.760 --> 0:49:01.759 pushing a wooden cart and the baby son riding in 0:49:01.800 --> 0:49:06.120 the cart. Daigo says, I don't remember most of this myself. 0:49:06.520 --> 0:49:10.080 I only remember the Shogun's ninja hunting us wherever we go, 0:49:10.600 --> 0:49:13.000 and the body's falling and the blood. 0:49:14.440 --> 0:49:17.040 Yeah, and this is the like, this is the key 0:49:17.880 --> 0:49:21.879 component of Lone Wolf and Cub that has been highly influential. 0:49:22.160 --> 0:49:24.600 So if you out there are a fan of the 0:49:24.600 --> 0:49:29.239 Mandalorian series, like the Mandalorian is quite clearly and you know, 0:49:29.320 --> 0:49:32.520 the creators are very upfront about this, very much inspired 0:49:32.560 --> 0:49:36.080 by Lone Wolf and Cub. You know, a warrior protecting 0:49:36.080 --> 0:49:41.799 a child, you know, hunted by enemies, but you know, 0:49:41.880 --> 0:49:46.600 standing by the child to protect them, and especially with 0:49:46.680 --> 0:49:49.800 Lone Wolf and Cub, I couldn't help. But also compare 0:49:49.800 --> 0:49:52.920 it to the two thousand and six novel by Cormick McCarthy, 0:49:53.280 --> 0:49:55.960 The Road, in which a father and his son traverse 0:49:56.000 --> 0:49:59.600 a doomed landscape where there's ever present danger and the 0:49:59.640 --> 0:50:02.720 father's entire existence is to still down to the protection 0:50:02.880 --> 0:50:06.040 of his son. Quote. He knew only that his child 0:50:06.160 --> 0:50:08.640 was his warrant. He said, if he is not the 0:50:08.640 --> 0:50:12.080 word of God, God never spoke. You know that that 0:50:12.160 --> 0:50:15.000 kind of vibe. So, I mean, I don't know the 0:50:15.040 --> 0:50:18.600 Court McCarthy ever watched Shogun Assassin, but you know, I 0:50:18.600 --> 0:50:21.839 think they're scratching the same itch here. But I think 0:50:21.880 --> 0:50:24.160 it's something that you know, a lot of us can 0:50:24.200 --> 0:50:27.480 relate to. You know, certainly if if there is a 0:50:27.560 --> 0:50:29.720 child in your life where there has been a child 0:50:29.760 --> 0:50:32.640 in your life, where you have this role as a 0:50:33.200 --> 0:50:35.560 as a protector, like, it's easy to sort of lean 0:50:35.680 --> 0:50:39.200 into this. I think ultimately, you know, very distilled idea 0:50:39.360 --> 0:50:42.560 of what your responsibility is. You know, in the same 0:50:42.640 --> 0:50:46.560 way that zombie films are enthralling because it simplifies good 0:50:46.600 --> 0:50:48.960 and evil into like you know, and in us versus them. 0:50:49.360 --> 0:50:51.719 It's like this kind of the lone wolf and cub 0:50:51.880 --> 0:50:55.200 model reduces everything down to I must protect my child 0:50:55.239 --> 0:50:58.960 from ninjas, you know. And you know, we get to 0:50:59.040 --> 0:50:59.799 some degree that is. 0:50:59.800 --> 0:51:03.879 Act yeah, and so, and we get that demonstrated here 0:51:03.880 --> 0:51:06.320 because here we go to the very first action scene 0:51:06.320 --> 0:51:10.160 in the film, the attack by ninja wearing baskets over 0:51:10.200 --> 0:51:14.200 their heads, which is amazingly creepy and memorable. So it 0:51:14.600 --> 0:51:18.080 begins with one man running toward the father and son 0:51:18.120 --> 0:51:20.520 from a distance. They're on the road. He's pushing the 0:51:20.600 --> 0:51:23.439 cart there just in the middle of nowhere, and there's 0:51:23.440 --> 0:51:27.520 someone running toward them, sword in hand, his head completely 0:51:27.560 --> 0:51:30.160 covered in a basket like a helmet with a mask 0:51:30.239 --> 0:51:32.280 in the front. There's kind of a grating in the basket, 0:51:32.320 --> 0:51:34.800 but you can't see his face. And there's a long 0:51:34.920 --> 0:51:38.000 build up as the ninja draws closer, and then finally, 0:51:38.040 --> 0:51:41.480 when he's in within striking distance, the father just suddenly 0:51:41.480 --> 0:51:45.400 flicks his sword and cleaves the ninja's head through the basket, 0:51:45.719 --> 0:51:48.960 with the ninja catching the blade between his hands as 0:51:49.000 --> 0:51:53.880 he dies. And then a second ninja leaps out from 0:51:53.920 --> 0:51:58.120 behind the first, springs from his dying partner's shoulders and 0:51:58.200 --> 0:52:01.480 tries to land a killing stroke while his while the 0:52:01.520 --> 0:52:05.000 father's sword is stuck. But the father is too crafty. 0:52:05.040 --> 0:52:08.560 He pulls a hidden second weapon from the cart, which 0:52:08.600 --> 0:52:11.399 is a bamboo pole with a retractable blade in it, 0:52:11.719 --> 0:52:14.440 and he skewers the attacker in mid air. And so 0:52:14.520 --> 0:52:17.400 then as the first ninja collapses with his dying breath, 0:52:17.440 --> 0:52:20.800 he tells the father, you are marked for death. Wherever 0:52:20.880 --> 0:52:23.520 you go, you cannot escape the showgun. 0:52:24.360 --> 0:52:29.040 Oh, it's such a strong start this scene is not 0:52:29.080 --> 0:52:31.840 only is it from the second film Lone Wolf and 0:52:31.880 --> 0:52:34.719 Cub Baby cart at the River Sticks. It is the 0:52:34.800 --> 0:52:37.920 cold open to that picture, like he just goes straight 0:52:38.000 --> 0:52:42.160 to this encounter, and it's a little longer in the 0:52:42.200 --> 0:52:44.320 original cut obviously. 0:52:44.640 --> 0:52:44.799 But. 0:52:47.320 --> 0:52:48.879 I have several thoughts of this same. First of all, 0:52:48.880 --> 0:52:51.439 in the Showgun Assassin cut, I believe the second area 0:52:51.520 --> 0:52:54.440 assassin that leaps over the shoulders of the first, I 0:52:54.480 --> 0:52:59.799 believe he says ninja is he? Which is great with 0:52:59.840 --> 0:53:04.360 an the context of Showgun Assassin, But of course in reality, 0:53:04.440 --> 0:53:06.399 I don't know that as a ninja you would say 0:53:06.520 --> 0:53:13.000 ninja as you attack somebody, But still I love it. Secondly, yeah, okay, 0:53:13.560 --> 0:53:17.320 back to the first assassin though. Yeah, he apparently tries 0:53:17.400 --> 0:53:21.440 to pull off this maneuver that is known in Japanese manga, anime, 0:53:21.520 --> 0:53:26.719 and cinema as a shinkin shiradori. This is where you 0:53:26.840 --> 0:53:29.920 catch the blade with between your palms before it can 0:53:29.920 --> 0:53:32.640 cut into you, and then if you're really sadly maybe 0:53:32.640 --> 0:53:34.840 you do a special twist to sort of like throw 0:53:34.960 --> 0:53:39.239 the attacker to the side. This has become like a standard, 0:53:39.760 --> 0:53:43.520 not only in manga, in Japanese cinema but throughout like 0:53:43.640 --> 0:53:46.880 action picture the action picture world. Like for instance, in 0:53:46.920 --> 0:53:49.880 Blade two, the day Walker pulls this move off kind 0:53:49.920 --> 0:53:53.600 of lad in the picture to great effect, but in reality, 0:53:53.640 --> 0:53:57.040 I'm to understand this is impossible for a human swordsman 0:53:57.080 --> 0:53:59.239 to pull off. I think there's a MythBusters episode where 0:53:59.239 --> 0:54:02.800 they look into it, and I think the word the 0:54:03.120 --> 0:54:07.560 term shinkin shihradori. I think it originally referred to some 0:54:07.600 --> 0:54:10.440 sort of maneuver that keeps your opponent from even drawing 0:54:10.480 --> 0:54:13.359 their sword. So like, that's the time to stop it 0:54:13.680 --> 0:54:17.960 not coming through the air at your head. Yeah, but 0:54:18.080 --> 0:54:20.880 what makes this sequence so amazing is that you know 0:54:20.960 --> 0:54:23.600 you're going up against the greatest swordsman that's ever lived. 