Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx – Kenji Misumi, 1972

Kozure Ōkami: Sanzu no kawa no ubaguruma / “Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx”

Japan, 1972

Director: Kenji Misumi

Script: Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima

Starring: Tomisaburo Wakayama (Itto Ogami), Akihiro Tomikawa (Daigoro), Kayo Matsuo (Sayaka Yagyu), Akiji Kobayashi (Ozuno)

Story

In the scene that serves as a prelude to this second part of the Lone Wolf saga, the fugitive ronin Ogami and his son Daigoro are attacked by two swordsmen. But the former kaishakunin defeats them without difficulty. Before dying, one of the assassins tells him that it will not help him to hide, because the Yagyu clan has power all over Japan; sooner or later they will finish him off…

After the titles of credit, Ogami Itto and his “cub” arrive at a village, where they stay in a boarding house. The owner of the inn is a bit skeptical at the beginning when he sees the ronin appear, because he thinks he is a poor wanderer, who will not have money to pay and who can cause problems. When the innkeeper tries to tell him, with a false courtesy, that they have no free rooms, Ogami gives him a package with 500 ryo (we assume that’s a lot of money) to keep in a safe place while he’s staying there. Then suddenly the innkeeper’s attitude changes and he is extremely helpful…

Meanwhile, Ozuno of the Kurokawa clan (allied to the Yagyu) is sent by Retsudo to contact Sayaka, the beautiful but extremely dangerous head of a group of assassins. Sayaka belongs to a branch of the Yagyu clan. She is part of the Akashi-Yagyu, and when she is informed that Ogami has killed two important members of her clan in Edo in a duel, and that he has dared to challenge the Yagyu, she bursts into a rage and promises the emissary that she and the ninjas she commands will defeat the Lone Wolf, as Retsudo has ordered. Ozuno says to be very careful with Ogami and his sword, “never let your guard down”, for he was the official kaishakunin and is a master of the Suio style… Sayaka bursts out laughing madly, for she is convinced that no one is superior in the martial arts and that no one masters combat techniques better than her female team of deadly ninjas. To prove it, she tells Ozuno that the best of her men “try to get to the garden” (trying to dodge her assassins, who are standing by the door to the garden). The one chosen by Ozuno prepares to do what he is asked to do, jumps up with several turns in the air, but is intercepted by the women. He keeps trying to get to the gate, but each time Sayaka’s ninjas cut off parts of his body (now they cut off his fingers, now one of his hands, his nose, a foot…) – When Ozuno’s man gets to the gate (without having reached the garden) he is nothing more than a mutilated wreck. The overwhelmed envoy of the Kurokawa clan is now sure that Sayaka’s ninja women are up to the task.

For their part, father and son continue “the road to hell” after having rested in the boarding house. The system followed by those who wish to hire the services of the Ogami as a mercenary is as follows: They place the image of a furious god on the outside of a temple. Thus, when the ex-executioner passes by, he knows that they want to entrust him with a job and makes a sign with stones on the floor indicating where they can find him.

That way, he is contacted by Ichibe Hirano, the spokesman for the Awa clan. The Awa control a province that has achieved great wealth and prosperity thanks to the discovery of an indigo dye. But the central power of the Shogunate wants to take over the secret of the elaboration and application of the valuable dye. For this reason, agents in the service of Edo have instigated a rebellion among the peasants of the province, to spread chaos by way of pressure. The top leader of the revolt, Chuzaemon Makuya, escaped from the territories of the Awa clan and is heading to Edo, to reveal the secret of indigo to the authorities there. To prevent the shogunate from taking advantage of his business and expropriating the assets of his clan and province, Hirano asks Ogami to kill Makuya before he reaches Edo. But Ogami must be on the alert, for Makuya is travelling with three fearsome bodyguards; the Hidari brothers. Each of them masters a specific fighting technique: one the iron fist, the other uses a spiked baton and the third a metal claw. Ogami is informed of the route to be followed by those who on this occasion must be sent to hell…

Continuing on the road, Ogami and his son are attacked several times by nimble and skilful women (the assassins in the service of Sayaka Yagyu), who when they approach father and son pose as peasant women cleaning turnips, acrobats performing a function or pilgrims; to draw and throw their weapons at the moment when Ogami and Daigoro approach… But the ex-kaishakunin, with his Suio style, defeats them all. Only Sayaka herself survives, and flees for the moment.

