Shogun Assassin

Shogun Assassin follows Ogami Itto, the shogun's personal executioner, who falls from favour when the paranoid ruler comes to see him as a threat. Ninja sent to kill him instead murder his wife, and Itto takes to the road with his young son Daigoro, pushing the boy in a cart and hiring out his sword as a mercenary while the shogun's assassins continue to pursue them.

The film is an English-language reworking of the first two entries in the Lone Wolf and Cub series, assembled by director Robert Houston, who also wrote the screenplay with Kazuo Koike and David Weisman. Kenji Misumi, who directed the Japanese footage, had already made seven Lone Wolf and Cub films beginning with Sword of Vengeance in 1972; Shogun Assassin is the ninth title listed among his directing credits, arriving after Internal Sleuth. Tomisaburo Wakayama plays Ogami Itto and Akihiro Tomikawa plays his son, with Kayo Matsuo, Minoru Oki and Shin Kishida among the supporting cast. Roger Corman and Shintaro Katsu produced.

The film holds a 7.3 rating on IMDb from around 12,000 votes and a 6.9 on TMDB from roughly 200 votes, while critics rate it 6.8 from eleven reviews. Its audience scores therefore sit close to the critics' figure, with the much larger IMDb sample indicating a steady following for the English-dubbed version, which runs 85 minutes.