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Shogun Assassin
Cover of the UK DVD.
Directed by	Robert Houston
Produced by	Shintaro Katsu Robert Houston
Written by	Kazuo Koike Goseki Kojima
Starring	Tomisaburo Wakayama
Music by	Hideaki Sakurai
Cinematography	Chishi Makiura
Editing by	Lee Percy Toshio Taniguchi
Distributed by	Toho
Release date(s)	1980
Running time	86 min.
Country	Japan/US
Language	English (dubbed)
IMDb profile

Shogun Assassin (known in Japan as Kozure Ōkami 子連れ狼) is a very violent jidaigeki movie made for the American market and released in 1980. The film is considered a classic by many fans of the samurai-film genre. In 2006 it was restored and re-released on DVD in North America by AnimEigo.

Shogun Assassin was edited and compiled from the first two films in the Baby Cart series, using 12 minutes of the first film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (Kozure Ōkami: Kowokashi udekashi tsukamatsuru or Wolf with Child in Tow: Child and Expertise for Rent), and most of Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx (Kozure Ōkami: Sanzu no kawa no ubaguruma or Wolf with Child in Tow: Perambulator of the River of Sanzu). Both were originally released in 1972. There were six films in all in the series. These in turn were based on the long-running 1970s manga series, Lone Wolf and Cub, created by the writer Kazuo Koike and the artist Goseki Kojima.

Shogun Assassin was dubbed into English whereas the originals are in Japanese. The film, being compiled from separate stories, uses a much-simplified version of the situation. For instance, any mention of clan war is gone and the opponent Retsudo is simply called "The Shogun." A foreboding synthesizer score of the type popular at the time was applied. Sandra Bernhard provided one of the voices in the dubbed edition.

The title character, Ogami Ittō, is played by Tomisaburo Wakayama, brother of the producer, Shintaro Katsu, who is known for playing Zatoichi in a series of 26 films starting in the 1960s.

Several audio clips from Shogun Assassin are used on GZA's Liquid Swords (produced by RZA). In addition, the film is invoked in Kill Bill Vol. 2 (for which RZA provided original music) in the end scenes where the protagonist and her daughter watch it as a bed-time story .

The dubbing of the movie is typified by bad grammar as a result of literal translation and cultural misinterpretation. This has resulted in some quotable catchphrases from the movie:

• "They shall pay. With rivers of blood!"
• "Oh mad one! We see your trap!"
• "I am the Supreme Ninja"
• "Your technique is magnificent, when cut across the neck a sound like wailing winter winds is heard they say, I´d always hoped to cut someone like that some day, to hear that sound, but to have it happen to my own neck, is ridiculous"
• "When I was little, my father was famous. He was the greatest Samurai in the empire, and he was the Shogun's decapitator. He cut off the heads of 131 lords, for the Shogun. It was a bad time for the empire. The Shogun just stayed inside his castle and he never came out. People said his brain was infected by devils, and that he is rotting with evil. The Shogun said the people were not loyal. He said he had a lot of enemies, but he killed more people than that. It was a bad time. Everybody living in fear, but still we were happy. My father would come home to mother, and when he had see her, he would forget about the killings. He wasn't scared of the Shogun, but the Shogun was scared of him. Maybe that was the problem. That night, mother would sing for us, while father would go into his temple and pray for peace. He had prayed for things to get better. Then, one night the Shogun sent his ninja spies to our house. They were supposed to kill my father, but they didn't. That was the night everything changed, forever. That was when my father left his samurai life and became a demon. He became an assassin, he walks the road of vengeance. And he took me with him. I don't remember most of this myself. I only remember the Shogun's ninja hunted us wherever we go. And the bodies falling. And the blood."
• "I have decided to escape, to defy the shogun. Today I will begin walking the road to hell. But you will choose your own path. So, soon you may be seeing heaven. Choose the sword, and you will join me. Choose the ball and you join your mother, in death. You don’t understand my words, but you must choose. So… come boy, choose life or death."

• Lone Wolf and Cub
• Jidaigeki
• Exploitation film

• Shogun Assassin at the Internet Movie Database

Lone Wolf and Cub
Baby Cart film series
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (1972) | Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972) | Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (1972) | Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril (1972) | Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons (1973) | Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven in Hell (1974) | Shogun Assassin (first and second films combined) (1980)
Television series / List of Lone Wolf and Cub episodes
Creators and Actors
Goseki Kojima | Kazuo Koike | Shintaro Katsu | Tomisaburo Wakayama | Yagyū Clan
Other related articles
Baby transport | Bushido | Dark Horse Comics | Jidaigeki | Samurai Executioner | Kill Bill | Road to Perdition | Tokugawa shogunate