Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades
Encyclopedia
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (Japanese: 子連れ狼 死に風に向う乳母車 or Kozure Ôkami: Shinikazeni mukau ubaguruma, literally Wolf with Child in Tow: Perambulator Against the Winds of Death), is the third in a series of six Japanese
martial arts film
s based on the long-running Lone Wolf and Cub
manga
series about Ogami Ittō, a wandering assassin for hire who is accompanied by his young son, Daigoro.
The film has also been released under the name Shogun Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death, as a sequel to Shogun Assassin
, which was most of the second film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx
and some of the first film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance
edited together for the US market.
's executioner, or Kogi Kaishakunin
, is traveling by river on a boat with his young son Daigoro floating behind in the baby cart. A young woman at the front of the boat, clearly distraught for some reason, accidentally drops a bundle into the water, which Daigoro retrieves.
Ittō, meanwhile, draws his sword part way and notices in the reflection on the blade that some bamboo reeds are also trailing the boat. Ittō is being followed by operatives of his mortal enemy, the Yagyū Clan – a constant threat that he can never ignore. Later, as Daigoro is relieving himself in a bamboo
glade, Ittō slices some bamboo stalks, causing some ninja
to fall from their perch.
This is a time when there are ronin
, or at the very least a low-class of samurai
termed watari-kashi – small bands of fighters who move from job to job, working from one daimyo
to the next, depending on who's hiring.
A group of four watari-kashi are idling along the road. Hot and bored, they spy an attractive young woman and her mother being escorted by a servant. Three of them run off to take advantage, but one of the band – Kanbei, the more honorable of the four – remains uninterested. The three knock the escort unconscious and proceed to rape the two women. The servant regains consciousness and is furious when he sees the triad violating his mistresses. He attempts to beat them with his bamboo pole, but is slain by Kanbei, who then also slays the two women to silence them. Kanbei then makes his three companions draw straws
, saying the one unfortunate enough to draw the short straw will be killed to take the blame for the rapes and murders.
Ittō happens along this grim scene just as Kanbei is slaying the watari-kashi who drew the short straw. Ittō kills the other two rapists when they attempt to attack him. Kanbei recognizes Ittō and requests a duel. Ittō accepts and they prepare, but at the last second Ittō re-sheathes his sword and calls it a draw, leaving Kanbei to ponder his fate alone. "You are a true warrior," Ittō says, "One I hope lives on."
At an inn, it turns out that the young woman from the boat is to be sold into prostitution. Her pimp tries to have his way with her, but she bites off his tongue, spitting the bloody appendage onto the floor. The pimp dies from the injury.
The girl seeks refuge in Ittō's room, who steps in to protect her from the local police. But then the town's real authorities show up – the yakuza
, led by a woman named Torizo. After some verbal sparring and defending himself against Torizo's pistol
, Ittō agrees to act as a substitute for the young woman and undergo buri-buri, a form of torture
that involves the subject being hogtie
d and hung in the air and repeatedly dunked headfirst into a tub of water. The subject is then beaten to unconsciousness by men wielding thick rattan
canes and shouting "buri-buri". Ittō endures the torture with his typical stoic
ism. This frees the young woman from having work as a prostitute.
Ittō, still with a debt to pay for the death of the pimp, agrees to take on an assassination for Torizo and her father, a one-armed man that Ittō is acquainted with from his past life as the shogun's executioner - acting as second during the execution of a daimyo
who, fear-stricken, struggled dishonourably; Torizo's father had restrained the daimyo, sacrificing his arm to Ittō's killing stroke.
The target is a corrupt district deputy. Initially Ittō is to face the deputy's personal bodyguards, one of whom is a sharpshooter and quick-draw artist who wields a pair of revolver
s. Through cunning and guile (and the help of his young son Daigoro, who acts as a decoy), Ittō defeats the armed man and takes his guns. The other is defeated by Ittō in a sword duel.
