Lone Wolf and Cub - Sword of Vengeance
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List Price: $29.98
Features
• Color
• Letterboxed
• Subtitled
• Widescreen
• NTSC
In Theaters : 23 August, 1973
Video Release : 26 November, 1996 |
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Lone Wolf and Cub - Sword of Vengeance Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
Itto, you better find the guys who took the special features.
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The comic series Lone Wolf and Cub is one of the most epic, action packed, and respected series of all time. It's influenced many artists and writers, while at the same time been copied by countless people who overdo it more often than not. It quickly got a few movies due to its success, and did fairly well, though there's a lot of criticism that the later installments tried to one-up the first couple volumes (I'll see about that soon enough). But there are still a lot of people unfamiliar with Lone Wolf and Cub, by that name at least. If you mention Shogun Assassin around more mainstream samurai movie fans, they're sure to know exactly what you're talking about. Shogun Assassin was a movie composed of the first two Lone Wolf and Cub movies, edited together to appear as one movie. And the thing is, it worked pretty well. Heck, that's how I got into everything. After watching the first two volumes of Lone Wolf and Cub, it's astonishing how much they were able to edit out for Shogun Assassin but still keep the plot intact and not exactly lose anything in the process. But that sounds like I'm disrespecting the movies in whole. Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance is a fantastic start to an epic series, even if some parts haven't aged too well. And the dvd itself? Solid.
Ogami Itto, a skilled warrior with no equal, is the Shogun's Assassin. He is hated by the allies of those he executes, as seen in the beginning as he executes a very young boy of about 4 years old as his followers curse Itto. He has a son, Daigoro, and a wife that he cares for deeply without making it too obvious as to keep his cool exterior. Tragedy strikes one day as several men break into his home and murder his wife, as well as leave a tablet in his shrine with the icon of the Shogun's enemy. Sure enough, his employers come over to inspect his home after several men commit seppuku, leaving notes about Itto being a cause for it. They find the tablet in his shrine and all hell breaks loose. Itto is given another day before they make a final verdict on what is to become of him and Daigoro, which can't be good news no matter what decision they reach. Itto presents Daigoro a ball and his sword, telling him that if he chooses the ball, he'll join his mother and be happy. But should he choose the sword, he'll travel with him to avenge her death. Obviously, Daigoro goes for the sword, resulting in a moving moment with Itto. The higher officials come back soon after, and find the two in ceremonial death robes, making note that Itto is faithful even to the end, about going by the books. But they've bit off more than they can chew when Itto says he's no longer a human, but a demon with nothing but the intention of getting revenge on those responsible for killing his wife, who just so happen to be linked to his now-former bosses. Itto dispatches many a solider, but is outnumbered. Just then, he throws off his white robe and reveals another underneath with the logo of the Shogunate. No matter what, you would NEVER do anything to defile something with the logo on it (similar to disgracing your country's flag), and they give him an ultimatum. Itto will fight against their best man. If he loses, he dies of course, but if he wins, he is free to travel the land without being attacked by his boss' men. It's obvious what the outcome is, since there are 5 more movies in the series, but hey, it's still suspenseful.
The first thing that I loved about Lone Wolf and Cub were the fights, of course. There's a lot of style going on with some moves, but all of it is very real. Wakayama does an excellent job with sword techniques, from drawing it, to stealthy slashes, and putting the sword back in its sheath. Where many samurai movies and shows (animated or otherwise) these days will rely on lame "ultimate attacks", Itto does none of that, usually going for the perfect strike like most samurai would. Think some of Kurosawa's later samurai movies and not Seven Samurai where they'd wildly slash in some scenes, and you'll have a good idea of what to expect, only cooler. There's a lot of tactics involved with the opposing forces, which was good to see as well. Another thing that impressed me about Wakayama was how he -looks- like a wolf. Just look at any close up shot of the guy and you'll see for yourself. He really fits the part, and is able to act perfectly as well. Tomikawa as Daigoro is excellent as well, and isn't an annoying child actor for once. He's often quiet, and sometimes all he needs to do is a facial reaction in order to get his thoughts across. Also, honorable mention goes to Oki as Retsudo. The guy looked creepy in the comics, and Oki does him justice, though I don't know if that's a compliment...The whole movie moves at a fairly steady pace- when there's no fighting, the plot is solid and if you pay attention, you'll get some good lessons about that time in Japan and just how loyal you had to be to your clans before risking death. And some of these guys get it pretty bad too. This leads me to my only gripe- a lot of the dismemberment and deaths are a little too fake for their own good. Don't get me wrong- I'm well aware that the movies were made in 1972, but some things are on par with the opening zombie attack in the original Dawn of the Dead, orange blood and all. What gets done right looks good, but every few kills has a pretty goofy one, and I could easily see watching this with a group of people getting at least a few laughs when they show up. Otherwise, there's nothing wrong with Sword of Vengeance- it kept my attention from the beginning to the excellent final fight, which was just genius.
Sadly, the picture quality doesn't seem to be touched up very much, if at all. There's a lot of issues, from grain, halos around people and faded colors. It looks slightly better than vhs quality, so I imagine that if Lone Wolf and Cub were released for Betamax or Laserdisc, it looked the same on those. It's presented in an anamorphic transfer, and it's obvious that some things are cut out on the sides, but nothing too important. The audio is a mixed bag. At first, I thought there was a problem with the disc since there's no sound effects in many scenes: only the slashes of weapons, but I hear that this was intentional. So when you don't hear Ogami's footsteps when he's running on a wooden deck, or people running through water, don't fret. It's still weird, but you get used to it. Everything's loud and clear for the majority of the movie, with a little fuzz during death screams. There are two subtitle options as well- full and limited. Full give you the descriptions of certain Japanese words that may go over the heads of viewers who aren't familiar with older Japanese culture. Limited didn't work for me on this disc- it kept taking me back to the main menu, so I can't comment on it. I'd imagine they'd just be subtitles for the dialogue and no extra notes though. The subtitles are extremely accurate, and I was impressed that almost every word was properly translated. Good job AnimEigo!
Special features-wise, they really skimped out. Aside from the original trailer and stills from the movie, there are "just" linear notes. These are actually VERY insightful and will give you a great lesson in feudal Japanese history if you read through them all (26 pages!), but I can see a lot of people skipping over them because of how much text there is. Almost every scene that you could question is explained here, like what I mentioned about defiling an object with the Shogunate symbol on it. However, it's not like you couldn't just find the same info online, so this feature is slightly redundant in that sense. I would've really liked some behind the scenes featurettes or something like that, involving the cast and crew, or showing how they did some of the fight sequences when limbs would be lopped off. A commentary is pretty much impossible to ask for at this point in time, especially with the main star, Wakayama, since he sadly passed away of a heart attack in 1992. Since there's already a box set of all the movies out, I don't see much of a chance of the movies being rereleased as a special edition box set with the extras it deserves.
If you're a fan of the comics, give the movies a shot to see how well they translate to the big screen. If you're a fan of samurai movies or have only seen Shogun Assassin, you're in for a treat with Sword of Vengeance. It won't appeal to everyone, since most people have their own mindset of what a samurai movie's "supposed" to be about, but the majority of people I've talked to have nothing but good things to say about the series. For the movie, it gets an easy 4.5 stars out of 5. But this is the dvd overall, and with the lack of special features and the picture quality leaving more to be desired, I can't help but give it a 3. But don't let that stop you from getting into everything- if you like it, you'll be hooked. As of right now I've only seen the first 3 movies and they've doing a great job so far. I can't wait to see how they do the final one. |
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