Soon after, the mercenary ronin and his little boy are attacked by the men of the Kurokawa clan. Ogami also defeats them, leaving only three alive (including the leader Ozunu). But during the uneven contest, the ronin has been seriously injured. Bloody and wobbly, he arrives at night pulling the cart into a haystack. There he lies down to try to recover. Little Daigoro is aware of what is happening and takes care of his father.

Meanwhile, Sayaka and Ozunu, whose clans have been severely depleted, discuss how to eliminate the Kozure Okami… Ozunu comes up with the idea of kidnapping his son Daigoro. Initially Sayaka finds this proposal to be cowardly and crawling, but she finally accepts, as “Ogami Itto cannot be defeated by normal methods”…

Commentary

The second part of “Lone Wolf and Cub” was also directed by Kenji Misumi. We appreciate here many memorable sequences, and a great poetic (as well as philosophical) charge in both the narrative and the visual. There are moments of hyperbolic violence (with blood gushing out) and also others of great tenderness, like when Daigoro wants to help his wounded father who is semi-conscious and lying in a haystack. The little boy walks to the nearby lake, drinks water from his mouth and brings it to his father. He also brings him something to eat, which he has taken from an offering to a Buddha image on the road. But since the boy is already aware that this is something sacred, he does not want to just take the food, which would be tantamount to “stealing”, and takes off his jacket to leave it there as “payment”… Also noteworthy is the scene where, after the fire on the boat, Ogami and Daigoro arrive ashore with Sayaka (Kayo Matsuo), who has been disarmed and reduced by Ogami. Once inside a shelter, father and son undress by taking off their wet clothes; after which Ogami pounces on Sayaka, apparently with the intention of raping her… but he only wants to take off her wet clothes as well and have the three of them join their bodies to warm each other… In the end, the tough and cold Sayaka, chief of the ninja killers and a member of the Yagyu clan who laughed like a psychopath at her first appearance, no longer has any intention of killing Itto Ogami…

Just as Kamisori Hanzo (played by Shintaro Katsu) has installed all kinds of traps in his house to prevent his enemies from catching him, Ogami has also placed various defensive devices on Daigoro’s cart.

Mention should also be made of the scene in the desert (so reminiscent of the Italo-Western), where Ogami Itto faces the three tremendous brothers who escort Makuya.

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The Tale of Zatoichi continues – Kazuo Mori, 1962

The Tale of Zatoichi continues (Zoku Zatôichi monogatari)

Japan, 1962

Director: Kazuo Mori

Scriptwriter: Minoru Inuzuka (based on Kan Shimozawa’s story)

Main actors: Shintaro Katsu (Zatoichi), Yaeko Mizutani (Setsu), Masayo Banri (Tane), Tomisaburo Wakayama (Yoshiro)

Soundtrack: Ichiro Saito

Story

Zatoichi (Shintaro Katsu), the famous and prodigious masseur and blind swordsman, has arrived in a new region after the adventures narrated in the first film. After confronting some arrogant soldiers, who throw him into the water when they discover him in the boat in which they were crossing a river, he is hired to massage the head of a samurai detachment. However, while he is doing this work, he indiscreetly discovers a secret of the lord (“I had never had a client like this one…”), so the samurai will persecute him with the intention of killing him.

At the same time, ronin Yoshiro (Tomisaburo Wakayama) and one of his men are there. These men coincide with Zatoichi in the inn where he is staying, but they do not talk with him. In the place there are also three prostitutes, who talk to each other about the “masseur whom the samurai are looking for to kill”. Zatoichi, who hears and understands that he is being referred to, is thus alerted; and he invites the women to a round of sake as a token of gratitude. He befriends one of them, the youngest and most attractive, who reminds him by the voice of an old girlfriend who left him when he became blind. The girl is also attracted to Zatoichi, and agrees to spend the night with him. The ronin Yoshiro tries to buy her services, but she refuses, pointing out that she already has a client. Shortly after, Zatoichi retires with the girl to a cabin, and a squadron of samurai arrives looking for him. No one at the inn denounces him, no one claims to have seen him, but Yoshiro learns the mysterious blind man is being looked for.