0:54:23.800 --> 0:54:28.000 You're trying to counter his deathly sword strike, and he 0:54:28.040 --> 0:54:30.759 does not get all of that counter move. Yeah, it's 0:54:30.800 --> 0:54:33.120 like maybe he stops it from cleaving his head all 0:54:33.120 --> 0:54:35.560 the way through, but it has already entered the brain 0:54:35.640 --> 0:54:36.200 at this point. 0:54:36.640 --> 0:54:39.359 But it almost seems like this was the plan, Like 0:54:39.440 --> 0:54:42.120 the plan is that the father will get his sword 0:54:42.320 --> 0:54:45.359 stuck in the first ninja and the second one will 0:54:45.480 --> 0:54:47.799 use that moment to strike. Did you get it the 0:54:47.840 --> 0:54:48.360 same way? 0:54:48.480 --> 0:54:51.080 Absolutely? And that's a little more clear in the original 0:54:51.080 --> 0:54:53.600 cut of this action sequence, but I think it still 0:54:53.640 --> 0:54:55.959 comes through in Shogun Assassin as well. But yeah, it's 0:54:56.280 --> 0:54:58.840 a great start to the combat because this is going 0:54:58.920 --> 0:55:00.080 to set the tone. 0:55:00.200 --> 0:55:02.720 So after the intro, we see the father and sons 0:55:02.760 --> 0:55:05.279 sitting together at a campfire in the middle of a 0:55:05.520 --> 0:55:08.719 thick forest. They're eating something white. I think it's rice 0:55:08.800 --> 0:55:11.760 balls or maybe buns or something, and they're just sitting 0:55:11.840 --> 0:55:15.439 there staring blankly into the fire, and the child's voice 0:55:15.440 --> 0:55:19.560 over continues. He says, my father hardly ever talks anymore. 0:55:19.920 --> 0:55:22.759 We just go a little farther every day at night, 0:55:22.840 --> 0:55:25.400 we make a fire and have our tea, and we 0:55:25.520 --> 0:55:29.279 listen for the ninja who never make a sound. I 0:55:29.400 --> 0:55:33.440 like that part. Same Diego says, sometimes he tells me 0:55:33.480 --> 0:55:36.319 about the past and about mother. I try not to 0:55:36.360 --> 0:55:39.520 think about it, but my father can't help it. Sometimes 0:55:39.520 --> 0:55:43.120 he gets lost in the past. And here we're about 0:55:43.120 --> 0:55:46.280 to see a couple of flashback scenes from before Lone 0:55:46.280 --> 0:55:49.319 Wolf and cub Win on the Run. The first is 0:55:49.440 --> 0:55:53.200 after the death of Azami Diego's mother. This is the 0:55:53.239 --> 0:55:58.399 sword and ball scene where the father he's grieving. He's 0:55:58.400 --> 0:56:01.920 not in his right mind, and Asdigo with him in 0:56:01.960 --> 0:56:05.200 his temple. They're both dressed in white, and the father says, 0:56:05.280 --> 0:56:08.480 today I begin walking the road to hell, but you 0:56:08.560 --> 0:56:11.960 will choose your own path. And he offers a sword 0:56:12.200 --> 0:56:15.279 and a toy ball. And so the idea is, he says, 0:56:15.400 --> 0:56:18.120 choose the sword and the child will join his father 0:56:18.239 --> 0:56:21.000 on the road to hell. Choose the toy and the 0:56:21.120 --> 0:56:24.560 child will join his mother in heaven. And there's some suspense, 0:56:24.680 --> 0:56:27.480 but the cub he crawls and he reaches for the sword, 0:56:27.880 --> 0:56:30.319 and the father is both troubled and relieved, and he 0:56:30.400 --> 0:56:33.080 hugs his son and says that his mother would be proud, 0:56:33.120 --> 0:56:36.640 and they will defy the shogun together. Assassin with son. 0:56:37.360 --> 0:56:40.120 It's a great sequence. He says that, like it's like 0:56:40.160 --> 0:56:41.520 the name of their business. 0:56:41.840 --> 0:56:44.680 Yeah, well it is. It does pretty bod. I forget 0:56:44.680 --> 0:56:47.320 exactly what the wording is. But they have that banner 0:56:47.360 --> 0:56:49.879 on their cart. That's like sword for hire, son for hire. 0:56:51.440 --> 0:56:54.200 You need a hold of toddler, got you covered? You 0:56:54.239 --> 0:56:58.120 need a local enemy cut in half. We can talk. 0:56:58.800 --> 0:57:03.320 So the other flashback is what followed immediately followed that immediately, 0:57:03.360 --> 0:57:06.360 which is the moment of defiance. So the shogun's emissary 0:57:06.920 --> 0:57:10.160 comes to the father and reads a decree that he 0:57:10.239 --> 0:57:13.840 must either swear eternal loyalty to the shogun or commit 0:57:13.920 --> 0:57:18.120 harakiri with his son, and obviously he's gonna do neither one. 0:57:18.240 --> 0:57:20.760 He's got his head down and he starts to laugh 0:57:20.800 --> 0:57:24.600 and then slowly raises his face up, looking very stern 0:57:24.720 --> 0:57:27.800 and almost evil, and he says, you are wrong. I 0:57:27.960 --> 0:57:30.880 have a third choice. And then the other guys they 0:57:30.920 --> 0:57:34.360 immediately get like freaked out. Uh oh. And in one 0:57:34.480 --> 0:57:36.600 arm he picks up his infant son, and in the 0:57:36.640 --> 0:57:39.560 other arm he draws his sword. And the officials who 0:57:39.640 --> 0:57:41.960 read the decree they call for guards. They're like, ah, 0:57:42.000 --> 0:57:44.520 stop him, can't you see he's a devil. I'm not 0:57:44.520 --> 0:57:47.400 sure quite what was meant by that, but it's yeah, 0:57:47.760 --> 0:57:50.400 they're seeing him as some kind of demon. And this 0:57:50.560 --> 0:57:53.640 leads to a brutal sword fight, one against many to 0:57:53.840 --> 0:57:56.800 escape the building, and the father has his son in 0:57:56.840 --> 0:58:00.000 the crook of one arm the whole time. It's very 0:58:00.080 --> 0:58:04.000 stylized violence. We see a sword blade break off inside 0:58:04.000 --> 0:58:07.040 a guard's neck. There are jets of bright red blood 0:58:07.040 --> 0:58:10.640 that erupt like geysers from the adversary's wounds. You can 0:58:10.680 --> 0:58:13.400 see why this was effective on the midnight movie circuit. 0:58:14.080 --> 0:58:16.360 Yeah. I don't know if arterial sprays like this are 0:58:16.400 --> 0:58:20.760 realistic or hyperrealistic. I thankfully do not know, but it 0:58:20.840 --> 0:58:23.800 certainly sizzles on the screen and you get this idea 0:58:23.840 --> 0:58:26.840 that a human's life blood is just this high pressure substance, 0:58:27.160 --> 0:58:31.920 absolutely straining for release by a skilled swordsman like ogami Eto. 0:58:32.600 --> 0:58:35.520 Yeah, a lot of blood jets in this movie. However, 0:58:35.640 --> 0:58:38.000 as the father cuts his way out of the compound, 0:58:38.480 --> 0:58:42.080 he is suddenly faced with the Shogun and his entourage. 