BABY CART TO THE RIVER STYX

BABY CART TO THE RIVER STYX is the second film in the world-renowned LONE WOLF & CUB series. If you've never heard of these films, then you've missed out on one of the greatest cinematic series of all time. Actually, if you haven't ever seen these films then that isn't really surprising - they've never been available in the UK... until now, that is. Artsmagic, a new UK DVD label, has already released the series on VHS in the UK, and now they're releasing them to DVD too, through their 'Warrior' label. The first two episodes in the six part series are available now.

Ogami Itto is a wandering, masterless samurai - a 'ronin' who takes on assassination jobs for a fee (usually "50 gold pieces"). He is pursued by warriors of the 'Shadow Yagyu' clan, who framed him when he was the Shogunate's official executioner, and who have sworn to kill him. He travels with his young son, Daigoro. In this film, Itto is hired to find and kill Chuzaemon Makuya, who is travelling with the 'Masters of Death', three undefeatable warrior brothers, each of whom has his individual weapon; one has a club with nails sticking out of it; one has a glove with 'Freddy Kreuger' style claws; and one has studded gloves. Meanwhile, the Shadow Yagyu have hired a band of ruthless female ninja to kill Itto. After various fights, Itto encounters the Masters of Death on a ship, which is set alight forcing him to abandon his quest for them for a while. When he has recovered, he follows them to a desert. Meanwhile, the men of the house that hired Itto are lying in wait in the desert (literally!) The Masters of Death are seen travelling through the desert, then they stop. The one with the clawed glove suddenly runs forward, plunging his claws into the desert sand. Blood wells up around the claws, and he drags a screaming warrior out from under the desert by his head. He then repeats this, before the other warriors rise up. A big fight ensues, but the Masters of Death kill them all. Itto then arrives and dispatches all three Masters of Death, then beheads Makuya. Lone Wolf & Cub walk off over the dunes, and the straw hat of one of the Masters of Death is seen being gently blown along the desert surface...

This episode in the 'Lone Wolf & Cub' (or 'Baby Cart') series, is commonly acknowledged as being one of the greatest non-mainstream Japanese films of all time. It is undoubtedly the best in the series, which is high praise in itself. The film may be somewhat difficult for viewers not used to Japanese (and more specifically, Samurai) codes of honour and social structure, and it is definitely worth starting with the first film before watching this, as much of the background information revealed in Part I is relevant to the story of this episode. The fight scenes in this film practically defy description - the director Kenji Misumi fills the scope image with red blood, blue sky, and body parts, and the soundtrack is filled with the swish of swords, and the cries of dying men (indeed, many of the fight scenes in the series are presented with no background noise except for the sounds of the fight). Itto takes on whole armies of men, killing them all without too much effort (only in Part IV is Itto seriously injured in a fight), since they attack only in the traditional Japanese style - strictly one man at a time. The fights aare beautifully choreographed and achieve heights unreached by any other film I can think of (except perhaps for those in Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI), and Tomisaburo Wakayama (who plays Itto) is utterly believable as the seemingly indestructable warrior. It is tempting to think that the film consists only of fight scenes, strung together by slow, contemplative interludes, but that would be to belittle the perfect composition and atmosphere which Misumi creates.

