Violent 1970’s Japanese Action Cinema
I’ve slowly been working my way through the Lone Wolf and Cub film series on the #Criterion Channel.
It’s a sequence of six low-budget samurai #movies produced between 1972 and 1974, based on the manga of the same name.
The conceit: wandering ronin assassin-for-hire pushing along a wooden baby carriage with his infant son.
I can’t believe I’ve never been made to see them before; I’ve barely even heard of them.
They’re _wonderful_.
They’re shoestring kinetic vignettes clocking in at around 80 minutes each, adhering to a simple narrative structure that feels like it was plucked straight from oral storytelling; it’s raw, gonzo, violent, lurid storytelling at its unapologetic best.
It’s been a minute since I’ve seen anything so comfortable with its own limitations, and so earnest in its telling.