0:58:42.720 --> 0:58:45.320 The Shogun so he like cuts through the gate and 0:58:45.360 --> 0:58:47.280 the gate opens and the Shogun is there with all 0:58:47.320 --> 0:58:50.320 of his men. The Shogun calls him mad one and 0:58:50.400 --> 0:58:53.040 says he can never escape his fate, but he offers 0:58:53.080 --> 0:58:56.919 him a deal. He says, you agree to a one 0:58:56.960 --> 0:59:00.160 on one duel with my son with the Shogun's son, 0:59:00.400 --> 0:59:02.600 and if Lone Wolf can win this duel, he will 0:59:02.640 --> 0:59:05.520 be awarded his freedom, and Lone Wolf accepts. 0:59:06.440 --> 0:59:08.640 Now, again, I'm not going to go into a lot 0:59:08.640 --> 0:59:11.480 of detail about the differences between the original pictures and 0:59:11.520 --> 0:59:13.280 Chokun Assassin, but I do feel like I need to 0:59:13.320 --> 0:59:16.000 jump in on this one say and point out that 0:59:16.080 --> 0:59:19.440 in the original again, Ogami is cornered not by the 0:59:19.440 --> 0:59:23.880 shogun but by Ratsuto and his men, and he's given 0:59:23.880 --> 0:59:26.560 a choice here. He's like, Okay, this is the way 0:59:26.560 --> 0:59:29.960 it can go down for you, Ogami. Either you go 0:59:30.000 --> 0:59:33.640 ahead and commit your honorable suicide right now, or my 0:59:33.760 --> 0:59:35.720 soldiers are going to cut you down with their quote 0:59:35.760 --> 0:59:40.720 wall of swords. And Ogami says, no, neither of those 0:59:40.760 --> 0:59:42.760 is going to happen, and he tears off these outer 0:59:42.880 --> 0:59:46.320 white robes and reveals that he wears black robes with 0:59:46.400 --> 0:59:51.160 the hollyhock crest of the Tokugawa Shogunate. So he's like, look, 0:59:51.200 --> 0:59:54.320 I'm wearing the colors in the crest of the shogun 0:59:54.840 --> 0:59:57.720 You can't kill me. You can't even point your swords 0:59:57.720 --> 1:00:02.360 at me without dishonoring yourself. And so they're at a standstill, 1:00:02.440 --> 1:00:05.040 and so a compromise is made. Okay, you remove those 1:00:05.120 --> 1:00:10.120 robes and we will settle this via a formal duel. Yeah, 1:00:10.240 --> 1:00:12.080 because otherwise you might say, well, why didn't they just 1:00:12.120 --> 1:00:14.400 cut him down? Well, in the original picture it made 1:00:14.400 --> 1:00:14.800 more sense. 1:00:15.240 --> 1:00:18.600 Yeah, So we go to the duel. From here, the 1:00:18.680 --> 1:00:21.800 duel takes place in the afternoon in a meadow of 1:00:21.840 --> 1:00:24.200 tall grass blowing in the wind, and we see the 1:00:24.440 --> 1:00:27.560 two samurai square off at a distance. The shogun's sun 1:00:27.680 --> 1:00:32.680 is scowling, hateful, determined. The Lone Wolf wears the cub 1:00:32.880 --> 1:00:36.680 on a basket on his back, and they draw their 1:00:36.680 --> 1:00:39.280 swords and charge at one another. But Lone Wolf has 1:00:39.360 --> 1:00:41.880 a trick up his sleeve here. Right when they are 1:00:41.880 --> 1:00:44.720 about to meet on the field, Lone Wolf bows his 1:00:44.840 --> 1:00:49.919 head and reveals a mirror mounted on Diigero's head, which 1:00:50.040 --> 1:00:53.680 reflects the low sun and blinds their enemy. And then 1:00:53.760 --> 1:00:58.120 Lone Wolf chops off the lord's son's head and his 1:00:58.200 --> 1:01:01.040 body is just standing there, headlows with jets of blood 1:01:01.080 --> 1:01:03.640 blasting out of the next stump in slow motion in 1:01:03.720 --> 1:01:04.760 the golden sunset. 1:01:05.400 --> 1:01:08.440 Oh it's beautiful, I mean in a grizzly way. It 1:01:08.520 --> 1:01:11.360 is so beautiful. And one thing that's pointed out in 1:01:11.400 --> 1:01:13.600 the sor I'm going to do one more of these. Well, 1:01:13.800 --> 1:01:17.200 something that's pointed out in the original picture is that 1:01:17.800 --> 1:01:21.040 this is like a swordsman that is of comparable ability 1:01:22.040 --> 1:01:25.640 to a gami, but he has the sun to his back, 1:01:25.960 --> 1:01:30.560 and therefore he has an advantage and will probably prevail. 1:01:31.000 --> 1:01:36.440 But Ogami, via the cub and his mirror, turns his 1:01:36.520 --> 1:01:40.080 advantage into a disadvantage by reflecting the sunlight back into 1:01:40.160 --> 1:01:40.680 his eyes. 1:01:41.200 --> 1:01:43.400 That does make more sense of it, because this part 1:01:43.440 --> 1:01:45.480 I was thinking, well, he's just like cutting the slicing 1:01:45.520 --> 1:01:49.080 through everybody, like butter, Why is this guy such a challenge, 1:01:49.640 --> 1:01:51.400 But it would make sense if we know something about 1:01:51.480 --> 1:01:54.000 him and that he has an advantage on the Yeah, 1:01:54.000 --> 1:01:57.000 though they do show the sun. They don't talk about it, 1:01:57.040 --> 1:01:59.640 but they do show the sun being low and in 1:01:59.680 --> 1:02:01.320 his face. Yeah. 1:02:01.440 --> 1:02:03.520 Either way, even if you don't know all those details, 1:02:03.600 --> 1:02:07.440 it is another super stylistically violent execution. 1:02:07.880 --> 1:02:10.600 Yeah. So this scene fades back into a scene of 1:02:10.720 --> 1:02:14.000 lone wolf and Cub at a campfire in the wilderness, 1:02:14.360 --> 1:02:17.640 and the camera slowly pulls back from them as father 1:02:17.720 --> 1:02:21.280 turns his head. And then on the soundtrack they had 1:02:21.280 --> 1:02:24.840 to add this in we get a guttural, animalistic growl. 1:02:25.080 --> 1:02:31.640 It's a wolf growling, probably just a dog right. Yeah, anyway, 1:02:31.640 --> 1:02:34.480 here the introductory I would say this is the part 1:02:34.480 --> 1:02:37.280 where the introductory part of the movie gives way to 1:02:37.320 --> 1:02:40.600 the main plot. Though, as we said earlier, the idea 1:02:40.720 --> 1:02:44.160 that this movie has a plot, it's very loose. Basically, 1:02:44.200 --> 1:02:46.960 the plot is the father wanders the country pushing his 1:02:47.000 --> 1:02:49.680 son in a wooden cart. They stop at places where 1:02:49.720 --> 1:02:52.560 the father can take contracts. He works as an assassin, 1:02:53.040 --> 1:02:55.920 and he makes money. He makes money to live this way, 1:02:56.320 --> 1:02:59.080 but he doesn't seem to really want to become rich 1:02:59.160 --> 1:03:01.440 or like find a way out. He sort of seems 1:03:01.440 --> 1:03:03.760 to squander the money he makes. From what I can. 1:03:03.680 --> 1:03:06.200 Tell, Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is 1:03:06.240 --> 1:03:10.160 like he's I mean, he has no future, Like his 1:03:10.240 --> 1:03:12.600 son is the only future that matters, and he will 1:03:12.600 --> 1:03:15.560 do everything for him, but like he has lost all honor. 