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For fans of grindhouse samurai films—flicks soaked in arterial blood sprays and dominated by cold-as-steel antiheroes—1980's Shogun Assassin is the holy grail, a legend of the VHS shelf. It's also essentially the martial-arts equivalent of a hip-hop remix.
The film's dreamlike ambience and chaotic bloodletting laid the gore-spattered canvas for endless homages, most notably Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill (it even makes an oddly poignant cameo in Vol. 2). Countless video games and anime offerings riff heavily on Shogun's style, a melding of outlaw vengeance and otherworldly fantasy. Hell, RZA incorporates samples from the film throughout his masterpiece Liquid Swords: the clanging of steel blades and central narration mixed throughout the record. Wu-Tang Clan, as they say, are nothing to fuck with. But if master decapitator Ogami came knocking, even RZA and GZA might back down.
The hip-hop connection brought Shogun Assassin to an entire generation of fans who got into martial arts only out of curiosity and a love of Wu Wear. But Shogun Assassin was doing the remix thing long before it became essential to hip-hop. You see, it's actually a hybrid recut of the first two films in the six-part Lone Wolf and Cub series—Sword of Vengeance and Baby Cart at the River Styx. It's two 1972 mini-epics spliced together, narrated by the titular cub and amped up with a soundtrack from Oregon's Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere & the Raiders.
The film itself is based on a manga (pre-dating the current comic-book version by decades) and tells the story of official decapitator Ogami, who is betrayed by his master and marked for death. Naturally, the baddest motherfucker who ever walked the earth doesn't take kindly to ninjas whacking his wife. Thus, he loads his hypercognizant toddler Daigoro into a rickety pushcart that's tricked out as if designed by the feudal equivalent of Q's lab. They traverse the countryside, leaving piles of bodies in their wake as they face off against hordes of enemy ninjas.
It's frenetic, drenched in blood, and essential among grindhouse classics. But it's also just a dumbed-down version of a much more thoughtful, deliberate epic. After years on the VHS circuit and annual viewings at the Hollywood Theatre, why would film completists prefer the remix edition to the originals?
The answer is simple. The originals have never seen the big screen.
"The Lone Wolf and Cub movies were never released theatrically in the U.S.," says Hollywood programmer Dan Halsted, who calls Shogun Assassin his favorite film and his 35 mm print a jewel of his legendary kung fu collection. "I love both versions: the original films, which are slower paced, and the adrenaline-fueled pace of Shogun Assassin."
To be honest, when we strap in for a blood-soaked action extravaganza, we aren't begging for exposition. It's the reason viewers say they prefer the deliberate Kill Bill: Vol. 2 to the insanity of Vol. 1, but are still transfixed by the House of Blue Leaves slaughter every time.
Heed Halsted's advice and use Shogun Assassin as a gateway into the Lone Wolf and Cub saga. Once the blood dries, the rest of the series is available to rent at Movie Madness in all its glory. It's up to you to figure out whether the remix tops the original, and that decision will take you on a gnarly ride filled with severed heads, demons and baby carts straight outta hell.
SEE IT: Shogun Assassin screens at the Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Jan. 26.
also showing:
Look. You're a bunch of fun-loving, trouble-making kids lost in a small town, where your buddy just got shot. Why wouldn't you take up a weird old dude's offer to let you stay in his run-down mansion? Especially if he's Bela Legosi? In Spooks Gone Wild, the answer is "you should, and you will!" Joy Cinema. 9:15 pm Wednesday, Jan. 20.
Church of Film's Late Weimer Glam series continues with the 1932 musical comedy I By Day, You By Night, the tale of a manicurist and a waiter who share an apartment at different times of the day and unknowingly strike up a romance. North Star Ballroom. 8 pm Wednesday, Jan. 20.
Due to its popularity, OMSI is extending it's big-screen Studio Ghibli series, with encore presentations of My Neighbor Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, and other modern classics. OMSI. Through Sunday, Jan. 24. See omsi.edu for full listings.
After the Force was awakened, something else was bound to become aroused. It was the Schwartz, and if Spaceballs has proven anything, it's that when the Schwarts is aroused, there's no use resisting it. Academy Theater. Friday-Thursday, Jan. 22-28.
Speaking of the Force, Rian Johnson has been tapped to direct Episode IX, making it a great time to revisit his high-school noir Brick and hope that Kylo Ren will transition from emo kid to hard-boiled hothead spitting Sam Spade slang. 5th Avenue Cinema. 7 & 9:30 pm Friday-Saturday, 3 pm Sunday, Jan. 22-24.
Before she was a stringy British woman, Madonna was the lucky star of the 1985 romp Desperately Seeking Susan, playing second fiddle to Rosanna Arquette. Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Saturday, Jan. 23.
Long before the shitty, brooding Fantastic 4 reboot stunk up theaters, Roger Corman produced a $1.5 million crock of shit that still managed to be better despite being deemed too rotten to release. Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Saturday, Jan. 23.
Willamette Week