Cinema of Swords by Lawrence Ellsworth

Author:Lawrence Ellsworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Applause
Published: 2023-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

LONE WOLF AND CUB 6: WHITE HEAVEN IN HELL

Rating: ★★★★☆ • Origin: Japan, 1974 • Director: Yoshiyuki Kuroda • Source: Criterion Blu-ray

By late 1973 it looked like the Lone Wolf and Cub movie series was over. Making five movies in quick succession, they had run through adaptations of the full manga series published since 1970 and were out of stories to tell. Lead director Kenji Misumi felt that, visually, the series had said all it had to say and declined to sign on for another entry. But star and now producer Tomisaburo Wakayama wasn’t ready to give up. Reputedly disappointed at not getting the lead role in the Lone Wolf and Cub TV series, but with enough funding for a sixth film, Wakayama decided to go big and make the wild, over-the-top movie he’d been dreaming of. He hired Tsutomu Nakamura to write an all-new script to meet his needs, and Yoshiyuki Kuroda, known for his yokai fantasy-horror films, to direct. And the series went out with a bang.

The previous films had mostly stuck to the structure of the Lone Wolf and Cub taking an assassination job and then somehow completing it despite interference from Itto Ogami’s nemesis, the Yagyu clan. This film dropped that formula, devoting itself to a final showdown between Itto and the Yagyus, led by the relentless Lord Retsudo (Minoru Ohki). Retsudo is called on the carpet by the shogun because the Yagyus’ repeated failure to capture or kill Itto Ogami is a public embarrassment for the government. Though in previous encounters Itto had slain Retsudo’s three sons, he begs for more time from the shogunate because Retsudo still has one child, his daughter Kaori (Junko Hitomi), who also has been trained as a formidable martial artist. Kaori, who fights with throwing knives that she juggles hypnotically to confuse her opponents, sets out to get at Itto through his son, Daigoro. But the boy proves as fearless as his father. Kaori fails, and she falls.

Now things get good and strange. Wait, says Retsudo, I still have an illegitimate son, Hyoei (Isao Kimura), who’s been adopted by the Tsuchigumo, a pariah clan of demon-worshipping weirdos who skulk in the remote mountains. Hyoei receives his father with scorn but agrees to kill Itto Ogami, not to do Dad a favor, but to show him up for a failure. Hyoei’s chief weapon is to be three Tsuchigumo warriors who were buried alive and have been resurrected with creepy powers. These undead samurai can burrow through the ground like moles, and they like to slaughter innocents wholesale to strike terror into the hearts of their enemies. Itto and Daigoro are visibly shaken by the depredations of the three Tsuchigumo, and the former executioner realizes he must find a new strategy to deal with them.

So Itto puts skis on Daigoro’s baby cart and retreats into the snowy north, where the Tsuchigumo will be out of their comfort zone. And indeed, burrowing through snow is more difficult than moling it through the

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