7.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
In a time of evil and tyranny, a stone-faced ronin wanders the countryside with his young son (and a weapon-filled baby cart), hunted by the merciless minions of an evil Shogun. Once a noble samurai, he is now the most feared assassin in Japan, known only as Lone Wolf.
Starring: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Kayo Matsuo, Minoru Ôki, Akiji Kobayashi, Shin KishidaMartial arts | 100% |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.43:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit)
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Shortly after the massively popular Shogun miniseries aired on U.S. television in 1980, whetting the appetite of American audiences for all things Japanese, a bizarre, bloody, comically violent mash-up samurai movie called Shogun Assassin began making laps on the grindhouse circuit. Samurai Assassin was the brainchild of Robert Houston and David Weisman, who cheaply obtained the rights to the Lone Wolf and Cub samurai film series and decided to re-edit the first two movies—Sword of Vengeance and Baby Cart at the River Styx, both from 1972—into a single action-packed, Americanized adventure. They hired deaf lip-readers to assist with the script, creating an English dub that matched the Japanese actors’ mouths almost perfectly, and vastly simplified the story. The result? A trim, 85-minute exploitation film that’s all muscle and no fat. While the original Lone Wolf and Cub movies are better—specifically in terms of plot and character development—Shogun Assassin is an undeniable cult classic, a gory samurai re-dub that, in its sampled, re-cut, and mashed up aesthetic, left an indelible mark on pop culture, from RZA’s Liquid Swords album to Quentin Tarantino’s similarly hodgepodge Kill Bill.
Lone Wolf and Cub
Here's something you don't see everyday. Instead of running an old negative of Shogun Assassin through a telecine machine, AnimEigo opted to reconstruct the entire film from the best available elements—that is, negatives from the original Lone Wolf and Cub films. They literally re-edited each cut and transition, matching their work to a master copy of Shogun Assassin, and the improvement is drastic. This 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer is light-years beyond previous DVD incarnations, and it doesn't even exist in the same universe as the ratty VHS dupes that, for a long time, were the only way to see Shogun Assassin at home. In the special features, you can actually watch a comparison between a bootleg, a DVD, and this Blu-ray. It goes without saying that the difference is immediate and immense.There are white specks on the print in almost every scene here, and you'll occasionally spot brief vertical scratches, but aside from the age-related wear 'n' tear, this presentation is very strong. Clarity gets a huge boost; many shots look quite soft compared to the best Blu-ray has to offer, but close-ups are sharp—you can even make out the adhesive tape that holds on the Shogun's eyebrows—and I really don't think much more could be done with the source material. Color is strong as well, with rich woodsy interiors, pale blue skies, even skin tones, and, of course, gallons of Crayola-red blood. Darker scenes are subject to good deal of black crush, but once again, this is probably inherent in the source. There are no DNR or edge enhancement abuses, and I didn't spot any compression-related distractions besides a few instances of splotchy color gradients. The only stand-out wait, what's going on here moments are two extremely brief establishing shots of castles that were nabbed from a noticeably low-rez stock footage source. Each lasts only a few seconds. Overall, I don't think fans could've asked for more.
Rather than trying to expand Shogun Assassin's soundtrack into a 5.1 presentation, AnimEigo wisely stuck with the original mono, reproduced here by way of an uncompressed English Linear PCM 2.0 mix. Of course, the most distinctive audio element of the film is the groovy Moog synthesizer score by Paul Revere and the Raiders frontman Mark Lindsay, which sounds fantastic. (It's not entirely unlike something you'd hear in an early John Carpenter film.) Cues from the original Lone Wolf and Cub films are included as well, and the music as a whole has a nice sense of presence. Otherwise, the mix is very minimalist. The sound design for the action sequences is sometimes bizarrely stylized; occasionally, all noises will drop out of the mix but the swishing of Ogami's sword as he hews down his foes. Elsewhere, Daigoro's voice-overs take precedence, oddly calling to mind the narration in Terence Malik's Days of Heaven. The dialogue—such as it is—is balanced in the mix and always easy to understand. No real problems here.
Audio Commentaries
There are two tracks here. The first, which appeared on the DVD, features film scholar Ric Meyers and martial arts expert Steve Wilson discussing the
Lone Wolf and Cub films, elucidating obscure elements of Japanese tradition, and commenting on the film's sword-based action. The second is an
all-new track with producer Davis Weisman, graphic designer Jim Evans (Illustrator), who designed the poster art, and Gibran Evans, who provided the
voice of Daigoro when he was seven years old. This track focuses more keenly on the origin of the Shogun Assassin project and the process of
reworking the Lone Wolf films for an international audience.
Samuel L. Jackson Interview (1080p, 12:43)
Everyone's favorite Jedi is a huge martial arts movie fan, and in this 2009 interview, Jackson talks extensively about his love for Lone Wolf and
Shogun Assassin.
Restoration Gallery (1080p, 3:45)
A showcase of the visual difference between bootleg, DVD, and Blu-ray copies of the film.
Program Notes
Text-only trivia and notes on the high definition remastering process.
HD Trailer (1080p, 2:35)
Cannibalized from the first two Lone Wolf and Cub films, Shogun Assassin is pure, visceral entertainment—there's no real plot to speak of, just non-stop limb-lopping, head-cleaving, blood-spurting samurai action. It's mindless, sure, but it's stylish, campy, darkly funny—sometimes unintentionally—and an absurdly good time. AnimEigo has done a terrific job with this release, assembling an all-new transfer out of the best available source materials, providing an uncompressed audio track, and delivering two informative commentaries. It'll never best the originals, but Shogun Assassin is impossibly fun any way you slice it.
Kozure Ôkami: Sanzu no kawa no ubaguruma
1972
Kozure ôkami: Jigoku e ikuzo! Daigorô
1974
Kozure ôkami: Ko wo kashi ude kashi tsukamatsuru
1972
Kozure Ôkami: Meifumadô
1973
Kozure Ôkami: Oya no kokoro ko no kokoro
1972
Kozure Ôkami: Shinikazeni mukau ubaguruma
1972
座頭市物語 / Zatôichi monogatari
1962
座頭市牢破り / Zatôichi rôyaburi
1967
座頭市血煙り街道 / Zatôichi chikemuri kaidô
1967
新座頭市物語・折れた杖 / Shin Zatôichi monogatari: Oreta tsue
1972
座頭市あばれ火祭り / Zatôichi abare-himatsuri
1970
座頭市御用旅 / Zatôichi goyô-tabi
1972
五遁忍術 / Ren zhe wu di
1982
龍門客棧 / Long men kezhan
1967
豪俠 / Háo xiá
1979
1998
1989
無限の住人 / Mugen no jûnin
2017
Jûsan-nin no shikaku
2010
座頭市血笑旅 / Zatôichi kesshô-tabi
1964