Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (1972) - Comic to Movie #5

Between fire and water lies the white road, and I shall follow it no matter where it takes me, even if I become a corpse, or ashes. I shall have my revenge someday.

Director
Kenji Misumi

Cast
Tomisaburo Wakayama - Ogami Itto
Akihiro Tomikawa - Ogami Diagoro
Reiko Kasahara - The Mad Woman
Tomoko Mayama - Osen

One thing I admire about the Japanese film company, Toho, is how serious they take the movie art form. Even in some of their shlocky titles like War of the Gargantuas (1966), Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965), or King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), Toho casts dedicated, serious actors who put so much into their roles and performances.
This is especially true of their 1972 production, Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance - the first film of a six part series of Japanese chambara (sword fighting) movies based on the manga graphic novels created by Kazuo Koike.
With the amount of influence this series has left on other films and stories, I feel inadequate to dare critique this first film, or any of the other films. But it greatly deserves more attention, a wider audience, and much of that is thanks to Toho who produced this hidden masterpiece. They're responsible for this movie's perfection and quality.
As Sword of Vengeance is the first of six movies, it gives a wonderful introduction into the story line surrounding the protagonist, a disgraced former executioner turned assassin, Ogami Itto (Tomisaburo Wakayama) and his three-year old son, Ogami Daigoro (Akihiro Tomikawa).
I'm not familiar with the manga series. I first watched these films about 15 years ago while I was still living in Oakland, California. Back then I wasn't as invested in these movies as I am now.
Itto is a former executioner who wanders the Japanese countryside pushing his son in a wooden carriage as a sign reading "child and expertise for rent" hangs off the cart.
As he and his son wander, a deranged woman runs up to both and takes Daigoro from the cart believing the child is her own dead baby.
The woman tries to breastfeed Diagoro who resists only until his father gives him a stern look.
The woman's mother runs to the scene crying, and apologizes to Itto claiming her daughter is delusional and thinks his son is really her lost baby.

The mother tries to give Itto money, but he declines stating his son was hungry anyways.
As Itto wanders during one particular rainy day, he recalls a similar kind of day when his wife, Asami, was murdered by three ninjas as an act of revenge.
All that's left for him after her murder is his role as an assassin for hire.
After a short while, an imperial official hires Itto to kill a rival of his along with the rival's gang of miscreants as they're some kind of threat to the official's lord.
Little does Itto know that this official has a plan to test his skill.
While they're talking privately, two henchmen sneak up behind Itto with swords drawn.
Without batting an eye, Itto slings his blade out before they have a chance to attack.
In one of the most impressive scenes I've ever seen, Itto unsheathes his sword and slashes behind his back in a quick maneuver neither the thugs nor the audience saw coming. They die without Itto so much as turning around to look. 
Impressed (who wouldn't be?), the official hires Itto and sends him to a hot springs location inhabited by debauched individuals, rogue ronins (samurais), and other less-than-savory people. And that's where he finds his hit.
The concluding battle is the precious cherry on this superb film.
I've noticed Japanese films often use close ups for emotional affect as these types of shots capture strong emotion on the faces of the actors. Those looks share that same emotion with the audience. Even in the horror film The Grudge, this technique was well used and made the movie work as a scary picture. It's very effective.
Director Kenji Misumi captures the intensity Wakayama puts into the face and body language of Itto brilliantly. He doesn't need to speak and tell the audience how much he'll do to protect his son, or what he's willing to do at the bidding of a hire. His natural senses are his superpower.
He's a broken hero like other heroes western audiences are familiar with. But western movie audiences are likely familiar with a specific sense, or idea, of good and evil that doesn't quite match with certain eastern philosophies and influences that shaped the east's idea of what a good deed and a bad deed is. I say this because some instances in the movie made me wonder if Itto was an antihero or a hero. I tended to lean towards antihero. For example, while at the hot springs, some ronins he encounters there plot to kill Itto. However, the agree to spare his life (unaware of who he is) if he'll have sex with the one of the prostitutes. The woman refuses, and they threatened to kill her.
To spare her life, Itto agrees to engage with her for the sake of sparing her life.
When it comes to Diagoro, one scene in particular tells the audience just the right amount of backstory.
Itto and Diagoro encounter children playing a game with a ball in the middle of the road. Itto has a flashback to a crucial event in his son's life that took place shortly after his wife was killed.
He places a toy ball and a sword in front of his toddler son. He tells Diagoro that if he reaches for the ball, he'll kill him so that he can spend eternity with his deceased mother. Itto believes this is the better option for the child. If he reaches for the sword, Itto tells him that this will be a decision to live the life of a ronin and wander by his side. Itto sees this as a life among demons on the path straight to hell.