Yoshiro’s head has also been given a price. The taciturn wandering ronin is called to the presence of one of the local chiefs, who lets him know that he knows his identity and the crimes of which he is accused: Looting, robberies, murders… Yoshiro is an ex-samurai turned gangster. The local chief says he won’t hand him over to the authorities, but expels him from the village. The ronin and his trusted man pack their things and leave. But the chief instructs one of his employees to follow both of them closely with a view to capturing them by surprise, in order to collect the reward.

Zatoichi and the girl have spent the night together, and the next morning they wake up in a cabin on the beach. A troop of about twenty samurai arrive with the intention of killing him. The brave and experienced blind man confronts his enemies with determination and above all with the swift movements of his thin sword, which moves as fast as lightning, cutting and cutting the adversaries three by three. Finally, after destroying the attackers without suffering a single scratch, the remaining four or five samurai flee to the beach in terror. Zatoichi bids farewell to his friend and leaves for the Joshoji temple, to pay his respects to the tomb of his friend Hirate, who was forced to die in combat a year before <see the first part, “Zatôichi monogatari” (1962), by Kenji Misumi>.

Yoshiro, for his part, warns that they are being followed. He discovers the spy sent by the local chief, and neutralizes him with an accurate katana strike. The blind masseur arrives at Joshoji’s temple, and once there he prepares to pray together with the monks who sing Buddhist chants. Not far from that place lives Tane <see the first part, “Zatôichi monogatari”>, who is now engaged to another man, but has not forgotten the courteous and heroic Zatoichi. When Tane learns that his former protector is close, and that he is in danger because military detachments are looking for him without pause, she decides to meet him at the temple to warn him of the danger.

Zatoichi is on his guard. But before the samurai chasing him, Yoshiro and his men arrive. We learn that Yoshiro and Zatoichi knew each other from the past… because they are brothers. Despite their kinship they do not have good relations. Zatoichi’s old girlfriend left him to escape with her brother Yoshiro; however it is the latter who for some incomprehensible reason holds more grudges against the other, and not the other way around as would be expected. Yoshiro says he wants to kill Zatoichi, and both get into a fierce fight. Yoshiro’s helper escapes when he sees the samurai approaching, who also persecute them. This time Zatoichi has an opponent to his measure. His brother is as skilled with the sword as he is, with the advantage that he has not lost his sight. If Zatoichi was able to quickly get rid of four or five enemies at a time with two lightning fast sword strokes, this is not the case with Yoshiro, whose talent and mastery of the sword is comparable to his own. The ronin succeeds in wounding Zatoichi in the hand, but shortly after, in the struggle, the blind man’s weapon penetrates Yoshiro’s flesh, just at the moment when the samurai arrive with the intention of seizing both fugitives. When the military detachment arrives, Zatoichi helps his badly wounded brother to escape from the place, and both throw themselves to the river from a bridge managing to elude the mutual persecutors.

Once in security, Zatoichi is dedicated to healing Yoshiro’s wounds, but he expires the next morning. The alliance between the samurai and the yakuza of the local chief who were trying to hunt down both brothers is considered dead, believing that they have drowned in the river. But Chief Sukegoro and his men are astonished when they learn that Zatoichi has managed to survive, and thirsting for revenge, the blind man rushes at them in the final scene, which ends hastily….

