The Witch Trial:
This series of films were based on the highly acclaimed manga. Do they do justice to the source material or should Ogami Itto & Daigoro stay at the Crossroads to Hell...
Who:
Director: Kenji Misumi (parts 1, 2, 3 & 5); Buichi Saito (part 4); Yoshiyuki Kuroda (part 6)
Starring: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Tomikawa Akihiro, Yunosuke Ito, Tatsuo Endo, Minoru Ohki
What:
Chanbara (Japanese genre, basically a sword fighting film)
Why:
The original manga series was written by Kazuo Koike & illustrated by Goseki Kojima. Kazuo Koike was involved in adapting his work for these screen adaptations.
When:
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (1972)
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972)
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (1972)
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril (1972)
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons (1973)
Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven in Hell (1974)
Where:
Set in feudal Japan during the Edo period
The Case For:
In 1970 Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima had their epic work Lone Wolf and Cub first published. When I say epic, I mean EPIC as the story stands at a staggering 28 volumes, totalling over 8,700 pages in length! It has been adapted for both the small screen, the large screen and also in video game format.
Here we are looking at the six film series released in the early seventies, right at the time when Lone Wolf and Cub's popularity was at its height. Four of the six films were released in quick succession during 1972, with the remaining two movies coming out at a rate of one per year for the next two years.
Throughout the sextet our two heroes; Ogami Itto and his son Daigoro were played on screen by Tomisaburo Wakayama and Tomikawa Akihiro respectively. Their nemeses were the Yagyu Clan, whose leader Yagyu Retsudo was portrayed by three different actors during four of the films.
Each film saw Itto as an assassin for hire having to tackle a new challenge from the various people hiring his services. Along the way he faces many adversaries and a seemingly never ending amount of Yagyu clan members out for his and Daigoro's blood.
He is left in sole care of Daigoro after being set up by the Yagyu who murder his wife in the process. Swearing bloody vengeance he makes his escape to tread the path of the Ronin; a wandering Samurai warrior.
With that overall synopsis out of the way let us look at what the focus is of each film and what were the highlights from all six movies. I'm sure this is going to run to some length but let's dive right in...
There are informative captions appearing at the top of the screen during each episode, that help to explain what some of the different terminology used throughout the films actual meaning is. This is a very helpful tool that adds to the overall enjoyment. It would be quite frustrating trying to grasp what is happening at some points without it.
We start with
Sword of Vengeance. Itto is the Shogun's executioner, a position of high prestige. It is the executioner's job to act as the Shogun's 'second' for any daimyo ordered to commit seppuku; more commonly known as hari-kari. This task involves chopping the head off the daimyo as they disembowel themselves, which offers a quick release from what would be a painful slow death.
The opening scene has Itto performing his sworn role, but the daimyo in question here is a young child. This does cause some consternation for the watcher as you question whether Itto will carry out the execution on one so young. Of course this is feudal Japan where honour and duty is everything and Itto does indeed complete the grisly task! Now being the first scene of a six movie series I am not really spoiling anything here as this is setting up the story.
The whole scene is extremely brutal and shocking, which helps set the tone for what is to follow. It also provides the platform for everything else to come because it is this execution which gives the Yagyu the motivation to frame Itto and ultimately put him on his path of retribution.
Sword of Vengeance provides the origin story and as mentioned, sets Itto on his first steps on the road to regaining his honour. There are a few great moments throughout this particular entry in the series. We have some wonderful scenes take place; the stand out of which is the battle between Yagyu Bizen-no-kami and Ogami Itto that occurs in a water location which is superbly framed and very evocative.
We have a scene where two kids playing with a ball in the road, sing a song that provides one of the most humorous moments of the whole set, some of the lyrics of which are:
"From high up in the mountain,
If you shit a rocky turd, oh...
It'll be all covered with sand...
It'll tumble down like a pebble..."
Now whether something is lost in the translation (or gained depending on your opinion) this is certainly one of the strangest children's songs I have ever heard!
During this scene we are taken, via flashback, to when Itto has Daigoro choose if he wants to follow his father on his path of vengeance or if he wants to follow his mother to her grave. It is a moving moment as you feel that Itto is conflicted with wishing to care for his son but not wanting him to experience the long and painful journey he himself has chosen.
When we get to the final showdown of this first instalment we see that the baby cart that Daigoro is ushered around in is more than what it seems. Various parts of the cart can be removed to reveal different hidden weapons that Itto is adept at using to devastating effect.
