Search - Lone Wolf & Cub: TV Series 5 (2pc) (Sub) on DVD

Beware Topless Assassins!

Archmaker | California | 04/22/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This 4th in the Series, brought to you by the folks that let you know sword fighting was a messy and WET business, begins with a lovely young woman, topless and tatooed, slicing up some men in tip-top fashion. Our hero, the implacable and stone-faced Ogami Itto, former Shogun Executioner presently master ronin assassin, will be hired to dispatch the young lady to the next world.This entry is the first not directed by Kenji Mishimi, and is told a little more elliptically with many flashbacks that fill in more detail on the backstory of the Yagyu Clan's enmity toward Ogami Itto that lead them to murder his wife and set him and his young son on the road as "demons at the crossroads of Hell". Lord Retsudo, Itto's arch enemy, reappears and there is much clan intrigue and skull-duggery going on.There is still plenty of fighting and bloody mayhem, a fight in a temple has Ninja arms and legs being lopped off willy-nilly left and right. There is a lot of spraying blood, but there is also the same attention to period detail and the explanation of customs & codes of this long ago civilization, helped by great Liner Notes & Subtitles.It all climaxes with a hellacious fight with Ogami wiping out another army of opponents, but this time by using the terrain of gullies and ravines to his advantage. He ends the fight by taking Retsudo's eye but is badly wounded himself in the process. But, of course, he will live to fight another day. Graphic & fantastic, serious and silly, the Lone Wolf & Cub series is a kick if you've a mind for it."

Great, Superior, Samurai

Archmaker | 08/21/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The third of six Lone Wolf and Cub movies. From the opening scene in wich a topless, tatooed woman takes out a group of roughnecks with sword flashing ease, you cant help but be hooked. Consistent with the series trademarks, many fight scenes, lots of heads, arms, and legs roll, and, the obligatory, fountains of blood. Never drags. Big fight climax with Ogami Ito unleashing the baby cart full of weapons and then taking on an army. The best fight sequence though, has him against ninjas, in almost total darkness- all you see is limbs being lobbed off and ninjas hitting the floor. GREAT!The person below mentions "Shogun Assasin", wich was released back in the 80's. It was basically the first two Lone Wolf and Cub movies horribly edited together(with some gore cut out of the fights) to make one movie."

Awesome

Robert E Sutton | Richmond, Kentucky United States | 03/27/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This film may be my favorite of the whole series. This film features such an accurate representation of issue #23 of LW&C: performers, and the story itself is very moving. O-Yuki is a very sympathetic character that whose quest for revenge is even more admirable than Itto's as she was not only disgraced but violated as a woman. (...) The ending battle scene is also magnificent. (...) While the battle is not as visceral as the one in the previous entry or part 6, this film's battle is still quite magnificent. As I said before, this is my favorite film in the whole series though all of them feature spectacular amounts of bloodshed."

Terrific

Steven Hellerstedt | 07/25/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Here's a lesson in the value of reading on-disk liner notes. There are four short pages of notes on Animeigo's version of LONE WOLF AND CUB: BABY CART IN PERIL.

Page one tells about the Mountain Witch and Kintaro. Both legendary figures in Japan. The mountain witch, or yamauba, is the `fairy of the mountains,' old and haggard in appearance with a thin face and wild white hair. The mountain witch cares for the mountains; kintaro is a child of super-human strength and skills, something like our Paul Bunyan, I guess. Important stuff to know because the character Ogami Itto (Tomisaburo Wakayama,) the ronin Lone Wolf, has contracted to kill (for the usual 500 pieces of gold) is the beautiful young Oyuki, who has been slaughtering the Yagyu clansmen sent out to assassinate her. Oyuki has a tattoo of the Mountain Witch on her back and one of a nipple-seeking Kintaro covering her chest. Besides being a superbly skilled warrior, the lovely Oyuki will distract her opponents by removing her blouse while in battle. Whatever it takes to awe and shock.

Page two describes the `Yagyu New Shadow Style' of swordscraft. Lone Wolf and Cub is set in 17th century Japan, and every episode I've seen so far - this is my third - concentrates on sword fighting styles and techniques. The New Shadow Style is the type favored by Yagyu Gunbei, Ogami's bitter rival. Ogami, as we're reminded in every film, was the Shogun's Official Executioner until betrayed by the pernicious Retsudo. Gunbei was a disciple of Retsudo's, and he fought Ogami for the Executioner position and, save for what may have been a technicality (watch the film and decide for yourself,) defeated Ogami. Although each film in the series tells a particular story - in this case that of Oyuki and Ogami's contract to kill her - they all also flesh out the big story. I really should have started these in sequence, but I've been picking them up haphazardly. In any event, the Gunbei-Ogami rivalry is fleshed out in this one, even though it hasn't a whole lot to do with the main story.

Page three tells us about the goumune, or `street beggars,' of feudal Japan. Lone Wolf and Cub spend a lot of time traveling through the poorer communities of Japan and observing the outcasts and the looked down upon. As the goumune clan leader observes to a rude Yagyu thug sent by the Shogun to bring Ogami back, in a speech that distantly echoes words Shakespeare wrote for Shylock, the goumune may be reviled and looked down upon, but they eat, drink, and expel waste like any other human. And, like any other human, they value courtesy and a show of respect. Translated into terms I can understand - roughly and imperfectly translated, I realize - the goumune are something like the dirt farmers in westerns. Like I said, it's a rough translation - goumune are valued less than `human beings,' according to the notes, at a ratio of about 7 to 1. Still, in terms of firepower a group like the Yagyu clan - Ogami's chief enemies since the betrayal that forced his with-cub exile in a land between heaven and hell, between life and death - a group like the Yagyu clan have it all over the goumune. Not unlike the big bad ranchers pushing around the frightened and huddled sod busters in a lot of westerns.

We learn the Owari fief was a major commercial crossroads during the time the events in this movie took place on page four.

Lone Wolf's willingness to mingle with and befriend, and at times defend, the despised, sets him apart as a true samurai. Or a classic cowboy hero, come to think of it. He's imperturbable to the point of being a sphinx and proficient as heck with the sword. There's a lot of blood in these movies - when a bad guy gets his legs cut off at the knees the prop department empties a couple of quarts of krylon red #5 all over everything. In this movie alone I'd guess they were buying the stuff in 50-gallon drums. It may have played brutal in 1972, but it just seems a little cartoonish today. Not in a bad way, mind you. Lone Wolf and Cub was born of a Japanese comic book series and these movies are vividly visual. If the strange names and customs make watching this movie sound like work, it's not. They're a lot of fun, very well produced, visually pleasing, and containing a hero-and-a-half you can root for.
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