Ittō's battle culminates in his facing the deputy's army – perhaps 200 men – singlehandedly. For the first time, the true power of the baby cart is revealed as it proves to harbor an entire arsenal of weapons, including spears, daggers, a bullet-proof shield, and a small battery of guns, capable of taking out many enemy soldiers like a heavy machine gun. All of the deputy's men are killed as Ittō first takes out half of them with the baby cart's machine gun, and then takes out the rest with his sword and other weapons from the baby cart. The deputy is the last to fall when Ittō, deprived of his sword when it falls out of his hands when he falls down an embankment, takes out one of the pistols he took earlier from the deputy bodyguard and uses it to shoot and kill the deputy. Ittō then discards the gun and reclaims his sword, mumbling to himself that firearms are so uncivilized.
Word of the fight has been passed to neighboring districts, and the ronin Kanbei shows up just after Ittō has slain the deputy, and makes his demand again for a duel. Though battle-weary, Ittō accepts the challenge. The fight is over in an instant. Ittō is sliced across his back, but Kanbei is mortally wounded, impaled on Ittō's Dotanuki
battle sword.
As Kanbei kneels to the ground, dying, he tells Ittō his story and why he became a ronin – a tale involving an ambush on his master's convoy. Seeing his side outnumbered, Kanbei seized an opportunity and ran ahead to attack the enemy head on. He surprised the enemy and prevailed in deflecting the hostiles, and saved the lord's life as a result, but since he left his lord's side, he was dishonored and expelled from the clan. He questions Ittō whether he had done the wrong thing, and whether being a samurai means to fight and live, or to simply never leave the master's side and die. Ittō replied that he would have done the same. "I am glad to hear that," Kanbei says, who then asks the former shogun's executioner to act as his "second" in the act of seppuku
. This Ittō does with honor.
When asked by Kanbei what is the true "Way of the Warrior
", Ittō replies that it is neither to simply live nor die, but to live through death.
As Ittō walks away and Torizo begins to runs after him, but is stopped by her men. They implore her not to go to him, saying he is not human, but a monster.
Cinema of Japan
The has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world – as of 2009 the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. Movies have been produced in Japan since 1897, when the first foreign cameramen arrived...
martial arts film
Martial arts film
Martial arts film is a film genre. A sub-genre of the action film, martial arts films contain numerous fights between characters, usually as the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often as a method of storytelling and character expression and development. Martial arts are frequently...
s based on the long-running Lone Wolf and Cub
Lone Wolf and Cub
is a manga created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima. First published in 1970, the story was adapted into six films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, a television series starring Yorozuya Kinnosuke, and is widely recognized as an important and influential work.Lone Wolf and Cub...
manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
series about Ogami Ittō, a wandering assassin for hire who is accompanied by his young son, Daigoro.
The film has also been released under the name Shogun Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death, as a sequel to Shogun Assassin
Shogun Assassin
Shogun Assassin, known in Japan as , is a jidaigeki film made for the British and American markets and released in 1980. In 2006 it was restored and re-released on DVD in North America by AnimEigo....
, which was most of the second film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx is the second in a series of six Japanese martial arts films based on the long-running Lone Wolf and Cub manga series about Ogami Ittō, a wandering assassin for hire who is accompanied by...
and some of the first film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance is a 1972 film directed by Kenji Misumi, the first in a series of six Ogami Ittō, a wandering assassin for hire who is accompanied by his young son, Daigoro.-Plot:Set in Japan during an...
edited together for the US market.
Plot
Ogami Ittō, the disgraced former shogunShogun
A was one of the hereditary military dictators of Japan from 1192 to 1867. In this period, the shoguns, or their shikken regents , were the de facto rulers of Japan though they were nominally appointed by the emperor...
's executioner, or Kogi Kaishakunin
Kogi Kaishakunin
The Kogi Kaishakunin is a fictional position appearing in the manga Lone Wolf and Cub. In the story, it was the Japanese shogun's official executioner....