Comment

Second part of a long line of films with the mythical blind masseur, hardened gambler and wandering swordsman Zatoichi as the protagonist. The actor who gives life to the character is, once again, the great Shintaro Katsu. The director of this second part is not Kenji Misumi, but another director (Kazuo Mori). The sequel to “Zatoichi monogatari” (shot the same year, 1962) is not at the same level as the original. There are some gaps in the story; for example, it is never quite clear why the samurai want to kill Zatoichi (What is the secret that the masseur has discovered about the lord? It must be such a big secret that not even the spectator has the right to know… The only thing we are taught is that the gentleman laughs frantically because of the tickling he gets from Zatoichi’s massage). Nor do we know why Yoshiro (who does not appear in the first part) wanted to kill his brother. The girl Zatoichi knows in the tavern, the prostitute who falls in love with him and reminds him of his ex-girlfriend, looks like she is going to become his companion, but she disappears abruptly towards the middle of the footage and nothing about her is ever heard of again (perhaps she will return in a next film of the saga?).

In any case, Zoku Zatôichi monogatari’s viewing is a good opportunity to see Shintaro Katsu and Tomisaburo Wakayama (Zatoichi and Yoshiro, repectively), two greats of the sixties and seventies chambara, who were also brothers in real life.


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Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance – Kenji Misumi, 1972

Kozure Ōkami: Kowokashi udekashi tsukamatsuru / “Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance”

Japan, 1972

Director: Kenji Misumi

Main actors

Story

The Tokugawa Shogunate controls Japan tightly, but the intrigues between the various clans that share the power shake stability from time to time. To keep the situation under control, the Shogunate has set up several official bodies from Edo whose mission is to ensure that institutions function properly and that there is a balance between the clans. The role of the spies (now more often called secret agents), ninjas (or members of the elite corps) and the kaishakunin, the supreme executioner, are all subordinated to these state bodies. The mission of the latter is to assist the nobles who have been condemned by the shogun to commit the ritual suicide of seppuku, by cutting off their heads from a sharp slash to spare them the immense suffering involved in having to open their bellies.

Itto Ogami, a samurai of stale ancestry and an expert in the handling of the sword in the style of the Suio school (Suiō-ryū) holds the dignity of a kaishakunin at the beginning of this story. All dressed in white (the color of mourning in Japanese tradition), he solemnly performs his duties as an executioner by decapitating noblemen who have lost the grace of the Shogun. In the first scenes he even has to decapitate a child, a little prince who, guided by his desolate preceptor, squeezes a wooden sword against his belly to symbolically imitate the act of hara-kiri.

One night, while praying in the temple dedicated to those who died by his sword, Ogami hears a scream from his wife: Azami, his wife, has just been killed. A ninja commando flees the house after the crime has been committed. Little Daigoro, one year old, has survived. It’s certainly a settling of scores, thinks the kaishakunin. Itto Ogami swears to hunt down his wife’s killers.

The next morning, an official named Bizen Yagyu arrives with the intention of arresting Ogami. He is accused of having placed the emblem of the Shogunate in the temple of his house dedicated to the dead (which is bound to bring bad omen, for it implies that he wishes the Shogun dead). The three samurai who, according to Bizen, ordered the attack on his house the night before (killing his wife) and then committed seppuku, were followers of a daimyo who was executed by Ogami. These three nobles are allegedly accusing the court executioner of treason, for having placed the Tokugawa emblem on the death temple. But Ogami (who has never done such a thing) immediately suspects that something darker and more twisted is behind such infamous and false accusations…

To the amazement of the kaishakunin, the mon (emblem) of the Tokugawa is actually located in the Temple of Death on his property. Now Bizen has the “proof” he needs to arrest him. However, Ogami is convinced that everything is a conspiracy to sink him, conceived by the Ura-Yagyu (a faction of the Yagyu clan to which Inspector Bizen belongs, and which is commanded by his grandfather Retsudo). The Yagyu are rivals of the Ogami and aspire to the position of kaishakunin. That is why they have devised this perfidious ploy: Their aim is to get rid of the troublesome Itto Ogami so that one of their own can take his place.

Ogami is not willing to be caught. He fights to the death against Bizen’s men, killing them all (including finally Bizen himself).

