Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance

Set in 17th-century Japan during the Tokugawa shogunate, this action drama follows Ogami Itto, the Shogun's official executioner. The powerful Yagyu clan frames him for disloyalty, costing him his position and his wife. Rather than submit to a sentence of ritual suicide, he chooses to flee with his young son Daigoro and wage a one-man campaign of revenge against those who destroyed his name. To survive, the former executioner becomes a hired sword, traveling the country with the child at his side.

The film is directed by Kenji Misumi, appearing in his filmography between Dynamite Doctor and Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx, and it launched a series of features adapted from the manga by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima. Koike also wrote the screenplay, with Shintaro Katsu and Hisaharu Matsubara producing. Tomisaburo Wakayama stars as Ogami, alongside Fumio Watanabe, Tomoko Mayama, Shigeru Tsuyuguchi, Asao Uchida and Taketoshi Naito.

On IMDb the film holds a rating of 7.7 from roughly 9,700 votes, while on TMDB it rates 7.4 from about 256 votes, indicating a solid and fairly consistent response from viewers.