1:03:15.640 --> 1:03:18.360 He's a wandering ronan. What is he going to do 1:03:18.400 --> 1:03:20.919 with this money except, you know, pay for the next 1:03:21.000 --> 1:03:24.560 night's sleep, pay for the next bath, and so forth. 1:03:24.800 --> 1:03:25.320 Yeah. 1:03:25.400 --> 1:03:28.880 So, meanwhile, the shogun keeps hiring new ninjas and assassins 1:03:28.920 --> 1:03:32.520 to send after him and his son, so we follow 1:03:32.560 --> 1:03:35.520 several episodes of that where assassins are sent after them. 1:03:35.920 --> 1:03:39.960 The main mission of this film, especially in the second half, 1:03:40.040 --> 1:03:42.440 is a job that the Lone Wolf takes from a 1:03:42.480 --> 1:03:46.040 group of locals asking him to kill a lord Kirou. 1:03:46.240 --> 1:03:49.880 The Shogun's cruel brother who is oppressing them. But Lord 1:03:49.960 --> 1:03:53.080 Kirou is guarded by three ninja brothers known as the 1:03:53.160 --> 1:03:56.560 Masters of Death, whom we mentioned earlier. Kind of the 1:03:57.520 --> 1:04:00.120 visual inspiration clearly, or at least part of the the 1:04:00.200 --> 1:04:04.080 DNA that inspired the three storms from a big trouble 1:04:04.120 --> 1:04:08.200 in Little China, the large wide hats, the specialized weapons, 1:04:08.520 --> 1:04:09.760 and the deadly auras. 1:04:10.240 --> 1:04:13.520 Yeah, and they do just cut everyone to ribbons when 1:04:13.560 --> 1:04:16.760 they jump into action. The Masters of Death are awesome. 1:04:17.240 --> 1:04:19.000 Yeah, And so the final showdown at the end of 1:04:19.040 --> 1:04:23.040 the movie will be the Father versus the three Masters 1:04:23.040 --> 1:04:25.760 of Death in a scene in the desert. Strangely, I 1:04:25.760 --> 1:04:27.840 was kind of wondering where that's supposed to take place. 1:04:28.200 --> 1:04:29.840 Yeah, I've never been to any of these, but there 1:04:29.840 --> 1:04:33.120 are a few different sand dunes in Japan, and I'm 1:04:33.160 --> 1:04:35.520 not sure which one we're looking at here, but I 1:04:35.520 --> 1:04:37.360 think I've seen it pop up in a few different 1:04:37.440 --> 1:04:44.400 Japanese films and TV shows over the years. 1:04:48.160 --> 1:04:50.640 Okay, well, I guess we've sort of sketched the general 1:04:50.680 --> 1:04:52.640 outline of the plot, but maybe we can talk about 1:04:52.680 --> 1:04:55.480 a few scenes that we just wanted to explore in 1:04:55.520 --> 1:04:57.840 a little bit of detail. One that I wanted to 1:04:57.880 --> 1:05:00.280 mention is closer to the beginning, and it's the scene 1:05:00.320 --> 1:05:03.080 where a lone wolf and cub visit a bath house 1:05:03.160 --> 1:05:08.440 in town. Because so Digoro is explaining in the narration 1:05:08.640 --> 1:05:11.919 that visiting a town is dangerous because they don't fit 1:05:12.000 --> 1:05:15.320 in and the shogun's ninja are everywhere. But then he says, 1:05:15.600 --> 1:05:17.760 but sometimes you have to take a chance if you 1:05:17.800 --> 1:05:20.240 want to take a bath. So they go to this 1:05:20.400 --> 1:05:23.080 bath house and the manager tries to turn them away, 1:05:23.200 --> 1:05:26.360 thinking that they are penniless beggars. But then lone Wolf 1:05:26.440 --> 1:05:29.040 flashes his wad of gold. He doesn't have a lot 1:05:29.600 --> 1:05:30.880 he like, gets it out of the cart, and the 1:05:30.920 --> 1:05:35.080 guy changes his tune. He eagerly goes to wash Digoro's feet, 1:05:35.440 --> 1:05:38.640 and then Digoro kicks water in the guy's face. And 1:05:38.680 --> 1:05:42.080 I like this scene because of the little moments of 1:05:43.080 --> 1:05:46.800 the child almost playing, like the way he stomps around 1:05:46.800 --> 1:05:49.280 in the tub. It's clear that for the rest of 1:05:49.280 --> 1:05:51.760 his life there is very little room for play, but 1:05:51.800 --> 1:05:53.040 here you get to see him play. 1:05:53.640 --> 1:05:56.680 Yeah, these little moments of play, they're very effective here, 1:05:56.800 --> 1:06:00.520 and they've of course been very effective in the Man Laurian, 1:06:01.120 --> 1:06:04.920 very much copying this blueprint. You know, the cuteness of 1:06:04.960 --> 1:06:09.080 the child, the baby Yoda, the Grogu, you know, very 1:06:09.160 --> 1:06:09.960 much patterned on this. 1:06:10.400 --> 1:06:13.320 Yeah. Also there's a moment here at the so they're 1:06:13.360 --> 1:06:15.360 like taking a bath. They're soaking in this big wash 1:06:15.480 --> 1:06:18.360 tub and it's supposed to be relaxing. You see the 1:06:18.400 --> 1:06:21.800 steam rising and they're kind of reclined. But there's an 1:06:21.800 --> 1:06:24.840 interesting moment where like the camera pulls back and reveals 1:06:24.920 --> 1:06:28.280 the father's arm is draped outside the tub and he's 1:06:28.400 --> 1:06:31.880 like gripping his sword. And there's never any attack in 1:06:31.960 --> 1:06:34.240 this scene. It's just that this is who he must be. 1:06:34.400 --> 1:06:34.640 Now. 1:06:34.920 --> 1:06:38.960 Yeah, Ogami can never truly rest. He always has his 1:06:39.000 --> 1:06:42.000 sword at his side, and in a moment that peace 1:06:42.040 --> 1:06:42.720 can disappear. 1:06:43.520 --> 1:06:45.960 And so there are more plots, Like there's a theme 1:06:46.080 --> 1:06:50.160 established that Lone Wolf's enemies want to take his son 1:06:50.200 --> 1:06:52.840 away from him. They think this will take away his power, 1:06:53.520 --> 1:06:57.120 and so there's one plot to steal de Gooro, and 1:06:57.160 --> 1:06:59.840 this leads to a fight scene in a river where 1:07:00.120 --> 1:07:01.840 these guys come and say, like, where is your son. 1:07:01.880 --> 1:07:05.400 We're going to take him, and then the father goes 1:07:05.440 --> 1:07:07.520 to fight them, and then it's discovered that they're like 1:07:07.640 --> 1:07:11.040 hiding armor underneath their clothing, but he fights them anyway, 1:07:11.600 --> 1:07:15.439 and it turns into like a final duel between him 1:07:15.520 --> 1:07:18.840 and one of the lords who opposes him. Standing in 1:07:18.840 --> 1:07:20.480 the middle of a river at the base of this 1:07:20.640 --> 1:07:22.280 I was going to say waterfall, but I think it 1:07:22.360 --> 1:07:24.880 might actually be a kind of a man made like 1:07:24.960 --> 1:07:29.200 spillway sort of thing, and Lone Wolf wins this fight 1:07:29.240 --> 1:07:32.520 by hiding his blade beneath the water before he turns 1:07:32.560 --> 1:07:33.000 to move it. 1:07:33.720 --> 1:07:36.680 Yeah, so we get another like super stylistic kill here. 1:07:37.080 --> 1:07:40.320 Yeah. Also after this duel is just the Shogun's just 1:07:40.360 --> 1:07:42.360 standing on a bridge over the water like, oh, I 1:07:42.400 --> 1:07:45.480 will get you. Yeah. 1:07:45.520 --> 1:07:48.720 They keep the dream of an encounter occurring with the 1:07:48.760 --> 1:07:52.520 showgun alive, though it's again it's not gonna happen, not 1:07:52.640 --> 1:07:53.280 in this film. 1:07:53.600 --> 1:07:58.440 Yeah. There's another great scene, which is the scene of 1:07:58.480 --> 1:08:02.240 recruiting the ninja win. So one of the bad guys 1:08:02.240 --> 1:08:04.960 I think this is Lord Kouragawa working for the Shogun. 