FROM THE CREATORS OF LONE WOLF AND CUB: Samurai Executioner

https://www.japansociety.org/page/programs/film/lone-wolf-and-cub

Babycart assassin films on TCM: April 5 and 12
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/1565991%7C0/TCM-Imports-for-April.html

Thanks to the tip on the TCM thread more recently, I was able to DVR Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons and holy shit is it amazing.

Minimalist and maximalist at the same time: really interesting and jarring transitions from utterly quiet scenes without any music to very loud scenes and vice versa. The music is wonderful, over the top use of color (especially red). I loved the scene where Lone Wolf confronts the abbott the first time and the abbott just psychs him out with some zen bullshit. Then the scene where Cub is beaten to turn in the female pickpocket. I'm like, "no way they're going to beat the kid," . . . gulp! All that suspense and menace. I will say having seen one, I will be more prepared for the range of possibilities next time.

The nearest equivalent is the Sergio Leone westerns, I guess, or is there a tradition of these types of movies in Japan that pre-date those?

I kept saying throughout the movie that Tarantino got 50% of his entire vibe from this movie and maybe 80% of Kill Bill. The mundane conversations/situations punctuated by spasms of ott violence.

btw, all 28 of the Lone Wolf And Cub GNs (the 300 page ones) are half price (£2.39) on uk comixology at the moment.

oh, sale ends today 8(

I kept saying throughout the movie that Tarantino got 50% of his entire vibe from this movie and maybe 80% of Kill Bill. The mundane conversations/situations punctuated by spasms of ott violence.

― Quiet Storm Thorgerson (PBKR), Monday, September 28, 2020 9:35 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Have you seen Lady Snowblood though?

No, but I'm going to now.

The nearest equivalent is the Sergio Leone westerns, I guess, or is there a tradition of these types of movies in Japan that pre-date those?

There's a long tradition of samurai films, which got revisionist about as quickly as westerns did, but I'm not sure if that's what you're asking per se.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UVy90UPafcA/WmAG5kiiMzI/AAAAAAABF7o/eUM55YqjCHECY3bSJDfaeTrRx5bXgZ-twCEwYBhgL/s640/y1.gif

^ Yojimbo got remade as Fistful Of Dollars, Seven Samurai as Magnificent Seven

but there's a 3rd Kurosawa movie that got remade as a western that's less familiar - Rashomon got remade as The Outrage featuring Paul Newman in the Mifune role and William Shatner.

(not that Kurosawa was above taking things from western sources - shakespeare, ed mcbain, dusty dusty...)

If you have access to Hoopla through your library, they have the entire LW&C manga on there. All of Samurai Executioner too!

Yojimbo is based on Dashiell Hammett!

Kurosawa films not a lot like lw&c films anyway, slightly more serious and b&w for a start.

Maybe better suggestions would be the other lw&c films (there are half a dozen), both snow blood films, or later zatoichi films (not seen but there are 20 odd). Chambara is the general term for them. There are lists around:

https://m.imdb.com/list/ls003893928/

Well, original question was if there was a tradition of this type of film in Japan that predates spaghetti westerns.

Yojimbo and Sanjuro are the Kurosawas that slot into that tradition imo, but there's plenty of other 60's stuff that's in the more violent, cynical vein of the spaghetti western - as I said, most of the 60's chambara is already revisionist and views the samurai code of honour as nonsense (partially the trauma of war playing into that). Okamoto, Hideo Gosha, Kobayashi. But yeah most of their stuff is in elegant black and white, too.

I haven't seen them but the Sleepy Eyes Of Death series and lots of films with Double Suicide in the title might also be worth a look.

(props to Jaq for pointing me at this)

All of LW&C, SE, PotA, Lady Snowblood, Crying Freeman and one other thing (but no golf manga...) in a humble bundle for the next 20 days or so. price currently about £20 for everything, drm-free.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/lone-wolf-cub-koike-from-dark-horse-books

(they look like the 300 page dark horse editions so they'll be reversed to read from left to right, which most newer manga isn't iirc. i don't know if the later omnibus editions of LW&C were different)

("one other thing" = Color of Rage)

I’ve seen almost 400 kung-fu and wuxia movies over the past three years, so when I say I’ve never seen a fight like this before, it’s not hyperbole pic.twitter.com/bot3h4shUW

— Justin Decloux (@DeclouxJ) March 21, 2022