Review of Shogun Assassin (1980) by Ollie S — 01 Mar 2007

[font=Courier New]It?s not hard to tell that [i]Shogun Assassin[/i] is comprised of two other films being spliced into one feature length film. Director Robert Houston takes the first two films in the [i]Lone Wolf and Cub[/i] film series from Japanese director Kenji Misumi, strips most of the plot and character development and creates a film that gets right to the ?good stuff.?

The film is about Ogami (Tomisaburo Wakayama), who is his Shogun?s greatest executioner. But this ruler grows senile and paranoid of his servants and thinks they might be plotting to kill him. He sends some ninjas to take care of Ogami, but instead they kill his wife. So he sets out to seek revenge against his former master. With his son being pushed in a cart along side him, he deals with an assortment of crazy characters.

While the film is a little on the incoherent side, I still found some enjoyment in [i]Shogun Assassin[/i]. I?m sure that if I were to watch the two films that were cropped down to make this in their full length, I would enjoy the story a lot more than I did. But for what it is, [i]Shogun Assassin[/i] shows off some really awesome action.

One of the biggest pluses in my opinion was the lack of a soundtrack during the fight sequences. I like to hear each grunt, groan, slash and splatter of a fight scene. [i]Shogun Assassin[/i] isn?t short of displaying some gratuitous scenes of violence. And since the story isn?t being focused on, expect to see more action than you might be use to.

I wanted to like [i]Shogun Assassin[/i] more than I did, but I unfortunately like a little more story to my movies than what this compact version offered. I still think that fans of this genre will enjoy this film. I noticed the second [i]Shogun Assassin[/i] film is coming to DVD shortly. You can bet I will pick that up as well. And a review for that should follow.[/font].