1:08:05.680 --> 1:08:09.560 He meets with a woman who calls herself the Supreme Ninja. 1:08:10.480 --> 1:08:13.360 The Supreme Ninja. She commands an army of women who 1:08:13.440 --> 1:08:17.840 are all themselves Ninja warriors and the lord shows up 1:08:17.880 --> 1:08:21.720 to task them with destroying Lone Wolf and cub but 1:08:21.880 --> 1:08:25.439 she well, first of all, she they tell her that 1:08:25.479 --> 1:08:28.439 he fought a duel with the Shogun's air, and she says, 1:08:28.479 --> 1:08:31.479 what was the outcome of the duel? And he says terrible. 1:08:33.600 --> 1:08:38.160 But the Supreme Ninja offers the Shogun's emissary a demonstration 1:08:38.800 --> 1:08:41.760 of her of the prowess of her lady warriors. So 1:08:41.800 --> 1:08:45.280 she's like, show me your strongest man, and this silent 1:08:45.360 --> 1:08:48.400 fighter and a brown cloak and a conical hat comes forward. 1:08:48.439 --> 1:08:52.160 We learned this is Juni, the strongest fighter of I 1:08:52.200 --> 1:08:56.320 think it's Lord Kuragawa here. And so the Supreme Ninja 1:08:56.720 --> 1:08:59.640 addresses Junin ands says, okay, you've got to try to 1:08:59.640 --> 1:09:02.479 find a way to escape from this room. But like 1:09:02.600 --> 1:09:05.200 as she says this, her women are gathering around him, 1:09:05.560 --> 1:09:08.320 and things are about to go very poorly for Junei. 1:09:08.920 --> 1:09:12.360 He tries to escape using a grappling hook in the rafters. 1:09:12.439 --> 1:09:14.639 He throws it up to the ceiling and swing out 1:09:14.680 --> 1:09:17.160 of the chamber, but the women cut the rope, they 1:09:17.360 --> 1:09:20.720 rip off his cloak, they pull swords out of their dresses, 1:09:21.080 --> 1:09:24.200 and then they just run around slicing pieces off of 1:09:24.240 --> 1:09:26.200 this dude one at a time. So, like we see 1:09:26.200 --> 1:09:29.719 his fingers hit the floor and then the skin from 1:09:29.760 --> 1:09:33.000 his face falls down to the floor like a rubber mask. 1:09:33.160 --> 1:09:36.240 Oh it's rough. They cut him into a lot of pieces. 1:09:36.800 --> 1:09:39.080 Yeah, this scene is so grizzly and wonderful. They just 1:09:39.160 --> 1:09:43.240 systematically take him apart, reducing him to a limbless, faceless 1:09:43.320 --> 1:09:46.600 husk that like rolls across the floor, and you know, 1:09:46.640 --> 1:09:48.679 then there's nothing left to do but dispatch him. 1:09:48.960 --> 1:09:52.040 And then the Supreme Ninja says, this is your best man. 1:09:52.240 --> 1:09:55.400 Lone Wolf would swallow him and then begin the most 1:09:55.439 --> 1:09:59.360 deranged Harley Quinn laughter. It goes on for a long 1:09:59.439 --> 1:10:02.840 time and stops quite suddenly, and she's calm and she says, 1:10:02.960 --> 1:10:05.639 my women will execute him. 1:10:06.280 --> 1:10:10.160 So basically this lays the groundwork for the next trio 1:10:10.280 --> 1:10:13.439 of sequences, as the has three different groups of the 1:10:13.479 --> 1:10:16.960 female Ninja's attempt to take out Lone Wolf and cut Yeah. 1:10:17.000 --> 1:10:21.639 So so first, well, this is outside. They're on the road. 1:10:22.439 --> 1:10:25.920 Eventually they're pushing the cart between Dikon fields and I 1:10:26.040 --> 1:10:29.160 like how at the Dikon Fields the women are like 1:10:29.240 --> 1:10:31.679 down in the stream washing the Dikon in the water, 1:10:32.080 --> 1:10:35.240 and there's this creepy scarecrow with this like wide eyed 1:10:35.280 --> 1:10:40.320 face drawn on its headsack. It's interesting environmental details. But actually, 1:10:40.320 --> 1:10:43.360 before they get to the Dikon fields, there's an ambush 1:10:43.400 --> 1:10:45.920 by traveling entertainers on the road side. And I thought 1:10:45.960 --> 1:10:48.120 this was funny because in our in our Ninja episode, 1:10:48.160 --> 1:10:51.920 we were talking about some classic story of Ninja running 1:10:51.920 --> 1:10:55.680 around and spying by pretending to be traveling entertainers. 1:10:56.200 --> 1:10:57.280 Yeah, it's a perfect cover. 1:10:57.800 --> 1:10:59.760 So in this case, the father and son go by 1:10:59.840 --> 1:11:03.439 and the entertainers are they're like dancers or acrobats of 1:11:03.479 --> 1:11:07.639 some kind. They're jumping around, cart wheeling and somersaulting and stuff. 1:11:08.160 --> 1:11:12.600 Whatever these people are. They I think they somehow hypnotize 1:11:12.720 --> 1:11:17.479 Lone Wolf with the spinning patterns on their clothing as 1:11:17.520 --> 1:11:20.599 they spin around. So it gets very strawberry alarm clock 1:11:20.640 --> 1:11:24.559 for a minute here. But of course these are really 1:11:24.600 --> 1:11:27.800 the Supreme Ninja's assassins in disguise, and they try to 1:11:27.880 --> 1:11:30.080 launch a sneak attack, but Lone Wolf is too quick, 1:11:30.200 --> 1:11:34.439 even though he was briefly hypnotized by the clothing. His 1:11:34.479 --> 1:11:37.360 sword flashes and they are done. And this is the 1:11:37.400 --> 1:11:40.760 scene where Diegero starts counting the dead Ninja. You know, 1:11:40.840 --> 1:11:42.880 he says, I try to count them so I can 1:11:42.920 --> 1:11:46.240 pray for their souls. Father tells me not to count them, 1:11:46.280 --> 1:11:48.600 but I have to to know how many to pray for. 1:11:49.720 --> 1:11:52.000 And then I think he says, they're up to three 1:11:52.040 --> 1:11:53.400 hundred and forty five, Ninja. 1:11:53.840 --> 1:11:54.759 It's quite a count. 1:11:54.960 --> 1:11:57.200 Yeah. So then we get to the attack at the 1:11:57.280 --> 1:12:00.479 Dikon fields. So they're like going down the road in 1:12:00.520 --> 1:12:04.400 the cart and these women come up in different waves, 1:12:04.439 --> 1:12:07.400 Like the first wave of women throws these flying killer 1:12:07.479 --> 1:12:11.080 hats with blades on them, the blades on the brim, 1:12:12.000 --> 1:12:15.080 and Lone Wolf fights them off, kills them, and then 1:12:15.600 --> 1:12:21.320 there are the next wave has knives hidden inside the Dikon, which, okay, 1:12:22.000 --> 1:12:22.400 I love it. 1:12:22.439 --> 1:12:24.880 The dicons are like piercing the cart and all and 1:12:25.000 --> 1:12:27.320 oh and I have to mention in the the original 1:12:27.800 --> 1:12:31.439 the second Lone Wolf picture, when they're preparing the dicons 1:12:31.479 --> 1:12:34.160 by the river, they're singing a little song and the 1:12:34.240 --> 1:12:36.960 lyrics are something like, what's the side dish for tonight? 