What has been told so far is a flashback, which Ogami remembers as he wanders along the roads, being banished, and driving a wooden cart on which his son Daigoro is sitting. The former kaishakunin now seeks revenge on the Yagyu clan, especially their leader Retsudo. He seeks redress for the murder of his wife, for the vile false accusation, for the ignominious collusion that has made him an outcast. From being an official dignitary of the Shogunate, Itto Ogami has become a mercenary, a hired killer who travels around the country pushing a baby carriage. He is now known as Kozure Okami – Lone Wolf.

Along his way he meets samurai and ronins who recognize him, and who have “jobs” for him: to kill a powerful enemy, or to finish off someone who threatens this or that clan… A chamberlain decides to hire the services of the former executioner to liquidate four heartless individuals who in turn have plotted a conspiracy against his daimyo. To be absolutely certain that the man with the cart is indeed the former kaishakunin, the chamberlain asks two of his best men to attack him – only if he survives will he be the real Ogami Itto. While the man who seeks to hire him explains the plan, Ogami is attacked from behind, but at the speed of light he eliminates the two attackers without flinching or even turning his head. The astonished chamberlain is now sure: This man is indeed Ogami.

The hangman-mercenary and his little Daigoro are now on their way to fulfill the task at hand. On the way, they see some girls playing ball. This brings back memories of Itto, which we see as a flashback: When Ogami fell victim to the conspiracy and the dignity of kaishakunin was taken away from him, he put his one-year-old son up for election:

“Daigoro, your father has already chosen the path he is going to take. It is the path to hell. I will not surrender to the Shogun, but I will rebel; I will live as a fugitive and will not rest until I have avenged the affront the Yagyus have done to us. Now the time has come for you to choose: Here is a ball and here is a sword. If you choose the ball, I will send you to your mother. But if you choose the sword, you will come with me and together we will walk the path to hell. Surely you do not understand my words or what this all means, but in your veins flows the blood of the Ogami, let the blood choose for you. The ball or the sword, choose Daigoro! The little one crawls to the sword. His father (proud but gloomy as always) takes him in his arms and adds: “You have chosen the hardest path. You would have been happier with your mother…” Colosal!

Ogami also remembers how he refused to practice seppuku before the shogun’s envoys. The latter were liquidated by his katana, and the now ronin abandoned his property with his son Daigoro to become an outlaw. Earlier, the evil Retsudo (who gained for his clan the coveted position of kaishakunin) proposed that one of his own fight a duel against Ogami. But the Yagyu was eliminated, after which father and son left Edo. The score with Retsudo is still open, but for the moment, throughout his travels through Japan, Ogami will be involved in other adventures…

To fulfill his first mission as a mercenary, Ogami arrives in a village that has been taken over by brutal outlaws. The nobles that the Chamberlain has indicated as his targets will pass through there. The bandits confiscate Ogami’s sword and confine him and Daigoro to a house with other travelers who were passing through. Among them is a beautiful prostitute and thief named Osen (Tomoko Mayama). The exiled kaishakunin, cold as an iceberg, unflappable, does his best to go unnoticed. He does not allow himself to be provoked by the criminals (the most boastful and aggressive of which is a certain Monosuke) and remains quiet and introspective… He waits for his “clients” to arrive, those whom he must send to hell…

Commentary

Thus begins the story of Itto Ogami, the excellent six-film saga of “Lone Wolf and Cub”. Many years ago I already saw the whole hexalogy and it impacted me deeply, to the point of awakening in me a growing interest for Japan and its history, as well as for the martial arts (especially kendo and iaido, those related to the handling of the sword).

The greatness of the dialogues must be emphasized; some of clear Nietzschean (and Spartan) stamp and of an enormous depth: As the paternal speech, before mentioned, of Itto to his small Daigoro: “(…) for your veins flows the blood of the Ogami, let the blood be the one that chooses for you…”

This first part, like the next two, is directed by the famous Kenji Misumi, director of countless jidaigeki of the highest quality (including many of Zatoichi, my other favorite saga of the genre). Tomisaburo Wakayama shines by bringing to life the hieratic Ogami Itto. His brother Shintaro Katsu (the actor who gives life to Zatoichi) produced this movie.


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