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Before watching Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance, I had been watching The Incredible Hulk (AKA Hulk: Ed Norton remix). In few ways are the movies similar. Yet, they build on the same foundation of a guy who destroys opponents with ease taking his time to be coaxed out of his shell by others doing wrong. What I mean is that the plot of each is pretty much the protagonist getting treated badly and then RRAAAAWWRRRGGGHHH (or in Lone Wolf and Cub's case: SWOOOOSH SWISH!): instant gratification and justice. It's a comparison that can be made to the westerns by Sergio Leone, where gunfights are not drawn out; it's Rainbow Six rules: one shot kills. This probably doesn't last for The Incredible Hulk (I only saw the first half; it's in my Netflix now to finish at some other date), but Lone Wolf and Cub never creates a villain who is able to equal its protagonist, Ogami Itto.
That's notable, in looking at so many superhero adaptations. John Favreau's Ironman and Ang Lee's Hulk both struggled to create a suitable villain in their final act. One of the flaws of the (still good) Tim Burton Batman movie was that they spent more time on the villains than the hero. The villain of the series has no fighting prowess in this Lone Wolf and Cub movie. He's an old man running a "shadow" clan, an elderly man played in an overdramatic way, like a Noh theater character. His strength is in the number of men he commands, and while his villainy sets off the movie's narrative, he is not seen for the last third.
The movie is almost strictly an origin story for is first two acts; it's a story of betrayal and corruption that ends with Itto vowing to be an assassin for hire as he travels with his son. It establishes his skill with a sword, and the aesthetic of its fights. The fights tend to be bloody - individual swordsmen are slashed and killed in single swipes, while Itto is untouched. No one, not the officers come to arrest him, nor the army trying to stop him after he refuses to commit seppuku for his crimes, can touch him. Throughout, we see him wronged until he unleashes the awesome power of slicing the fuck outta someone with a really sharp blade. Then, he fights the odds in self-defense until he uses his cunning to get into a duel. Then, he uses his cunning again combined with his ability to decapitate motherfuckers to win the duel.
The action is handled with vigor, handling special effects for the various severed limbs and campy spraying blood smoothly. Yes, it's all cartoonish, but it's also fun in a B-movie way. Of course, the movie saves the best for last, with Itto taken captive in a town taken over by an evil chamberlain and his men. Upon first sight, they threaten to cut down a bridge while he is on it. They rape a woman. Then kill her father. One guy demands to challenge him because he is insulted. They force him to have sex with a prostitute while they watch. They even wipe a bloody sword clean on the robe he's wearing. The movie pushes them to cartoonish levels of depravity, not even feigning a chance that Itto could be beaten by them. Instead, we get a violent bloodbath of righteous vigilante justice (AKA justice in its purest form).
Anyway, I can't labor over this entry because the movie is both simple and short (82 minutes! When was the last time anyone produced a movie that was 82 minutes? Freaking Cars was nearly two hours!). Also, the entire series is on my Netflix queue now, and I fully intend on doing an entry for each. It's just that sometimes it's the simplest things that are great pleasures. Like when a dude gets pushed too far and winds up he can cut your sword in half and then jam the loose half through your throat with blood sprouting out of the top of your head somehow. Or when Bruce Banner's got some spanish dude and his posse kicking his ass for no reason while the government's on his back, and he's been running, and his Portuguese isn't so good and RRAAAWWRGGH HULK SMASH. Of course, in the case of Lone Wolf and Cub, it helps that it's a straight-up well-made movie, with great cinematography and some extremely well-chosen set pieces. But, in the end, how much of the audience is gonna care about that really gorgeous waterfall with a wood bridge overlooking it?
Before watching Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance, I had been watching The Incredible Hulk (AKA Hulk: Ed Norton remix). In few ways are the movies similar. Yet, they build on the same foundation of a guy who destroys opponents with ease taking his time to be coaxed out of his shell by others doing wrong. What I mean is that the plot of each is pretty much the protagonist getting treated badly and then RRAAAAWWRRRGGGHHH (or in Lone Wolf and Cub's case: SWOOOOSH SWISH!): instant gratification and justice. It's a comparison that can be made to the westerns by Sergio Leone, where gunfights are not drawn out; it's Rainbow Six rules: one shot kills. This probably doesn't last for The Incredible Hulk (I only saw the first half; it's in my Netflix now to finish at some other date), but Lone Wolf and Cub never creates a villain who is able to equal its protagonist, Ogami Itto.
That's notable, in looking at so many superhero adaptations. John Favreau's Ironman and Ang Lee's Hulk both struggled to create a suitable villain in their final act. One of the flaws of the (still good) Tim Burton Batman movie was that they spent more time on the villains than the hero. The villain of the series has no fighting prowess in this Lone Wolf and Cub movie. He's an old man running a "shadow" clan, an elderly man played in an overdramatic way, like a Noh theater character. His strength is in the number of men he commands, and while his villainy sets off the movie's narrative, he is not seen for the last third.
The movie is almost strictly an origin story for is first two acts; it's a story of betrayal and corruption that ends with Itto vowing to be an assassin for hire as he travels with his son. It establishes his skill with a sword, and the aesthetic of its fights. The fights tend to be bloody - individual swordsmen are slashed and killed in single swipes, while Itto is untouched. No one, not the officers come to arrest him, nor the army trying to stop him after he refuses to commit seppuku for his crimes, can touch him. Throughout, we see him wronged until he unleashes the awesome power of slicing the fuck outta someone with a really sharp blade. Then, he fights the odds in self-defense until he uses his cunning to get into a duel. Then, he uses his cunning again combined with his ability to decapitate motherfuckers to win the duel.
The action is handled with vigor, handling special effects for the various severed limbs and campy spraying blood smoothly. Yes, it's all cartoonish, but it's also fun in a B-movie way. Of course, the movie saves the best for last, with Itto taken captive in a town taken over by an evil chamberlain and his men. Upon first sight, they threaten to cut down a bridge while he is on it. They rape a woman. Then kill her father. One guy demands to challenge him because he is insulted. They force him to have sex with a prostitute while they watch. They even wipe a bloody sword clean on the robe he's wearing. The movie pushes them to cartoonish levels of depravity, not even feigning a chance that Itto could be beaten by them. Instead, we get a violent bloodbath of righteous vigilante justice (AKA justice in its purest form).
Anyway, I can't labor over this entry because the movie is both simple and short (82 minutes! When was the last time anyone produced a movie that was 82 minutes? Freaking Cars was nearly two hours!). Also, the entire series is on my Netflix queue now, and I fully intend on doing an entry for each. It's just that sometimes it's the simplest things that are great pleasures. Like when a dude gets pushed too far and winds up he can cut your sword in half and then jam the loose half through your throat with blood sprouting out of the top of your head somehow. Or when Bruce Banner's got some spanish dude and his posse kicking his ass for no reason while the government's on his back, and he's been running, and his Portuguese isn't so good and RRAAAWWRGGH HULK SMASH. Of course, in the case of Lone Wolf and Cub, it helps that it's a straight-up well-made movie, with great cinematography and some extremely well-chosen set pieces. But, in the end, how much of the audience is gonna care about that really gorgeous waterfall with a wood bridge overlooking it?
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