Chapter Two: Shogun Assassin

By Brett Beach

June 10, 2010

The early stages of sepukku are much more pleasant than the final portion.

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Occasionally, the lines are used for humor, as in one scene where Daigoro attempts to keep an accurate body count. Mostly, Daigoro’s voice emerges as that of someone who seems wiser than his years but still can’t quite grasp the enormity of what is going on, who speaks to the audience though he doesn’t speak to the characters. In other words, from a narration standpoint, this is Days of Heaven meets The Piano. Always staying just this side of deadpan thanks to a tremor of sorrow that infects even his recounting of happier times, Gibran’s voice lifts the words out of exploitation junksville and into something approaching poetry.

Still, the two greatest assets are ones that couldn’t be messed with: the physical presence of Tomisaburo Wakayama as the samurai and the cinematography by Chishi Makiyura. Wakayama looks born to wield a sword and he supplies the deadpan gravitas when needed. He is both physically imposing and humorless and yet oddly cuddly like an, um, Kung Fu Panda. He loves his child, but is also willing to end his life to spare him the life of exile they must lead. Makiyura brings a painterly composition to the outdoor fights (such as the featured decapitation) and an extended climax upon endless sand dunes yet he finds a way to keep the spatial dimensions of the indoor clashes clear and prevent them from feeling confined and claustrophobic.

I must offer a doff of the cap and a sly smile to AnimEigo who have released not only the original Lone Wolf and Cub series on DVD here in the last few years, but also Shogun Assassin 2, 3, 4, and 5. That’s right! You can see either the original with fairly accurate subtitles OR the same film, uncut, but dubbed (and of course, there are only five Shogun Assassins because they chopped together the first two films). That, ladies and gentlemen, is a solid business plan.




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And, as for that “mistake” in Maltin’s guide I referred to? Well, he has always had a listing for a film called Lightning Swords of Death with a release date of 1974, and claimed that Shogun Assassin was a kind of sequel to this. Columbia Pictures did distribute that dubbed film here but LSD is actually the third film in the Lone Wolf and Cub series and AnimEigo kept this as the subtitle for their DVD release of Shogun Assassin 2. And on that note of perfectly clear confusion, class is adjourned.

Coming up this summer: I look back at some of the block-busteriest Chapter Twos of the 2000s, courtesy of The Matrix Reloaded and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest; give Jon Favreau and Kristen Stewart their dues with Zathura, Iron Man 2 and New Moon; chime in on Sex and the City 2 (after the hate and insanity dies down); and offer a measured and considered WTF about Mike Myers’ sequels (Mr. Powers, Mr. Campbell and Mr. Shrek all included).


Continued:       1       2       3       4

     


 
 

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