, is traveling by river on a boat with his young son Daigoro floating behind in the baby cart. A young woman at the front of the boat, clearly distraught for some reason, accidentally drops a bundle into the water, which Daigoro retrieves.
Ittō, meanwhile, draws his sword part way and notices in the reflection on the blade that some bamboo reeds are also trailing the boat. Ittō is being followed by operatives of his mortal enemy, the Yagyū Clan – a constant threat that he can never ignore. Later, as Daigoro is relieving himself in a bamboo
Bamboo
Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....
glade, Ittō slices some bamboo stalks, causing some ninja
Ninja
A or was a covert agent or mercenary of feudal Japan specializing in unorthodox arts of war. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, as well as open combat in certain situations...
to fall from their perch.
This is a time when there are ronin
Ronin
A or rounin was a Bushi with no lord or master during the feudal period of Japan. A samurai became masterless from the death or fall of his master, or after the loss of his master's favor or privilege....
, or at the very least a low-class of samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
termed watari-kashi – small bands of fighters who move from job to job, working from one daimyo
Daimyo
is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...
to the next, depending on who's hiring.
A group of four watari-kashi are idling along the road. Hot and bored, they spy an attractive young woman and her mother being escorted by a servant. Three of them run off to take advantage, but one of the band – Kanbei, the more honorable of the four – remains uninterested. The three knock the escort unconscious and proceed to rape the two women. The servant regains consciousness and is furious when he sees the triad violating his mistresses. He attempts to beat them with his bamboo pole, but is slain by Kanbei, who then also slays the two women to silence them. Kanbei then makes his three companions draw straws
Drawing straws
Drawing straws is a selection method that is used by a group to choose one member of the group to perform a task after none has volunteered for it...
, saying the one unfortunate enough to draw the short straw will be killed to take the blame for the rapes and murders.
Ittō happens along this grim scene just as Kanbei is slaying the watari-kashi who drew the short straw. Ittō kills the other two rapists when they attempt to attack him. Kanbei recognizes Ittō and requests a duel. Ittō accepts and they prepare, but at the last second Ittō re-sheathes his sword and calls it a draw, leaving Kanbei to ponder his fate alone. "You are a true warrior," Ittō says, "One I hope lives on."
At an inn, it turns out that the young woman from the boat is to be sold into prostitution. Her pimp tries to have his way with her, but she bites off his tongue, spitting the bloody appendage onto the floor. The pimp dies from the injury.
The girl seeks refuge in Ittō's room, who steps in to protect her from the local police. But then the town's real authorities show up – the yakuza
Yakuza
, also known as , are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan. The Japanese police, and media by request of the police, call them bōryokudan , literally "violence group", while the yakuza call themselves "ninkyō dantai" , "chivalrous organizations". The yakuza are notoriously...
, led by a woman named Torizo. After some verbal sparring and defending himself against Torizo's pistol
Pistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
, Ittō agrees to act as a substitute for the young woman and undergo buri-buri, a form of torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
that involves the subject being hogtie
Hogtie
The hogtie is a method of tying the limbs together, rendering the subject immobile and helpless. Originally, it was applied to pigs and other young four-legged animals.- Details :...
d and hung in the air and repeatedly dunked headfirst into a tub of water. The subject is then beaten to unconsciousness by men wielding thick rattan
Rattan
Rattan is the name for the roughly 600 species of palms in the tribe Calameae, native to tropical regions of Africa, Asia and Australasia.- Structure :...
canes and shouting "buri-buri". Ittō endures the torture with his typical stoic
STOIC
STOIC was a variant of Forth.It started out at the MIT and Harvard Biomedical Engineering Centre in Boston, and was written in the mid 1970s by Jonathan Sachs...
ism. This frees the young woman from having work as a prostitute.
