Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance

Original title: Kozure Ôkami: Ko wo kashi ude kashi tsukamatsuru

IMDb RATING

7.7/10

9.1K

YOUR RATING

Tomisaburô Wakayama and Akihiro Tomikawa in Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (1972)

Samurai Action Adventure

The story of a Ronin (i.e. a masterless samurai) who wanders the countryside of Japan with his small child, having various adventures.The story of a Ronin (i.e. a masterless samurai) who wanders the countryside of Japan with his small child, having various adventures.The story of a Ronin (i.e. a masterless samurai) who wanders the countryside of Japan with his small child, having various adventures.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.7/10

9.1K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Trivia
Akihiro Tomikawa, who portrays Ogami Itto's son, Daigoro, only ever played this one character for his on-screen acting career. He appears as Daigoro in all six 'Lone Wolf & Cub' feature films, and then in 1980's 'Shogun Assassin', which is recut footage from the first two films in the series.

Goofs
After disposing of the ronin on the village, Ogami collects Daigoro, places him the cart and leaves the village. He is not seen to re-assemble the hidden weaponry in the cart.

Quotes
Ogami Itto: I am the Second designated by the Shogunate... Ogami Itto.

Alternate versions
The 1999 UK video was cut by 6 secs by the BBFC to edit a scene where a woman is stripped topless, and the Artsmagic DVD featured the same print. The 2009 Eureka release (featured in the "Lone Wolf & Cub Collection") is fully uncut.

Connections
Edited into Shogun Assassin (1980)

User reviews55

Review

Featured review

8/10

Good, decent Samurai film...first of a series.

Sword of Vengeance is the first film in a series about a noble samurai and his son fallen from grace through a conspiracy, and now under a constant fear of death by assassination. This movie by itself is a fine example of how a more modern, 'slasher' style Samurai film and 'old' values like honor and '1-good-Samurai-defeats-army-of-bad-Samurai' can be put together to make a solid, entertaining film. The later films are sometimes better, sometimes worse than this movie, but I found all of them to be very entertaining and worthwhile.

If you like to see some classic Samurai action, check out the whole serie of six films. Years later they took all the juicy bits out of the first four films and stitched them together to form the film 'Shogun Assassin', a film I suspect made for export to western countries: Less story, more blood.