Baby Cart at the River Styx introduces the Akari Yagyu, who are a group of female assassins led by Sayaka. At first these ladies appear to be the main threat to Itto and Daigoro. But once Itto is hired to eliminate a traitor of a clan of dye experts we find out that his target is being escorted by the Hidari brothers who prove to be the main enemies here.
The Hidari brothers are awesome; three siblings who are each specialists with their individual particular weapon of choice. From the whole series the Hidari brothers were the bad guys that I enjoyed the most. John Carpenter definitely took inspiration from their look for "The Three Storm" antagonists in
Big Trouble in Little China.
Having the end battle amongst sand dunes provides a new and different setting to finish of this second entry. We are also treated to some cool Hidari bloodletting as they set about clearing the path ahead of them before coming across Itto in this wasteland.
Baby Cart to Hades is the first time we really see Itto's immense killing power as he takes on a huge amount of enemies. Again the baby cart plays an important role in this fight and seems to have been tricked out with an even bigger arsenal of gadgetry.
We also have the introduction of Kanbei, one of the more fleshed out opponents Itto comes across on his travels. There is a mutual respect between the two which comes from the laws of honour both men adhere to. This is probably the most interesting thread weaved throughout the third movies story. Kanbei you feel has a similar amount of darkness and light conflicting within his soul as Itto does. He is a great addition to the series.
Baby Cart in Peril also has one of the standout characters outside of our two heroes; Oyuki, a female assassin who has a heavily tattooed torso. She exposes her upper body when fighting to distract the enemies sent against her. There is no denying the exploitation aspect at play here, but there is such an element of cool as well that you soon forgive the gratuitous nudity.
One of Retsudo's sons Gunbei Yagyu also comes into the frame. He has a riveting interplay with Daigoro, which really puts Daigoro in the spotlight for the first major time in the series and takes him away from Itto's protection too. Surprisingly Gunbei has in the past proved to be more skilful than Itto and we are treated to the continuation of their rivalry here.
The climax again sees Itto take on what seem to be impossible odds against a vast array of Yagyu clan members being led by Retsudo, who returns here for the first time since the first episode. Both men face off at the close and leave the battlefield bloodied for their troubles. We have seen Itto injured before but never to this extent and it is refreshing because you do get the sense that even though he is a formidable warrior, he is not invincible.
Peril is probably my favourite out of all six movies; we have interesting foes for Itto to face off against during this instalment. There are two solid storylines in both Oyuki's revenge and Retsudo's political machinations plus some great fight sequences to go with it all. It is undoubtedly a great addition to this saga and I think having a different director probably helped revitalize the approach to the material.
Baby Cart in the Land of Demons has a lot of intrigue to contend with. First Itto comes up against five messengers who he must prove his skills against to be worthy enough to be assigned the task they have for him. That task involves the killing of another child, this one an imposter who has been used to usurp the real heir of a daimyo. All this he needs to accomplish while keeping Retsudo's hands off a document which would expose the deception.
Daigoro is given his second individual story thread too and one which has more depth than his previous run in with Gunbei. Here he is protecting the identity of a thief and we see that he is following the code of honour that Itto has instilled in him as he refuses to break the promise he made to the thief.
I loved seeing Daigoro in action here; for one thing we get to hear him speak something other than calling for his father. It is also an opportunity to see this loveable child again show maturity far beyond his years.
While I wouldn't put
Land of Demons near the top of my favourites it is certainly a chapter that has its interests. It also sees Kenji Misumi return to directorial duties. I am sure that after producing four films in 1972, three of which were directed by Misumi, the extra time in between this release certainly allowed everyone to recharge for this outing.
The final film
White Heaven in Hell is quite different to all that has preceded it. For a start we have a new setting as all the action takes place in the middle of winter with plenty of snow abounding.
Tonally there is a shift too as our heroes face a clan of practitioners of some sort of voodoo type magic. This clan is led by Hyouei, an illegitimate son of Retsudo. It was interesting to see Hyouei deny Retsudo's plea for aid in his quest to kill Itto. In a society renowned for its sense of duty, to see this disobedience took me by surprise. Of course it doesn't mean that Hyouei isn't intent on seeing to it that Itto and Daigoro finish up dead, he just wants it to be on his own terms and not be dictated to by a father he has never known.
The grand finale is a snowbound battle where Itto again faces off against Retsudo and the Yagyu clan. Daigoro's baby cart has been mounted on ski's to help navigate the terrain which is kind of cool. Not to be outdone Retsudo enters this contest riding on his on pimped out bobsleigh.
With snow falling all around him Itto has to overcome ski mounted Yagyu members as well as dodging all sorts of missiles slung at him. The whole scene is completely different to anything else we have seen so far and kind of comes across as one crazy way to finish the series. Skiing duellists is not something I expected to see that is for sure!
