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Another friend, who had a late night weekend show on the campus radio station, uncovered the song that I had heard when I was six and been tortured as to its identity for over a decade. Any time it came on the radio, I either had to leave before it was over or the DJ never announced who the artist was (Did I think to ever call in and ask what the song was? Of course not.) No points for obscurity, here. It was Madness’ charming top 10 hit “Our House.”

The funny thing is, I don’t remember the actual experience of sitting down with my friends to watch Shogun Assassin. Our first time watching Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive is vividly captured, but for this, a film whose name had been on the forefront of my cinematic thoughts for so many years, nothing in particular stands out. Perhaps the excitement and buildup eclipsed the initial viewing. It wouldn’t be the first time.

I caught it again about three years ago at Portland’s Hollywood Theater as part of a semi-regular Grindhouse Film Festival. The 35mm print was worse for the wear after travelling on such a circuit for who knows how long, but it felt fulfilling to see it on the big screen, one or two scenes in particular. Watching it now for the third time (the 2006 DVD release, though there is a Blu-Ray edition coming out this summer featuring, among other extras, Samuel L. Jackson talking about his love for samurai films), I feel like my thoughts have begun to settle about the film, even as I finally realized I didn’t have much knowledge about Shogun Assassin’s “production.”

Shogun Assassin is a 1980 film that “Americanizes” and edits together the first two installments in the 1970s Japanese samurai series Lone Wolf and Cub (six films released between 1972 and 1974). These films were themselves inspired by a manga of the same name that started and ran through much of that decade. There was also a television show that ran concurrently in Japan for three seasons. The six films sport such testosterone-pounding (English) subtitles as Sword of Vengeance, Baby Cart to Hades, and White Heaven in Hell.

And so, Shogun Assassin pulls about 12 minutes from Sword of Vengeance (whose running time is 83 minutes) and just over 70 minutes from the second film in the series, Baby Cart at the River Styx (81 minutes) and edits them together into a single feature clocking in at 85 minutes with credits. I figured it would be beneficial to see both of the originals at the same time as I re-watched Shogun Assassin but was only able to rent the former. Most of the footage used from that film is from the earliest scenes and is employed in a similar manner in Shogun Assassin: to set the stage for our hero, Ogami Itto, as he is framed for disloyalty to his master, sees his wife murdered, and becomes a wandering ronin (master less samurai) accompanied only by his young son, Daigoro.

The key differences between Shogun Assassin and its forbears - and they are quite key - are that a new musical soundtrack has been added, the speaking voices have been dubbed, and voice-over narration has been added, in the form of a fairly consistent running commentary by Daigoro. (We never hear him speak otherwise.) Let’s consider each of these in turn and how Shogun Assassin is aided, or not, by these changes.

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