The series itself has a fascinating history; in 1972, Shintaro Katsu (Katsu was the star of the very famous, very successful and very long run (1962-1972) 'Zaitoichi the Blind Swordsman' series) decided to produce a new series of 'chambara' (violent samurai films) which would star his brother, Tomisaburo Wakayama. Kenji Misumi, a fairly famous Japanese director (he did some of the Zaitoichi films amongst other things) was brought on board, and Kazuo Koike, a famous Japanese scriptwriter, was hired to write the screenplay. The first film made was 'Kozure Ookami - Shinikaze ni Mukau Ubagurama' (AKA 'Baby Cart to Hades', AKA 'Lupine Wolf'). However, the film was held up by censorship problems, so in the mean time the team went ahead and made two further episodes in what would come to be known as the 'Lone Wolf & Cub' (or sometimes 'Baby Cart') series; 'Kosure Ookami - Kowokashi Udekashi Tsukamatsuru' (AKA 'Sword of Vengeance', AKA 'Lightning Swords of Death') and 'Kosure Ookami - Sanzu no Kawa no Ubagurama' (AKA 'Baby Cart to the River Styx'). These two films, released within months of each other, were an enormous success and the first part was released as part 3 in the series. Part IV - 'Kosure Ookami - Oya no Kokoro Kono Kokooro' (AKA 'Baby Cart in Peril', AKA 'Heart of a Parent, Heart of a Child') was directed by Buichi Saito, Part V - 'Kosure Ookami - Meifu Mado' (AKA 'Baby Cart in the Land of Demons', AKA 'Tread Lightly On the Path to Hell', AKA 'The Crossroads to Hell') saw Misumi return to the series, and Part VI - 'Kosure Ookami - Jigoku e Iku Zo! Daigoro!' (AKA 'White Heaven in Hell', AKA 'Daigoro! We're Going to Hell!') was directed by Yoshiyuki Kuroda. As the series progressed the films got more and more violent, and more and more outlandish! The Baby Cart got guns, and Lone Wolf fought whole armies of men! However, nothing could beat Part II of the series, which stands as one of the great achievements of Samurai cinema, Japanese cinema, and violent film in general. The whole series was released in only three years (1972-1974), and was followed by other similar chambara series involving the Lone Wolf collaborators, most notably the two 'Shurayukihime' ('Lady Snowblood') films and the 'Goyoukiba' ('Hanzo the Razor') series (starring Katsu), as well as some unofficial follow-up films many years later ('Lone Wolf & Cub: Final Conflict', 'Fugitive Samurai' and 'Lone Wolf Cop: Sex Doll Case'). In 1980, Americans Robert Houston and David Weisman bought the US rights to the first two films in the series (Parts I and II) through Roger Corman's New World film company. They took about 12 minutes of footage from Part I ('Sword of Vengeance') and about 68 minutes of footage from Part II ('Baby Cart to the River Styx'), re-edited it, partly re-wrote the story, dubbed the voices and added an electronic 'synthesiser' soundtrack by Mark Lindsay. The resulting film was re-titled 'Shogun Assassin' and released theatrically to some success. This later became an unofficial 'video nasty', but has now been re-released on DVD in the UK by VIPCO, uncut.

The most surprising thing about the Lone Wolf & Cub series is the sheer level of violence. As mentioned above, there are many excellent chambara series from the 60's and 70's, but none come close to LW&C in terms of violence or bodycount. The fights are extremely well choreographed, and very unrealistic! No matter how many men Itto faces, they only attack one at a time, and nobody ever attacks in an underhand manner. Tomisaburo Wakayama plays the part of Ogami Itto with relish, and is absolutely perfect in the role. Indeed, his presence is what really makes the series work, and it is surprising that more credit isn't given to him for the series' success. Massive amounts of blood are on screen nearly all the time, and it's hard not to think of Akira Kurosawa's famous 'blood fountain' scene in SANJURO when watching the death scenes in this series. However, some of the film's (and indeed the series') most impressive moments come during the brief lulls between fights - we gradually learn more and more about Itto as the series progresses, and about his very strict life philosophy. Much of the scenery in the films is very beautiful and compliments the fights very well. Some people might find these thoughtful interludes boring, or may think that they disturb the rhythm of the film, but really they will be savoured by the discerning viewer. One thing is for sure - LW&C provides a unique viewing experrience and is something that you will never forget. In fact, you will more than likely be hooked, and will want to see the rest of the series, joining the ranks of the many Baby Cart lovers around the world!

One last thing I should probably mention is the reason for the series often being referred to as the 'Baby Cart' series. Before Itto sets off on his endless wanderings, he fashions a cart for Daigoro from wood - this is never shown, or explained, but the cart is an enduring feature of all the films. However, it is no ordinary cart - the thing is fitted with all sorts of weaponry, from spears at the sides to spikes at the front, to machine guns (!!!) in later episodes. This strange conceit is typical of Japanese chambara films - the hero always has some sort of distinguishing feature for us to recognise, whether it be blindness (Zaitoichi), One-Armedness ('The One Armed Swordsman'), a huge penis (!!!) ('The Razor'), or a baby cart!