Tomisaburo Wakayama as Ogami Itto.

Misumi not only pulls the audience in through Itto's pride, skill, and honor, but he takes the audience to different perspectives in the fast paced scenes using up-close shots, and low angles.
The blades are swift, and Misumi ensures each viewer doesn't miss a thing.
I kept thinking back to the current series The Mandalorian from Disney as I watched this film. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if much inspiration for that project was pulled from the Lone Wolf and Cub series.
I admit I'm not familiar with the manga series the movie is based on. Nevertheless, this movie has great respect for the art of film making. Details and portrayals seem done with pride in performances to earn respect from the audience whom no doubt consists of many fans of the source material. There's reference in the flow of this first movie.
Toho knows how to make a movie for the sake of conveying precisely what producers want the audience to think and feel. I didn't get any kind of feeling this was a movie based on a graphic series. Rather, it felt like a samurai film with higher standards than the majority of western films I've watched. Not even the best American western movie has this amount of reference.
The west might be popular when it comes to movies, but Toho quite often pulls the art of motion picture story telling off beautifully. Case and point - Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance. 

The Shadow (1994) - Comic to Movie #4

"The sun is shining. But the ice is slippery."

Director
Russell Mulcahy

Cast
Alec Baldwin - Lamont Cranston/ The Shadow
John Lone - Shiwan Khan
Penelope Ann Miller - Margo Lane
Peter Boyle - Moe
Ian McKellen - Dr. Reinhardt Lane
Tim Curry - Farley Claymore
Jonathan Winters - Commissioner Wainwright Barth

The superhero known as "The Shadow" started in pulp fiction back in the 1930s. His way into comics back in the 1940s starting with a syndicated newspaper strip.
The 1994 movie The Shadow isn't necessarily a film that's too obscure, though it should be. There were serials back in the day on the big screen. And I should really be reviewing one of those to keep in the spirit of this blog.
But I've had this movie on my mental back burner to watch at some point.
Seeing the trailer back in 1994, I had the impression The Shadow was attempting to be another 1990's Dick Tracy style-wise, with similar color schemes, and film noir feel. I was wrong except for the film noir feel. It's there.
My dear ol' dad had a collection of old radio programs on cassette - programs he'd listen to in the 1940s and 50s. That was my introduction to the Shadow. He listened to those old recordings made long before the advent of high fidelity while he worked at his desk at home. A static filled voice from before I was born would over-dramatized, as it ought to be, the foreboding, ominous, yet alluring question, "who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men?" The answer, of course, coming out of his Sony single tape player would be, "the Shadow knows..."
So, like most superheroes, he's a vigilante.
The movie starts shortly after the first World War as an American named Lamont Cranston (Alec Baldwin) finds himself overwhelmed in darkness while he's in Tibet.
Cranston passes himself as an opium lord, and is kidnapped by gang members who work for a magician named Tulku.
Tulku offers Cranston a chance to turn away from his darkness and be a source for good.
At first, Cranston refuses, and attempts to take Tulku's phurba - a living knife that bears the head of a monkey. The knife awakens and ultimately persuades (for lack of a better word) Cranston through painful means.
Cranston then trains under Tulku for seven years. This includes hypnotism, mind reading, and distorting reality so that others can't see him, but can only see his shadow.
After those seven years, he returns to New York City where he picks up right were he left off as a playboy. We first encounter him as the Shadow when some mafia thugs are about to throw a victim, wearing cement shoes, over a bridge.
When he rescues the guy, the Shadow recruits him as a personal agent as he does with others he has previously saved from criminals. These agents act as the eyes, ears, and brains to the city.
He meets Margo Lane (Penelope Ann Miller) whom he takes out for dinner, but realizes right away that he can't see her again. She's telepathic, and could easily figure out his secret identity.

