Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx

The former shogunate executioner Ogami Itto travels with his young son Daigoro, pushing the child in a cart fitted with concealed weapons. Marked for death by the Yagyu clan, which murdered his wife, he earns a living as a hired killer. In this second film of the series, the Yagyu send a band of female ninjas led by Sayaka Yagyu to hunt him down, while a rival clan hires him to kill a man who intends to sell its closely guarded dye-making secret to the shogunate. The shogunate assigns three formidable warriors, the so-called Death Gods, to protect the traitor on his journey to Edo.

Kenji Misumi directed, working from a screenplay by Kazuo Koike, who wrote the manga with artist Goseki Kojima; the film is the second of six Lone Wolf and Cub features made in a short span and the second of three Misumi directed in 1972, after Sword of Vengeance and before Baby Cart to Hades. Tomisaburo Wakayama plays Ogami, with Kayo Matsuo as Sayaka Yagyu, Minoru Oki, Shin Kishida and Shogen Nitta as the three brothers, and Akiji Kobayashi among the credited cast of twenty-two. Produced by Shintaro Katsu and Hisaharu Matsubara for Toho and Katsu Production, the 81-minute film earned an IMDb rating of 7.9 from around 7,400 votes and a TMDB rating of 7.4 from roughly 200 votes, a strong showing on IMDb that reflects its standing among Japanese period action films.