Ittō, still with a debt to pay for the death of the pimp, agrees to take on an assassination for Torizo and her father, a one-armed man that Ittō is acquainted with from his past life as the shogun's executioner - acting as second during the execution of a daimyo
Daimyo
is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...
who, fear-stricken, struggled dishonourably; Torizo's father had restrained the daimyo, sacrificing his arm to Ittō's killing stroke.
The target is a corrupt district deputy. Initially Ittō is to face the deputy's personal bodyguards, one of whom is a sharpshooter and quick-draw artist who wields a pair of revolver
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...
s. Through cunning and guile (and the help of his young son Daigoro, who acts as a decoy), Ittō defeats the armed man and takes his guns. The other is defeated by Ittō in a sword duel.
Ittō's battle culminates in his facing the deputy's army – perhaps 200 men – singlehandedly. For the first time, the true power of the baby cart is revealed as it proves to harbor an entire arsenal of weapons, including spears, daggers, a bullet-proof shield, and a small battery of guns, capable of taking out many enemy soldiers like a heavy machine gun. All of the deputy's men are killed as Ittō first takes out half of them with the baby cart's machine gun, and then takes out the rest with his sword and other weapons from the baby cart. The deputy is the last to fall when Ittō, deprived of his sword when it falls out of his hands when he falls down an embankment, takes out one of the pistols he took earlier from the deputy bodyguard and uses it to shoot and kill the deputy. Ittō then discards the gun and reclaims his sword, mumbling to himself that firearms are so uncivilized.
Word of the fight has been passed to neighboring districts, and the ronin Kanbei shows up just after Ittō has slain the deputy, and makes his demand again for a duel. Though battle-weary, Ittō accepts the challenge. The fight is over in an instant. Ittō is sliced across his back, but Kanbei is mortally wounded, impaled on Ittō's Dotanuki
Dotanuki
Dōtanuki is a name assumed by a number of Japanese swordsmiths from the Eiroku period onwards, originally named for their place of origin in Kikuchi, old Higo province...
battle sword.
As Kanbei kneels to the ground, dying, he tells Ittō his story and why he became a ronin – a tale involving an ambush on his master's convoy. Seeing his side outnumbered, Kanbei seized an opportunity and ran ahead to attack the enemy head on. He surprised the enemy and prevailed in deflecting the hostiles, and saved the lord's life as a result, but since he left his lord's side, he was dishonored and expelled from the clan. He questions Ittō whether he had done the wrong thing, and whether being a samurai means to fight and live, or to simply never leave the master's side and die. Ittō replied that he would have done the same. "I am glad to hear that," Kanbei says, who then asks the former shogun's executioner to act as his "second" in the act of seppuku
Seppuku
is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. Seppuku was originally reserved only for samurai. Part of the samurai bushido honor code, seppuku was either used voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies , or as a form of capital punishment...
. This Ittō does with honor.
When asked by Kanbei what is the true "Way of the Warrior
Bushido
, meaning "Way of the Warrior-Knight", is a Japanese word which is used to describe a uniquely Japanese code of conduct and a way of the samurai life, loosely analogous to the concept of chivalry. It originates from the samurai moral code and stresses frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and...
", Ittō replies that it is neither to simply live nor die, but to live through death.
As Ittō walks away and Torizo begins to runs after him, but is stopped by her men. They implore her not to go to him, saying he is not human, but a monster.
Cast
- Tomisaburo WakayamaTomisaburo Wakayama, born Masaru Okumura, was a Japanese actor, best known for playing Ogami Ittō, the scowling, 17th century ronin warrior in the six Lone Wolf and Cub samurai movies.-Biography:...
as Ogami Ittō - Akihiro Tomikawa as Daigoro
- Go KatoGo KatoGo Kato was born February 4, 1938, in Omaezaki, Shizuoka, Japan. He is a Japanese entertainer, and actor.-TV Dramas:*Sosa Kenji Ukon Makoto no Satsujin Chosho...
as Kanbei - Yuko Hamada as Torizo