1:12:37.000 --> 1:12:41.040 Oh it's dicon. Uh. 1:12:41.400 --> 1:12:44.040 So yeah, there there are these little a lot of 1:12:44.080 --> 1:12:46.800 little tricks and secrets and reveals in this fight scene 1:12:46.840 --> 1:12:49.720 like secret knives popping out of the baby carriage, and 1:12:49.800 --> 1:12:52.160 our protagonists fight through it all until they get to 1:12:52.439 --> 1:12:56.040 the Supreme Ninja. She herself comes out to UH to 1:12:56.160 --> 1:12:59.800 administer the final attack on Lone Wolf here, which she 1:12:59.840 --> 1:13:00.799 does with a net. 1:13:01.400 --> 1:13:04.639 That's right, she nets him. The net prevents him from 1:13:04.680 --> 1:13:08.200 immediately being able to draw his sword, and of course 1:13:08.200 --> 1:13:10.519 he does eventually draw his sword, but they engage in 1:13:10.520 --> 1:13:14.320 this short, intense close combat sword fight where it's clear 1:13:14.360 --> 1:13:18.360 that they're pretty evenly matched, and we get to see 1:13:18.400 --> 1:13:24.719 her effectively pull off that sword clap shinkin Shihadori maneuver 1:13:24.920 --> 1:13:28.880 against Ogami, clapping his sword blade before it can hit her, 1:13:29.200 --> 1:13:31.720 and then she even does the twist and sends him 1:13:31.720 --> 1:13:34.519 a sprawling So it's a fun little like you know, 1:13:34.640 --> 1:13:39.439 evenly matched, you know, very close confines battle here, But. 1:13:39.400 --> 1:13:41.800 Then it gets kind of looney tunes right at the end, 1:13:41.880 --> 1:13:44.320 like they sort of fight to a draw, but when 1:13:44.360 --> 1:13:47.400 Lone Wolf is finally ready to like land a sword 1:13:47.400 --> 1:13:50.439 blow on her, he like hits her, but it doesn't 1:13:50.439 --> 1:13:53.720 actually hit her. She avoids it by jumping out of 1:13:53.760 --> 1:13:57.400 her clothes. She's not naked she's like still wearing some 1:13:57.479 --> 1:14:00.400 kind of full body stalking, but just lee gives her 1:14:00.439 --> 1:14:03.120 original clothes standing there and leaps up in the air 1:14:03.160 --> 1:14:05.880 out of them, lands in a field nearby, and then 1:14:05.960 --> 1:14:09.720 starts fast motion running backwards as if the tape were 1:14:09.760 --> 1:14:11.080 in reverse up a hill. 1:14:11.640 --> 1:14:14.600 Yes, Oh my god, this outcome is so wild. I 1:14:14.600 --> 1:14:16.519 can't stress enough how bonkers it is. I think looney 1:14:16.600 --> 1:14:19.000 tunes is the right word, because it's not like she 1:14:19.800 --> 1:14:22.640 peels out of her clothing in a realistic manner. It 1:14:22.720 --> 1:14:26.599 is like her outer garments are a jet fighter and 1:14:26.640 --> 1:14:28.040 she has ejected from them. 1:14:28.120 --> 1:14:31.960 Yes, and then runs like a spring snake in the can. 1:14:32.400 --> 1:14:34.760 Like a spring snake. And then the running backwards. I 1:14:34.760 --> 1:14:37.679 guess the idea is, like you, she can't lose sight 1:14:37.680 --> 1:14:41.760 of her opponent something, so yeah, she's just running backwards 1:14:42.160 --> 1:14:46.599 and doesn't take her eyes off of lone Wolf for 1:14:47.120 --> 1:14:48.840 quite a while, like at least a half a mile 1:14:49.880 --> 1:14:52.680 running backwards across the field. It's amazing. 1:14:52.840 --> 1:14:55.040 But she's going really fast, so we don't have to 1:14:55.080 --> 1:14:57.920 watch her go, you know, normal normal speed to a 1:14:57.920 --> 1:14:58.679 half mile. 1:14:58.560 --> 1:15:00.120 And he just sort of like looks at her. He 1:15:00.400 --> 1:15:01.560 just watches it. 1:15:03.160 --> 1:15:10.040 I've seen that trick before well matched. Then they also 1:15:10.080 --> 1:15:12.599 have to fight some more ninja in the woods. This 1:15:12.640 --> 1:15:14.840 is a more I don't know. There's a bunch of 1:15:14.840 --> 1:15:18.080 guys in the in the hats again and in this 1:15:18.120 --> 1:15:20.439 fight they use the cart as a weapon, like it's 1:15:20.439 --> 1:15:22.800 got blades that come out the sides and chop all 1:15:22.840 --> 1:15:27.760 the ninja's legs off. But after all this we come 1:15:27.800 --> 1:15:30.000 to the part I mentioned this near the top of 1:15:30.040 --> 1:15:31.960 the episode. We come to the part where Lone Wolf 1:15:32.160 --> 1:15:35.640 is injured and this leads to a sequence where the 1:15:35.680 --> 1:15:37.920 boy has to take care of his father, like his 1:15:37.960 --> 1:15:42.040 father is hiding in this little hut, and so I 1:15:42.120 --> 1:15:44.240 mentioned the scene earlier of the boy trying to bring 1:15:44.320 --> 1:15:47.040 him water from the river and he ends up having 1:15:47.040 --> 1:15:49.479 to carry it in his mouth. But there also he 1:15:49.520 --> 1:15:52.240 goes looking for food and he finds a food offering 1:15:52.360 --> 1:15:55.960 at a shrine, but then he and he wants to 1:15:56.000 --> 1:15:58.439 take it, but he doesn't want to be disrespectful, so 1:15:58.439 --> 1:16:00.519 he leaves an offering of his own in its place. 1:16:00.560 --> 1:16:02.400 He takes off some of his clothing and leaves it 1:16:02.439 --> 1:16:03.240 at the shrine. 1:16:03.800 --> 1:16:07.559 Yeah, this is a very sweet section and of course 1:16:07.560 --> 1:16:11.960 we have that great Digoro's theme playing and yeah, we 1:16:12.040 --> 1:16:15.200 see him, you know, bring water and then food back 1:16:15.800 --> 1:16:19.760 to Ogami as Ogami lays, perhaps dying we don't know 1:16:19.920 --> 1:16:22.640 at this point, but helping him to recuperate. 1:16:23.040 --> 1:16:28.320 Yeah. 1:16:31.640 --> 1:16:31.840 Oh. 1:16:31.880 --> 1:16:34.519 This leads to the part where Dikoro gets kidnapped to 1:16:34.560 --> 1:16:39.840 the Supreme Ninja and the Shogun's Lord. They decide, okay, 1:16:39.840 --> 1:16:43.000 we've got to steal him to steal the Lone Wolf's power. 1:16:43.439 --> 1:16:47.280 So they take Digo away and they lure the Lone 1:16:47.320 --> 1:16:49.760 Wolf out to find them in the middle of the night, 1:16:50.280 --> 1:16:54.160 and he finds them standing around a well where Digoro 1:16:54.200 --> 1:16:56.880 is suspended by a rope over the opening to the well. 1:16:57.520 --> 1:17:00.320 How's lone Wolf going to get out of this one? Well? 1:17:01.720 --> 1:17:04.240 So I think there's a clever little thing that I 1:17:04.280 --> 1:17:06.840 missed the first time around, but I was rewatching the 1:17:06.920 --> 1:17:10.360 scene and I realized what it was. So he says 1:17:10.400 --> 1:17:14.040 something to Digoro and then Digoro kicks his sandal off 1:17:14.160 --> 1:17:17.519 and it falls down the well, and I think that 1:17:17.680 --> 1:17:20.800 is letting the father know how long the drop is, 1:17:20.880 --> 1:17:23.439 like the timing of the drop, because what happens is 1:17:23.439 --> 1:17:26.479 he draws his sword and he quickly slashes a bunch 1:17:26.520 --> 1:17:28.679 of the bad guys and then stomps on the rope 1:17:28.720 --> 1:17:31.880 as Digoro is falling to stop him from falling, to 1:17:31.920 --> 1:17:33.960 stop him before he hits the water at the bottom. 