Over the duration of the sextet we have some awesome individual scenes. The pacing and framing is excellent in places, helping to build tension or intrigue to what we are viewing. There is also a great mix of locations which helps provide enough variation from one film to the next.
Our two main actors are terrific throughout. Even though Tomisaburo Wakayama looks like he has spent too much time at the catering cart, he certainly has the moves and skills required for his role. Tomikawa Akihiro is simply adorable as Daigoro, he definitely doesn't say a lot but he doesn't need too. He provides that bit of humanity to the duo and it is amazing how much emotion the two can portray with a look at one another. I found the pairing to be spot on.
Then we have our fights and boy does it deliver on the fights. Of course we have to end each one with the traditional boss type battle (sometimes more than once per movie depending on the number of antagonists) in perfect chanbara fashion. If sword action is your thing you won't be disappointed with the amount of action appearing in any of the films.
The Case Against:
As is often the case with this type of film, some of the problems that people will have with them are common issues.
There are many occasions throughout the series where our protagonist comes up against a number of foes, only to have them attack him one person at a time. As a viewer you know that it would be far simpler for the villains to just attack en masse but it never happens that way. Of course if it did work out that way the bad guys would invariably always win out, which we can't have! There are also the choreography reasons that helps explain why we end up with one attacker at a time as it makes for a far more visually coherent scene.
If you are not familiar with chanbara films then the first time you see someone getting slashed with a sword you would be forgiven for wondering how on earth blood squirts from the body like a massive fountain. It often is typical for characters to die with their blood spraying all and sundry in most movies of this nature. To fully immerse yourself in the genre it is something you have to accept; that even though a person won't turn into a sprinkler of blood normally, they sure will when slashed by a blade in a Japanese Samurai film!
I did find it funny that Itto all the way through this set walks with a slow deliberate pace; it did make me wonder how he ever gets anywhere. It must take him ages to get from one place to the next which makes it even funnier that the Yagyu have so much trouble catching him.
Our first entry
Sword of Vengeance has some distinct sound issues. Now this might just appear on the Ultimate Collection that I viewed it on but I doubt it. There are scenes which have no Foley or music at all and we are left with complete silence. It is very distracting and takes you out of the sequence completely. At first I feared every film would be like this but thankfully the problem is only restricted to parts in the opening chapter.
Daigoro is breastfed by a complete stranger near the beginning of
Vengeance and you wonder why on earth this is included. The mother lamenting her lost child never appears again throughout the rest of the movie. Does seem to be a strange choice, maybe something is lost in the translation to English but I was baffled by this scene appearing.
It is also a blessing that Yunosuke Ito is replaced for the future entries as Retsudo. He is clearly over acting and over emphasising his dialogue to the point that it takes an age for him to utter a sentence. The hair and make-up department definitely wouldn't have won any awards either for their efforts with Retsudo's wig and facial hair. He does come across as a comic book villain in this one.
The Akari Yagyu's choice of weaponry in
River Styx are very unusual. Whilst the razor blades hidden in the headwear of some are appealing; the hidden daggers in vegetables are definitely not.
Their leader Sayaka also has her moment of strangeness when she jogs backwards while making her get away from Itto after their confrontation. Very bizarre and so out of place in relation to the tone of the film. It is definitely a scene delivered in reverse shot and I had the feeling that they wanted to portray her fleeing the fight in a hurry without turning her back on her adversary, but it looks so wrong.
After Itto's fight with the Kurokawa clan he takes shelter in a ramshackle hut. Now the surviving Kurokawa along with Sayaka know he is in here and injured but choose to not go in and finish the job. It is so typical of bad guys in movies who don't take the easy option but instead come up with some convoluted way of getting rid of the hero. Of course it wouldn't be much of a story if our evil characters did kill the good guy so easily but it still remains a frustrating element of many films.
The writers of
River Styx obviously love the Hidari brother with the iron claws more than the other two brothers as a lot of the focus is on him using his weapons. They would have created more fear for our heroes wellbeing, if a little bit of focus had gone on creating the sense that the Hidari were all equally powerful rather than just the one with the coolest tools at his disposal.
Both the prostitute from
Sword of Vengeance and Sayaka from
River Styx seem to have affection or admiration for Itto and I was confused as to whether they both wanted to follow him or be with him come the end of each film. I did find both very similar endings and hoped that the remaining movies wouldn't follow the same trend. Thankfully it was only the first two that shared this theme. We also have Torizo in
Hades doing similar but with much better reasons considering what Itto had done to help spare her life. The way she is held back by the people around her helped redeem her actions in my eyes as it isn't Itto rejecting her. Instead it is others recognising that following Itto will be no life at all for her.
