Film: Shogun Assassin
Release date: 29th November 2010
Certificate: 18
Running time: 85 mins
Director: Robert Houston
Starring: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Kayo Matsuo, Minoru Oki, Akiji Kobayashi, Shin Kishida
Genre: Action/Adventure/Drama
Studio: Eureka!
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Japan/USA
Banned in the UK for over a decade, Shogun Assassin is the film which re-invented the martial arts movie in the west during the ‘80s. Inventive, artistic and violently beautiful, Shogun Assassin’s influence is almost as far reaching as the death toll contained in its unique 83 minutes.
As told through the voiceover provided by his toddler son Daigoro (Akihiro Tomikawa – voiced by Gibran Evans), Ogami Itto (Tomisaburo Wakayama) is the shogun’s decapitator, but the Shogun has gone mad and is inflicting terrible suffering on his people through impossible taxes and endless killings. Although Itto carries out his master’s wishes, he goes home to his wife and young son every night, and prays for peace to fall on the kingdom.
Unfortunately for Itto and his family, the mad Shogun is frightened by his decapitator and decides to kill him. He sends his ninjas to carry out the orders but they mistakenly kill Itto’s wife instead. A furious Ogami Itto swears revenge and promises there will be “rivers of blood” as he is exiled with his young son. Itto becomes Lone Wolf; a masterless samurai for hire whose ultimate goal is to destroy the shogun and anyone who stands in his way…
Shogun Assassin is a movie which has been cut from the longer Lone Wolf and Cub series of films. There are six films in total, and Shogun Assassin is made from parts of the first two movies in the series. The fact any semblance of narrative coherence has been maintained is a miracle in itself, and the finished product has many flaws, but there are many positives, too.
As with the originals, Shogun Assassin has a beautifully dated look. The whole film has been shot in the style of a spaghetti western; the camera closes in on eyes squinting in the sun, or sweeps slowly past implacable faces with emotions of stone, and the violence, when it comes, erupts from the stillness. There are many examples where there is no action at all; the atmosphere of impending violence is built through the eyes of the actors and the atonal hum from the soundtrack. Shogun Assassin is full of atmosphere, drama, and at all times the threat of impending violence - all of which is underpinned by the incredible sound design and startling, but brilliantly over the top soundtrack.
Indeed it is hard not to escape the genius of the sound design of the film; doors creak and snap, the wind howls with voices floating on the breeze, and the cart carrying Lone Wolf’s ‘cub’ slowly trundles along seemingly deserted roads, with the wheels creaking over broken stones. The garish synths and programmed drums could be a distraction, and they are intrusive at times, but for the most part, they provide a harmonious bedrock upon which the atmosphere can safely lay its foundations, subtly working its magic.
The new score was recorded in its entirety using a Moog Modular synthesizer system; cutting edge studio equipment at the time, and although some of the music may seem out of step with the on screen action, the aural landscape is beautifully crafted - it is easy to see why so many musicians have fallen under its spell, most notably Wu-Tang Clan (GZA uses wholesale sections of music and dialogue from Shogun Assassin on his seminal album Liquid Swords).
The violence is perhaps the most captivating of Shogun Assassin’s many facets, and it is easy to see why the film gained such a cult following upon release. It is so different from any accepted western ideal of what action cinema should be; cartoon violence married to dialogue which has a strange, almost poetic beauty. It is also easy to see why the film was banned under the UK’s ‘video nasty’ laws during the 1980s as arms, legs, ears, and even the tip of someone’s nose are all sliced off. Men and women are chopped, diced, sliced, stabbed and, of course, decapitated, in a series of increasingly inventive action sequences. In one memorable scene where Lone Wolf takes on the deadly ‘Masters Of Death’, a trio of seemingly indestructible assassin’s - each with their own unique weapon - one of the masters has his head sliced in two from his hat to shoulders. The camera lingers for what seems like an eternity until the head slowly peels apart like pieces of fruit, before pausing as the blood gushes toward the sky! It is an iconic moment, as is the moment where Lone Wolf decapitates the shogun’s son during a duel to win his freedom. As the camera pulls back, Lone Wolf is silhouetted beside the headless figure, the sun setting behind him as the two figures stand in the long grass; one figure has no head, one figure has a baby strapped to his back.
Of course, all of this beauty comes at a price, and although using such stunning original material to create a new film may have seemed like a good idea, it clearly wreaks havoc with narrative and indeed Shogun Assassin’s many flaws are all directly attributable to the unusual way in which the film was made.
Despite the obvious lengths the makers of the new version went to keep some of the original dialogue intact (hiring deaf Japanese lip readers to interpret the original dialogue, using professional voice actors for the new dialogue), they have sacrificed lyrical integrity for narrative sense. Whole sections of dialogue at the beginning of the film do not make sense when taken in the wider context of the new storyline. Indeed, the final third of the film clearly has nothing to do with the beginning. It is as if, having created the back story for Lone Wolf, they realised it was going to be too difficult to tie in an ending with the footage they were using. Instead, the film changes tack after the first third and a new story is introduced. Maybe the makers were hoping Shogun Assassin would be the first of two, or possibly three films. Or maybe they just ran out of time or inclination, or money?
No matter what, Shogun Assassin is an essential part of any martial arts fans collection, and it also compliments the longer Lone Wolf and Cub series. Eerily magnificent, this is an oddity that will repay attention and stands up to repeated viewings, despite the flaws inherent in a project with such an unusual genesis. As an aperitif for the full series, it is the most tantalising of hints at what is to come. SM
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