I’ll swap you - 70 minutes of storyline for 90 gallons of blood -Deal!?!

There are films which, when they are made, reach out to their audiences, instilling in them a vision of wonder and excitement hitherto previously unknown to them. These films transcend the boundaries of mere movies and give something to the culture of media which resonates throughout future titles and into people’s psyche. You will know these types of films yourself: Star Wars, The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings, Superman etc. It seems, however improbable that it may sound, that Shogun Assassin belongs alongside these behemoths of film, sitting comfortably beside them on the shelf, under this category.

To look at it, you might wonder how on earth, Shogun Assassin has managed to create and maintain such a strong following as well as receive such cultural acclaim from it multitude of fans. It is essentially a minimalistic, simplistic, juvenile piece of work which merely serves up unmitigated violence at every turn and has no intention of furnishing the viewer with a plot. It really is all about the fighting - and the blood; we mustn’t forget the blood.

But - and there’s always a ‘but’ to this type of thing - despite it’s obvious flaws, such as the (really) bad dubbing, the hack-job editing down of two stronger films, the lack of any story, the minimal characterisation and almost laughable adversaries, Shogun Assassin still delivers as a great piece of entertainment and a beautiful piece of cinema. Strange isn’t it?

The story - what there is of it - concerns a samurai working for the Shogun, who when his master turns paranoid and murders his wife, decides to wander the land with his infant son as a mercenary for hire. The Shogun, still fearing the strength of the now Ronin, continues to hunt him down and enlists multitudes of ninjas, samurai, et al to kill him and his son. This is the whole basis of the film and is explained within the first few minutes. The next eighty odd are filled with killing and the pushing of a wooden pram.

In-between, however, we are treated to some wonderful scenery and excellent battle scenes at bridges, rivers, forests and sand dunes. Some of the imagery and photography that we are privy to are exquisite and you can see where a lot of today’s samurai flicks and their Western heroic counterparts get a lot of their intense visual style from. Lone Wolf is a man on a mission, kind of like Mad Max but with more rage and more control; and when you see him silhouetted against the horizon, or watch him tenderly bathing with his son, or see him taking out hordes of evil henchmen with minimal slicing action (and spatterings of gore), you start to understand just where this film gets its legendary status from.

Granted, this film will not be for everybody, and even film buffs could be turned off by the really tenuous and flimsy excuse for a storyline, but to dismiss this without seeing it would be very foolhardy indeed. This is not a film that can be explained or described to people for what it is, because by all rights it should be a big pile of wank - But It’s Not, and you have to see it to really understand why.

This film - more so the six films in the series that this is cut from - stand as a benchmark for all other samurai films to follow. It stands alone in its intensity, shocking violence and ability to thrill the audience. Stylistically and visually it is a tour de force and it even comes with a bit of heart attached too.

Kill Bill referenced this for a reason - mainly because it ripped it off so much - so even if you aren’t sure about dated, dubbed, slasher action flicks, you should still check this out. Watch it and decide for yourself.