DVD Specification
Original year of release - 1972
Approximate running time - 81m 02s @ 26fps (packagaing states 85 min approx.)
Aspect ratio - Widescreen (2.35:1)
System - PAL (colour)
Rating - 18 (UK)
Sound - Dolby Digital Stereo (2.)
DVD release - Warrior (Artsmagic)
Region Coding - Region 0 (code free)

DVD Extras
Trailers for all six Lone Wolf & Cub episodes

DVD Ratings (out of 5)
Picture - 3
Reasonable, but not as good as the first film in the series. There is quite a lot of grain in places, and some quite serious print damage in some of the later reels. The AnimEigo prints are probably the same, though their laserdisc looks better than this DVD. Some digital re-mastering would not go amiss, and we can hope that the eventual US releases might feature this. However, Artsmagic have at least released the film in its intended ratio (full scope, about 2.35:1). This is essential, since the LONE WOLF series benefits from some of the most stunning photography and compositions ever seen in Japanese film. The blood-letting and killing is done in such a stylish fashion, and in such a carefully composed manner, that to see the films in any other ratio would be a crime. There is also some lovely scenery and a few scenes in which much of the action occurs in the far left/right of the image, meaning it would be lost were the film to be cropped for 4:3 presentation, as we've come to expect from budget UK companies. There is no anamorphic enhancement, but to expect it would be most unrealistic.

How much credit should be assigned to Artsmagic is not easy to say - they have basically purchased the UK rights to AnimEigo's original US transfers, and converted them to PAL. Since AnimEigo had already done all of the work involved in hunting down the best prints, cleaning up the image, translating, subtitling, etc. Artsmagic were not really left with a terribly difficult task. Still, it is cheering that a small company in the UK has taken the time and effort required to make the LONE WOLF series look as good as it should do, and hasn't simply settled for half measures, like so many other small UK DVD companies.

The UK DVD's seem to be almost identical in terms of picture quality/clarity to the US laserdiscs, suffering perhaps very slightly from the NTSC - PAL conversion. The subtitles for the film are presented in the bottom matte bar, meaning that widescreen TV owners like me won't be able to fully blow the image up to fit their screen. Also, AnimEigo provide useful supertitles from time-to-time, which explain unusual Japanese terms for the viewer. Obviously, in order to see both the top and bottom bars on a 16x9 TV, the image must not be too blown up.
Sound - 3
Dolby Digital Stereo. Fine. Some slight hissing early on, but otherwise perfectly clear. To be honest, the film doesn't make all that much use of sound; there isn't even much music, so it doesn't play too important a part in the proceedings. More than adequate.
Extras - 2
Nothing much. A trailer for the film, plus trailers for all five other films in the series. The trailers aren't the original theatrical trailers, but are new ones cobbled together by Artsmagic to promote their releases. AnimEigo's US laserdisc releases did not contain trailers either, or indeed any other extras, but did include very useful, thoroughly researched liner notes. It would have been nice for us to have been given these, as they really were very informative. However, it is possible to download them from http://www.animeigo.com/SamLiner/
Overall Rating - 4
A seminal film is given a decent UK DVD release. Amazingly, the BBFC seem to have chosen to let the film through uncut, and the UK is the only country where it is possible to buy the film on DVD. For anyone who is in any way interested in Japanese film, or Samurai film, this series is an essential purchase. Good A/V presentation is slightly let down by poor extras (a poster gallery would have been nice), but still holds its own against the US laserdisc. If you've only ever seen this film as SHOGUN ASSASSIN, or - Heaven forbid! - you haven't ever seen it at all, then there is nothing to stop you from buying and enjoying this DVD presentation of one of the all-time classics of world cinema.

Film Tag Lines
'Adventures in butchery along a trail of gore!'

AKA
'Kosure Ookami - Sanzu no Kawa no Ubagurama' (Japanese title)
'Lone Wolf and Cub - Perambulator of the River Sanzu' (literal English title - the River Sanzu is equivalent to the River Styx in Western mythology)

Alternative versions
Outside of Japan, the only official release of the series was in the USA, where AnimEigo released all six parts through their 'Samurai Cinema' label. The films were released to both VHS and laserdisc, and are rumoured to be coming to DVD next year.
The film SHOGUN ASSASSIN (1980) as already mentioned, consists mainly of footage from this film, with about 12 minutes from part I (SWORD OF VENGEANCE).

Movie Facts
Producer Shintaro Katsu was the star of such films as the 'Zaitoichi - the Blind Swordsman' series and the 'Goyoukiba' ('Hanzo the Razor') series, and was the brother of Tomisaburo Wakayama (who plays Ogami Itto in the LONE WOLF films).