Baby Cart to Hades in my opinion has the weakest of the story lines of all six films. There seems to be too much going on for one film, it would have been better with a clearer focus on one thread. Maybe if they had chosen to focus mainly on the character of Kanbei who adds so much to this particular entry I would have enjoyed it much more.
Hades makes a strange choice to introduce some narration during the first part, which offers up some exposition regarding watari-kashi. As it is the first time we have heard a narrator after two previous instalments, it does feel a little out of place. We possibly could have been forgiven our ignorance as to the exact nature of what a watari-kashi is and just gone along for the ride in knowing that the people we are about to meet aren't going to be good Samaritans.
There is also an uncomfortable amount of rape in this third film, starting with our watari-kashi characters. I am never comfortable with rape scenes on screen as they can be unnecessary in most cases and it certainly brought my enjoyment level of this entry down.
I had two things that irked me from
Baby Cart in Peril. Involving our two new antagonists; Oyuki and Gunbei.
My first gripe was with Oyuki's resolution. I was very disappointed with how her storyline finished up. The way her father is in the whole affair annoyed me too, but I think that came down to my interpretation of his feelings towards her at first. It was only later on reflection that I came to the conclusion that he wanted Oyuki to regain some honour which she does in the end.
The problem I had with Gunbei completely revolved around his vow to be the one who will kill Itto at the end of the film. I fully expected him to make a future appearance in the remaining two films only to be left down hearted when he doesn't show up again. I am sure this is solely down to perhaps later instalments being abandoned as the producers probably felt that after six films this story had run its course. But it would have been glorious to see the two of them face off one more time.
The opening gambit of
Land of Demons I found a bit hard to swallow. If one of the five messengers was killed by Itto before they had a chance to pass on their message then their whole scheme would have been for nothing. The idea itself was sound, but having him come across these assailants on his travels just seemed like a bad plot device. It was something that really annoyed me, especially when you consider that the task they were hiring him for was time sensitive and this was just delaying its commencement.
Whilst I enjoyed the change of scenery in
White Heaven I did feel that you could tell this was the end for the Lone Wolf saga. For starters we don't have the traditional opening music; instead we get some funk song playing over the opening. What the hell is that all about? Obviously it is a clear sign of the times with Blaxploitation films really hitting their prime but it was so out of place in relation to the rest of the series.
Introducing the magic aspect also felt out of place. We haven't seen any supernatural elements with any foes so far, apart from Sayaka's bizarre backwards jog from part two. Here though we all of a sudden have voodoo style zombies who can burrow beneath the earth to surprise their victim.
The film then resorts to how do we put our hero in danger; have him attacked by overwhelming odds. As Wikipedia, that font of all knowledge, states Itto kills 150 people in this film. Now even if that isn't a record as it claims on wiki, it is still a ridiculous number for one person to slaughter during an 83 minute running time. Don't get me wrong, I know to expect lots of carnage in a chanbara film but this was way over the top.
Retsudo has a converted bobsleigh that is now a killing machine, as well as Itto's baby cart's arsenal of weapons, really brings us into James Bond gadgets galore territory! It was a surprise at first but then in the scheme of things it does come across as more comical than anything else.
Finally though I was most disappointed that there was no conclusion with the final entry. I was expecting the two main rivals to face off in a grand battle but it wasn't to be. Obviously this was done on purpose with the possibility of further adventures to come that just didn't eventuate. After investing so much in the overall story arc and especially if you don't know how the original manga ends up; you would have every right to feel ripped off with the final chapter's conclusion.
I think Yoshiyuki Kuroda came in as director with the offer to freshen things up with some new ideas and for me it just didn't work out as well as it should have done. Which probably then spelt the end of this incarnation of the Lone Wolf and Cub tale.
Who knows though, maybe one day someone else can pick up the mantle of these characters and give this the finale it deserves.
Verdict:
Itto & Daigoro may choose to live as demons on the crossroads to hell, but you won't find me condemning them anytime soon. Unless I am offered 500 Gold Pieces that is!
Evidence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Wolf_and_Cub:_Sword_of_Vengeance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Wolf_and_Cub:_Baby_Cart_at_the_River_Styx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Wolf_and_Cub:_Baby_Cart_to_Hades
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Wolf_and_Cub:_Baby_Cart_in_Peril
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Wolf_and_Cub:_Baby_Cart_in_the_Land_of_Demons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Wolf_and_Cub:_White_Heaven_in_Hell