1:17:34.360 --> 1:17:34.599 Yeah. 1:17:34.680 --> 1:17:36.599 Yeah, And this is another thing where it's I mean, 1:17:37.160 --> 1:17:40.519 the editing here is tight and effective. In the original film, 1:17:40.560 --> 1:17:44.639 I think maybe more instantly make sense what's happening, but yeah, 1:17:44.800 --> 1:17:46.040 you still get the sense of it here. 1:17:46.360 --> 1:17:49.920 Yeah. So he slashes all of his enemies here except 1:17:50.240 --> 1:17:53.439 for the Supreme Ninja who's just standing there watching, but 1:17:53.680 --> 1:17:56.880 she does not attack, and neither does Lone Wolf, and 1:17:56.880 --> 1:18:00.639 they kind of regard each other, and then will freeze 1:18:00.680 --> 1:18:04.080 his son and they walk away, and Daigo says in 1:18:04.120 --> 1:18:06.439 the narration, that was the first time I ever saw 1:18:06.520 --> 1:18:10.439 my father's spare an enemy, So I think there's some 1:18:10.520 --> 1:18:11.439 mutual respect. 1:18:12.040 --> 1:18:15.479 Absolutely. Yeah, and we'll come back to this character again too. 1:18:16.320 --> 1:18:19.879 But from here we kind of proceed into mostly dealing 1:18:20.080 --> 1:18:21.559 with the Masters of Death. 1:18:22.880 --> 1:18:25.360 There's a long sequence on a boat. I don't think 1:18:25.360 --> 1:18:27.120 we need to go into all the details of the 1:18:27.160 --> 1:18:29.240 boat journey and the fight on the boat, but there's 1:18:29.320 --> 1:18:33.280 like rebels who are fighting against someone and the Masters 1:18:33.280 --> 1:18:35.439 of Death mess them up on a boat. There's eventually 1:18:35.439 --> 1:18:38.040 a fire and everybody has to jump off the boat. 1:18:38.280 --> 1:18:41.080 Yeah, and after the everyone has to jump off the boat. 1:18:41.200 --> 1:18:43.400 This is I think where we eventually get this sequence 1:18:43.439 --> 1:18:47.960 where the Supreme Ninja, Lone Wolf, and Cob meet up 1:18:48.000 --> 1:18:53.920 again and they're all wet and cold and they huddle 1:18:54.000 --> 1:18:57.040 together for warmth, which is a scene where you don't 1:18:57.040 --> 1:18:58.800 really know where this scene is going at first. Is 1:18:58.800 --> 1:19:00.720 this going to be like some sort of you know, 1:19:00.840 --> 1:19:04.800 just pure exploitation moment, But it ends up being quite 1:19:04.880 --> 1:19:07.040 sweet in its own way. Like, I mean, there's these 1:19:07.080 --> 1:19:11.759 three lost individuals huddling for warmth against in a dark world. 1:19:12.120 --> 1:19:15.040 Well, yeah, it's complex there because so he doesn't harm 1:19:15.120 --> 1:19:18.200 the Supreme Ninja and she doesn't want to harm him anymore, 1:19:19.120 --> 1:19:21.800 but she has to go away and he knows that 1:19:21.800 --> 1:19:24.160 that means her death when she goes back to the 1:19:24.200 --> 1:19:26.280 Shogun to like report what has happened. 1:19:26.640 --> 1:19:29.320 Yeah, so it's bittersweet. And this is of course another 1:19:29.320 --> 1:19:31.599 thing where this is a little more complex and nuanced 1:19:31.640 --> 1:19:34.519 in the second film, but we get a nice, you know, 1:19:35.479 --> 1:19:38.240 edited down version of it here. But I think they 1:19:38.320 --> 1:19:42.760 ultimately spare us nothing of the violence inflicted by and 1:19:42.880 --> 1:19:45.120 upon the Masters of Death. All of that makes it 1:19:45.160 --> 1:19:46.080 to the finished picture. 1:19:46.400 --> 1:19:49.559 Oh yeah, yeah. So the final conflict in the film 1:19:49.640 --> 1:19:53.799 is we get the Masters of Death leading their person 1:19:53.840 --> 1:19:56.439 they're serving as a bodyguard for in this sort of 1:19:56.520 --> 1:19:59.200 caravan through the desert. They're going up and down these 1:19:59.200 --> 1:20:03.839 sand dune and then suddenly there is an attack first, 1:20:03.880 --> 1:20:07.160 I think by some rebels against this group, and the 1:20:07.200 --> 1:20:10.880 Masters of Death just chop them up. They don't do well. 1:20:11.080 --> 1:20:14.519 Are these the ones that they're initially hiding under the 1:20:14.560 --> 1:20:16.599 sand to pop up and get the Masters of Death? 1:20:16.680 --> 1:20:18.439 The Masters of Death are just like stabbing them in 1:20:18.520 --> 1:20:18.960 the sand. 1:20:19.320 --> 1:20:20.479 It's kind of dune yeah. 1:20:20.720 --> 1:20:21.600 Yeah. 1:20:21.640 --> 1:20:24.479 But this finally leads to the Masters of Death must 1:20:24.520 --> 1:20:27.839 face off against Lone Wolf. And I mentioned this earlier, 1:20:27.840 --> 1:20:33.200 but in this part the music infuses it with such vigor. 1:20:33.240 --> 1:20:37.840 There is this relentless synthesizer vamp and a high lead 1:20:38.080 --> 1:20:42.680 over this galloping drum beat. It's really good. Like the 1:20:42.720 --> 1:20:46.200 movie itself, I think pre dates this convention in video games, 1:20:46.200 --> 1:20:49.200 but it feels like boss music. It's like in Mega Man. 1:20:49.280 --> 1:20:52.479 It's the kind of music that kicks in in Mega 1:20:52.520 --> 1:20:55.360 Man when you like enter the chamber to fight Spark 1:20:55.439 --> 1:20:59.400 Mandrol don't you know what I mean, Like it's like 1:20:59.439 --> 1:21:01.840 it picks up the tempo and it's like really trying 1:21:01.880 --> 1:21:03.240 to get your blood pumping now. 1:21:03.720 --> 1:21:07.800 Yeah, yeah, it is pretty relentless. At the end of 1:21:07.800 --> 1:21:10.040 the day, we know this can only go down one way. 1:21:10.840 --> 1:21:14.160 They may be Masters of Death, but they are not 1:21:14.439 --> 1:21:18.719 going to come out on top against ogami Eto. His 1:21:18.720 --> 1:21:21.400 his skill and his heart is just too powerful for 1:21:21.479 --> 1:21:26.120 them to overcome. So he stylishly defeats one of the 1:21:26.120 --> 1:21:28.640 three brothers, then the other of the three brothers, and 1:21:28.680 --> 1:21:32.519 finally it's a he's squaring off with the final of 1:21:32.640 --> 1:21:36.320 the Masters of Death. This is the guy with the claws. Claws, yeah, yeah, 1:21:36.360 --> 1:21:38.719 and you know they have a nice back and forth 1:21:38.760 --> 1:21:44.559 and then ultimately Lone Wolf cuts him on the neck 1:21:44.760 --> 1:21:48.880 with this like perfect cut. That and the spray, the 1:21:48.960 --> 1:21:52.440 arterial spray out of this cut is like a fine mist. 1:21:53.120 --> 1:21:56.000 This part of the of the film. This is another 1:21:56.080 --> 1:21:58.160 like just super weird, great moment and it's like this 1:21:58.280 --> 1:22:03.040 Serene Erotics's of death, a cut so perfect that one's 1:22:03.120 --> 1:22:05.360 life blood leaves the body in a kind of like 1:22:05.520 --> 1:22:09.760 high pressure howling mist like a dream. Such a cut 1:22:09.800 --> 1:22:13.040 as like the ultimate aspiration of any killer, and oh 1:22:13.120 --> 1:22:16.280 the irony. The master of death himself dies by this 1:22:16.400 --> 1:22:19.679 cut without ever getting to inflict its perfection himself. 