Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972) 81m
This, the second episode in the SWORD OF VENGEANCE series (as it was titled for foreign distribution) was dubbed into English, re-edited with a preamble from the first and released in 1980 as SHOGUN ASSASSIN, which is how I first saw it with a late night audience of likewise startled film fans. I'm glad that all six films have since been released for home viewing in their original Japanese versions, but there's no substitute for being part of the initial cinema experience. Based on the best-selling epic graphic novel 'Lone Wolf and Cub', the saga begins with samurai Ogami Itto (Tomisaburo Wakayama) taking to the road after being betrayed by a rival clan in his Shogunate. You don't have to see the first film to enjoy the second, and in fact may benefit from jumping in the deep end (which made it more memorable for me) and immersing yourself in the story's peculiar universe.
'Lone Wolf' wanders about Feudal Japan, trundling his infant son Diagoro in a large wooden cart and picking up sword-for-hire work as it suits him. In this episode, he's asked to save the business of dye manufacturers whose enemies have enlisted ninja assassins and a lethal trio of warriors. This is the most consistently exciting film of the six; the action is compelling not only because of the surreal progression of violent set-pieces (which look like they're straight out of the comic, and expertly directed by Kenji Misumi, who had been making samurai films for twenty years) but also because every action sequence reveals a little more about Ogami (but not enough to make him any less inscrutable). Without the enigmatic relationship he shares with his son, the BABY CART films would be little more than flashy exercises in swordplay and bloodshed. Ogami and his son share a burden without overtly demonstrating their suffering or acceptance – he believes that they walk a path in a demon world, between life and death. Almost the only time they speak is when they say each others name, yet they clearly have a powerful bond and understand each other implicitly (in one scene a glance is enough for Diagoro to know he must slip off his sandal, allowing his father to count the seconds of its fall).
The Lone Wolf films make a perfect counterpoint to the classic 'Man with No Name' Westerns by Sergio Leone, which ended at the time that their oriental equivalent began. As in those films, STYX has many close-ups of faces and eyes; an eccentric musical score; the use of bells, chimes, wind and whistling to heighten anticipation and foreboding; rituals of death; dispassionate, expert killers; and a hero not unlike an earthbound avenging spirit. I wouldn't be surprised if this entry was the most popular of the series – I much prefer the purity of Ogami's sword-slashing melees to the pistols, machine guns, bombs, and Blaxploitation-style soundtracks that would creep into later episodes. As with the Leone Westerns, these films don't appear dated because they inhabit a world completely out of time. STYX was followed by BABY CART IN HADES (which moves at a slower pace but has a wild finale), BABY CART IN PERIL (memorable for its tattooed swordswoman), BABY CART IN THE LAND OF DEMONS (the most grim, with a little more attention on Diagoro), and WHITE HEAVEN IN HELL (which makes the mistake of adding magic to the storyline). The standard of the films is consistent even though they had to all be made within a couple of years, i.e. before the kid who played Diagoro grew up.
sburridge@hotmail.com
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