Independent Films, Film Profiles

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (Japanese: 子連れ狼　死に風に向う乳母車 or Kozure Ôkami: Shinikazeni mukau ubaguruma, literally Wolf with Child in Tow: Perambulator Against the Winds of Death), is the third in a series of six Japanese martial arts films based on the long-running Lone Wolf and Cub manga series about Ogami Ittō, a wandering assassin for hire who is accompanied by his young son, Daigoro.The film has also been released under the name Shogun Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death, as a sequel to Shogun Assassin, which was most of the second film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx and some of the first film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance edited together for the US market.Ogami Ittō, the disgraced former shogun's executioner, or Kogi Kaishakunin, is travelling by river on a boat with his young son Daigoro floating behind in the baby cart. A young woman at the front of the boat, clearly distraught for some reason, accidentally drops a bundle into the water, which Daigoro retrieves.Ittō, meanwhile, draws his sword part way and notices in the reflection on the blade that some bamboo reeds are also trailing the boat. Ittō is being followed by operatives of his mortal enemy, the Yagyū Clan – a constant threat that he can never ignore. Later, as Daigoro is relieving himself in a bamboo glade, Ittō slices some bamboo stalks, causing some ninja to fall from their perch.This is a time when there are ronin, or at the very least a low-class of samurai termed watari-kashi – small bands of fighters who move from job to job, working from one daimyo to the next, depending on who's hiring.A group of four watari-kashi are idling along the road. Hot and bored, they spy an attractive young woman and her mother being escorted by one servant. Three of them run off to take advantage, but one of the band – Kanbei, the more honorable of the four – remains uninterested. The three knock the escort unconscious and proceed to rape the two women. The escort comes back from the blackout, and is furious when he saw the triad violating the mistresses. He attempted to beat them with his bamboo pole, but is slain by Kanbei, who then also swiftly slays the two women. Kanbei then makes his three colleagues draw straws. The one unfortunate enough to draw the short one shall be killed to take the blame for the rapes and murders.Ittō happens along this grim scene just as Kanbei is slaying one of the watari-kashi, and kills the other two watari-kashi when they attempted to silence him. Kanbei recognizes Ittō, then demands that Ittō engage him in a duel. Ittō goes as far as meeting Kanbei in a field to have the duel, but at the last second re-sheathes his sword and calls it a draw, leaving Kanbei to ponder his fate alone. "You are a true warrior," Ittō says, "One I hope lives on."At an inn, it turns out that the young woman from the boat is to be sold into prostitution. Her pimp tries to have his way with her, but she bites off his tongue, spitting the bloody appendage onto the floor. The man dies from the injury.The girl seeks refuge in Ittō's room, who steps in to protect her from the local police. But then the town's real authorities show up – the yakuza, led by a woman named Toizo. After some verbal sparring and defending himself against Toizo's pistol, Ittō agrees to act as a substitute for the young woman and undergo buri-buri, a form of torture that involves the subject being hogtied and hung in the air and repeatedly dunked headfirst into a tub of water. The subject is then beaten to unconsciousness by men wielding thick rattan canes and shouting "buri-buri". Ittō endures the torture with his typical stoicism. This frees the young woman from having work as a prostitute.Ittō, still with a debt to pay for the death of the pimp, agrees to take on an assassination for Koizo and her father, a one-armed man that Ittō is acquainted with from his past life as the shogun's executioner – he accidentally cut the man's arm off during the botched execution of an insane daimyo who would not sit still.The target is a corrupt district deputy. Initially Ittō is to face the deputy's personal bodyguards, one of whom is a sharpshooter and quick-draw artist who wields a pair of revolvers. Through cunning and guile (and the help of his young son Daigoro, who acts as a decoy), Ittō defeats the armed man and takes his guns.Ittō's battle culminates in his facing the deputy's army – perhaps 200 men – singlehandedly. For the first time, the true power of the baby cart is revealed as it proves to harbor an entire arsenal of weapons, including a bullet-proof shield and a small battery of guns, capable of taking out many enemy soldiers.Word of the fight has been passed to neighboring districts, and the ronin Kanbei shows up after Ittō has slain the deputy and his army and makes his demand again for a duel. Though battle-weary, Ittō accepts the challenge. The fight is over in an instant. Ittō is sliced across his back, but Kanbei is mortally wounded, impaled on Ittō's Dotanuki battle sword.As Kanbei kneels to the ground, dying, he tells Ittō his story and why he became a ronin – a tale involving an ambush on his master's convoy. Seeing his side outnumbered, Kanbei seized an opportunity and ran ahead to attack the enemy head on. He surprised the enemy and prevailed in deflecting the hostiles, and saved the lord's life as a result, but since he left his lord's side, he was dishonored and expelled from the clan. He questions Ittō whether he had done the wrong thing, and whether being a samurai means to fight and live, or to simply never leave the master's side and die. Ittō replied that he would have done the same. "I am glad to hear that," Kanbei says, who then asks the former shogun's executioner to act as his "second" in the act of seppuku. This Ittō does with honor.The true "Way of the Warrior", it seems, is neither to simply live or die, but to live through death.As Ittō starts to walk away Toizo runs after him, as if she had fallen for Ittō, but she is stopped by her men. They tell her not to go to him, that he is not human, but a monster.