Meanwhile, a Natural History Museum receives a mysterious sarcophagus they didn't request.
One museum expert reads an inscription on the sarcophagus which indicates it dates back to the era of Genghis Khan.
As it's guarded by a security guard in a storage room, the coffin begins to open.
Inside lies Shiwan Khan (John Lone), a decedent of the historically well known Mongol Emperor, Genghis Khan.
Having transported himself to New York City in the same sarcophagus that once held his ancestor in an unknown burial location, Khan awakens to continue Genghis's quest for world domination.
He demonstrates his power of hypnosis and mind control by telling the security guard to kneel before him, put his pistol to his head and kill himself.
Khan then seeks out Cranston.
His powers are greater than Cranston's and he offers him an allegiance.
When Cranston declines, Khan learns than Lane's father, Dr. Reinhardt Lane (Ian McKellen) is working on an atomic device at the request of the U.S. War Department.
Dr. Lane's assistant, Farley Claymore (Tim Curry) has sworn his allegiance to Khan. And now to get at the Shadow, Khan hypnotizes Margo to kill Cranston. He also hypnotizes her father to build him an atomic bomb in order to help fulfill his world conquest.
Despite what seems to be a typical edge-of-your-seat serial plot, with truly decent special effects, this movie is lazy and underwhelming.
To begin with, it was as though the movie expected 1994 audiences to be familiar with the Shadow as though his place in pop culture is at the same pinnacle as superheros such as Batman or Superman. There's a lot of story elements thrown to the audience with little explanation.
Call it a nitpick, but for some reason, Cranston's eyes change from brown to blue half way through the movie. Is this a continuity error, or is there some deeper meaning to this. I don't know. I admit my attention wandered aimlessly several times during the movie. I could have missed something.
As far as other story points go, the only explanation the audience is treated to is a narrated title card screen a few minutes after the beginning of the film. I found it laughable.
Though the premise is beautifully reminiscent of the old pulp fiction style of story lines, as well as those of the black and white serials from the 1940s and 1950s, story elements are breezed over.
The pace of the movie makes it seem as though the movie thinks everyone already knows who the Shadow is, and what he's capable of. Not even the movie Superman was that presumptuous in itself.

Ian McKellen, Tim Curry, and John Lone.

The Shadow's height of popularity was in the 1940s and 1950s. Before 1994, the Shadow hadn't been on screen since the 1948 low budget movie The Shadow Returns. And it goes without saying his place in pop culture wasn't quite as well known as the Man of Steel or the Caped Crusader.
Baldwin's performance seems to confuse suave and debonair with lethargic and emotionally void. He barely has any emotion! Even Batman shows emotion occassionally.
In one scene (SPOILER) where Margo Lane figures out Lamont Cranston is the Shadow, his reaction reminds me of someone denying they passed gas in the room when called out on it. Baldwin's delivery is blatantly uninterested and scripted.
Seeing Tim Curry and Ian McKellen act together is a treat despite McKellen's character being a hypnotized vegetable for most of the film. Still, they share a scene together and it's fun to see.
The plot just seems a little lost. I understand Shiwan Khan is on the loose, and the Shadow is out to stop him. But there's something more taking place, and I either lost just enough interest to miss it completely, or something wasn't explained well. Maybe it's a mix of both.
If The Shadow isn't obscure, it deserves to be...lost in the shadows.