Sword Of Vengeance [DVD] [1973]

As for the DVD itself, it is based on the AnimEigo print, which means it is a) in Japanese Language and b) has excellent English subtitles and occsionally some supertitles with information on Japanese terms. The subtitles are burned into the print (but in the "black bars" so it doesn't conceal any of the action), and so cannot be turned off. It is in Widescreen format (1.85:1 I think) and picture quality is ok, but certainly not crystal clear... it is slightly blurry, hazy, very dark and a little grainy. Extras are almost non-existant; The only extras included are Synergy's own trailers for the other 5 films.

If you have only seen this film as "Shogun Assassin" I'd sincerely recommend watching this film and "Babycart at the River Styx", as Shogun Assassin was a dubbed edit of these two films.

The quality of the film print might be a little ropey but the subtitles make more sense than one might expect. Overall this is a worthy addition to anyones film collection as are the other 5 films in the series. Well paced, beautifully realised storytelling with A LOT of blood.

The basic narrative framework of "Sword of Vengeance" is taken from the eighth episode, "Wings to the Bird Fangs to the Beast," where Okami Itto (Tomisaburo Wakayama) and Daigoro (Akihiro Tomikawa) cross a rickety bridge and enter the Gomori-Juku Hot Springs Spa. The place has been taken over by brigands and Lone Wolf seems oblivious to what is going on until he decides to come to the aid of Osen (Tomoko Mayama), a prostitute pickpocket. This is an extremely interesting choice to be the main story for this film since it has nothing to do with why Ogami Itto is walking the assassin's road.

"Sword of Vengeance" also includes the two pivotal backstory episodes from the magna series (although there are elements from a few others, mostly involving foreshadowing). In "The White Path Between the Rivers" (the seventeenth), Ogami Itto serves as the Kogi Kaishakunin execution to act as second to a young lord's seppuku and then finds himself the victim of Yagyu intrique that results in the death of his wife, Azani (Reiko Kasahara) and his implication in an act of treason. Then in "The Assassin's Road" (the ninth) where Daigoro choose to walk the path with his father, refuses to commit seppuku, and confronts Retsudo Yagyu (Tokio Oki) for the first time.

Koike and director Kenji Misumi keep the sex and violence from the manga intact. There are lots of fountains of spurting blood as Ogmai Itto slays his foes with his Dotanuku sword. Tomisaburo Wakayama is a stockier Ogami Itto than what was drawn (I thank Frank Miller's cover for Volume 3 of the manga is clearly based more on the actor than Kojima's drawings of Lone Wolf), but he captures the deadly silence of the assassin. Tokio Oki looks more like a Kabuki figure as Retsudo, but that is certainly within the tradition of samurai films (at least of those I have seen not made by Akira Kurosawa).

Still, it is the script that I keep coming back to when I mull over this film, espeically Koike's decision to make "Wings to the Bird Fangs to the Beast" the centerpiece of the film. It makes me wonder what Stan Lee would have done if he had written the Spider-Man movie. I doubt he would have been able to bring the story to the screen as intact as Koike is able to do with "Sword of Vengenace." No film could be as good as the original manga, but this certainly does not do the Lone Wolf and Cub story.