1:22:20.000 --> 1:22:22.800 Yeah, there's a line in the film where they're talking 1:22:22.840 --> 1:22:26.439 about about like the sound of a winter wind blowing 1:22:26.600 --> 1:22:27.200 or something. 1:22:27.520 --> 1:22:30.080 Yeah, he says, I have the quote here when cut 1:22:30.080 --> 1:22:33.120 across the neck, a sound like wailing winter winds is heard. 1:22:33.160 --> 1:22:36.360 They say, I'd always hope to cut someone like that someday, 1:22:36.600 --> 1:22:39.080 to hear that sound, but to have it happen to 1:22:39.160 --> 1:22:44.720 my own neck is ridiculous. 1:22:42.920 --> 1:22:46.439 Ridiculous, It's wonderful. But doesn't he also say something like 1:22:46.600 --> 1:22:48.679 He's like, it was an honor to have been killed 1:22:48.680 --> 1:22:48.960 by you. 1:22:49.360 --> 1:22:49.559 Yeah. 1:22:49.800 --> 1:22:52.960 Yeah, because again, if you want to have your neck sliced, 1:22:53.840 --> 1:22:55.479 this is the guy you want doing it. You want 1:22:55.560 --> 1:22:57.040 you want it in the hands of a master. 1:22:57.600 --> 1:22:57.840 Oh. 1:22:57.880 --> 1:22:59.920 But then we also do, in a kind of anti 1:23:00.040 --> 1:23:04.400 climactic way, we get to see a lone wolf doing 1:23:04.439 --> 1:23:07.559 a grizzly finish to his contract, and then the movie's 1:23:07.600 --> 1:23:08.200 just kind of over. 1:23:08.720 --> 1:23:12.960 Yeah. Yeah, we get like one final line from the boy. 1:23:13.439 --> 1:23:15.559 He says, what I guess, I wish it was different, 1:23:15.680 --> 1:23:17.240 But a wish is only a wish. 1:23:17.840 --> 1:23:19.360 No, justice for the Showgun. 1:23:19.600 --> 1:23:22.880 No again, if if you were attracted to this film 1:23:22.880 --> 1:23:25.720 because you thought a showgun was going to be assassinated, No, 1:23:25.960 --> 1:23:30.080 doesn't happen. And the character that is labeled the showgun 1:23:30.320 --> 1:23:32.679 he also does not get his come upance in this film. 1:23:32.720 --> 1:23:36.639 I think it ultimately happens later on in the series, 1:23:36.720 --> 1:23:41.280 but played by a different actor. Yeah, but now I 1:23:41.320 --> 1:23:43.120 kind of want to finish that journey. I'm gonna have to, 1:23:43.280 --> 1:23:45.880 you know, in my own time, go through the next 1:23:45.920 --> 1:23:48.040 four of these pictures. I enjoy the first two, and 1:23:48.080 --> 1:23:49.719 of course Showgun Assassin so much. 1:23:50.240 --> 1:23:51.960 Well, that sounds great. I might have to check him 1:23:51.960 --> 1:23:52.360 out too. 1:23:52.840 --> 1:23:55.400 It's a fun ride, a demon ride to hell. 1:23:57.240 --> 1:23:59.080 Oh hey, but one last thought. I think I said 1:23:59.080 --> 1:24:01.800 this earlier, but even if you don't watch this movie, 1:24:01.840 --> 1:24:04.360 which you know it's a hyper violent kind of thing, 1:24:04.400 --> 1:24:06.840 it might not be your style. And that's fine. I 1:24:06.840 --> 1:24:09.360 would recommend checking out the soundtrack if you can. The 1:24:09.439 --> 1:24:13.120 music is great, especially if you love synthesizer stuff. 1:24:13.439 --> 1:24:16.200 Absolutely to a terrific score. But I have to warn 1:24:16.240 --> 1:24:18.240 you the score, it may suck you in. The next thing, 1:24:18.280 --> 1:24:21.200 you know, you're watching Showgun Assassin, then you're watching the 1:24:21.240 --> 1:24:23.639 Lone Wolf and Cub series. That's how it gets started. 1:24:25.439 --> 1:24:27.200 All right, Well, this was a lot of fun. I'd 1:24:27.240 --> 1:24:28.960 love to hear from everyone out there. I know we 1:24:29.080 --> 1:24:32.400 have listeners who are very well acquainted with the Lone 1:24:32.439 --> 1:24:37.200 Wolf and Cub series and are more familiar with Samurai 1:24:37.200 --> 1:24:39.760 and Ninja pictures than we are, So hey, write in. 1:24:39.840 --> 1:24:41.559 We would love to hear from you. We'd love your 1:24:41.560 --> 1:24:44.680 thoughts on Showgun Assassin, Lone Wolf and Cub the series. Oh, 1:24:44.720 --> 1:24:47.320 if you've read the manga, write in about that as well. 1:24:47.520 --> 1:24:49.760 I have not, so I don't have any familiarity with it, 1:24:49.800 --> 1:24:53.000 but of course it is considered legendary in its own right. 1:24:54.000 --> 1:24:56.160 Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is 1:24:56.200 --> 1:24:59.000 primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on 1:24:59.000 --> 1:25:01.519 Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most 1:25:01.520 --> 1:25:04.080 serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on 1:25:04.160 --> 1:25:07.200 Weird House Cinema. And if you want to keep up 1:25:07.200 --> 1:25:09.120 with what we're doing on Weird House Cinema, you can 1:25:09.160 --> 1:25:12.599 always follow us on a letterbox dot com. Our username 1:25:12.640 --> 1:25:14.880 there is weird House. You'll find a list of all 1:25:14.880 --> 1:25:16.800 the films we've done so far and sometimes a peek 1:25:16.840 --> 1:25:19.280 ahead at what's coming out next, and hey, we are 1:25:19.320 --> 1:25:21.519 in December, so you know what that means. We're gonna 1:25:21.520 --> 1:25:23.559 we're gonna get at least one Christmas movie in there. 1:25:24.120 --> 1:25:26.800 Is it gonna have Santa in it? Can make no promises. 1:25:26.840 --> 1:25:29.240 Will there be a Christmas tree somewhere in the background 1:25:29.240 --> 1:25:33.040 of a scene? Probably that's probably probably how it's gonna 1:25:33.080 --> 1:25:33.400 go down. 1:25:34.240 --> 1:25:36.160 Has it been a year since I Come in Peace? 1:25:37.040 --> 1:25:37.439 It has? 1:25:37.600 --> 1:25:37.800 Yeah? 1:25:37.840 --> 1:25:41.320 That was That was our Christmas action film from last year. 1:25:41.400 --> 1:25:43.840 Wasn't it that one had Christmas music in it? I 1:25:43.840 --> 1:25:47.200 think it was Christmas was more a part of the 1:25:47.520 --> 1:25:50.000 texture of the picture then some people give it credit. 1:25:50.840 --> 1:25:54.599 Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. 1:25:55.040 --> 1:25:56.599 If you would like to get in touch with us 1:25:56.600 --> 1:25:59.240 with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest 1:25:59.240 --> 1:26:01.360 a topic for the future, or just to say hello, 1:26:01.840 --> 1:26:04.559 you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow 1:26:04.560 --> 1:26:12.120 your Mind dot com. 1:26:12.240 --> 1:26:15.200 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 1:26:15.280 --> 1:26:18.080 more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 1:26:18.200 --> 1:26:20.960 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.