Product Details

• Actors: Tomisaburô Wakayama, Kayo Matsuo, Minoru Oki, Akiji Kobayashi, Shin Kishida
• Directors: Robert Houston
• Writers: Robert Houston, David Weisman, Goseki Kojima, Kazuo Koike
• Producers: David Weisman, Hisaharu Matsubara, Michael Maiello
• Format: Box set, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Japanese
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 5
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Animeigo
• DVD Release Date: November 11, 2008
• Run Time: 85 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001EAWMFQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #59,103 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Shogun Assassin: 5 Film Collector's Set" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

In a time of evil and tyranny, a stone-faced ronin wanders the countryside with his young son (and a weapon-filled baby cart), hunted by the merciless minions of an evil Shogun. Once a noble samurai, he is now the most feared assassin in Japan, known only as Lone Wolf.

Product Description

He is the most feared assassin in all of Japan, known only as the Lone Wolf. Pushing his young son along the back-roads of feudal Japan in a heavily armed baby-cart, he strikes fear into the hearts of evil-doers everywhere - as long as someone can come up with his fee. Nothing, not even the legions of a mad shogun, hordes of Yagyu ninjas, or the undead, can stop him! This collector's set contains the complete series on 5 DVDs. From the explosive first film that became a cult-classic, to the snow-capped finale, there is never a dull moment for this father and son team.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mass Slaughter, July 20, 2006

By 

Sir Jub-Jub (Sir Jub-Jub's Lair, Alaska) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Shogun Assassin (DVD)

"Shogun Assassin" is a great film. Much "controversy" has arisen over the years regarding this film having been cobbled together from two other films in the Lone Wolf series. I think that what has been achieved is an extremely entertaining, fast-paced piece of action. By eliminating non-essential story lines and including a voice over narration, the action moves at break neck speed. The amount of blood spilled is so over the top as to be cartoonish, which only adds to the uniqueness of the movie. The DVD transfer is excellent and the restored picture is high quality. Some reviewers have complained about certain scenes being unrestored, it is actually only two shots totaling maybe five seconds in length. Both shots are of a castle and the excuse for not restoring them was that they were stock footage with no original element available. I do not know why the company had to place the disclaimer of this fact on the film, as I doubt anyone would have really noticed anyway. An added bonus on the DVD is the inclusion of the trailer which, I had never seen before. I can only imagine an audience seeing this trailer and somehow not wanting to see the film, it is awesome. Anyway, if you have never seen "Shogun Assassin" or have seen it a thousand times, buy this DVD, it is well worth it.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There will be blood, April 10, 2009

By 

Zack Davisson "japanreviewed" (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (2008 HOLIDAY TEAM)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shogun Assassin (DVD)

I am not usually a fan of dubbed versions of Japanese films. Most of the time, they are so poorly done I don't know why they even bother. But somehow, I find "Shogun Assassin" to be not only forgivable, but an awesome flick.

Maybe because this is more than just a dubbed version of the original film. The director, Robert Houston, spliced together the "good parts" of two films, Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance and Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx into a single story. He then hired deaf lip-readers to help him create an English-language script that was synchronized to the mouth movements, and Mark Lindsay from the band Paul Revere & the Raiders to lay out a funky synthesizer track for a score. It reminds me a bit of the animated series Robotech or even Woody Allen's What's Up, Tiger Lily? which both created new stories out of Japanese material.

Or maybe it is because "Shogun Assassin" is just so cool. The story is a simplified version of the original Lone Wolf and Cub series. You still have the wandering swordsman with his killer baby, but this time they are only fleeing from "The Shogun" instead of any complex story of clan rivalry. They are pursued by endless squads of "ninjas" which are handily and bloodily dispatched in grand style. That's about it. This is definitely the "good parts" version, and the fun comes from the endless swordfights and syntho soundtrack.

The violence here is over the top. There is one scene where a female ninja proves her prowess by fighting a battle with the Shogun's top fighter, and she slowly slices him to pieces, first fingers, then ears, then feet. It is a visual demonstration of the famous "To the pain" scene from The Princess Bride. All of the scenes go like that. No sword is drawn but body parts go flying. Good times indeed.

The entire series has been released by Animeigo in the Shogun Assassin: 5 Film Collector's Set. Chances are if you see the first one, you are going to want to see them all.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great film, but get the originals instead., September 7, 2004

By 

D. M. Bainbridge (Kalamazoo, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shogun Assassin (VHS Tape)

Unlike what some of the other reviews have stated, this is not spliced together episodes from a Japanese tv show. Actually, it is spliced from the first two (there are six in the series) Lone Wolf and Cub movies: Sword of Vengeance and Baby Cart at the River Styx. It is also not a kung fu film because for one thing, kung fu is a martial art form from China and this movie is from Japan and is involving samurai (who don't practice kung fu).

Unfortunately, taking two movies and cutting them down to one movie half as long hurts the story of the films. In the original films, the Shogun didn't just up and decide that he was threatened by Ogami Itto and decide to kill his family. The story is more involved and the viewer has a much stronger emotional connection with the characters of the story when watching the original versions of the film in two separate parts.

Also, the Lone Wolf and Cub series has seen a recent release onto DVD by AnimEigo and the picture and sound quality on these new DVD transfers is astounding when compared to this film. It literally looks as if it is a recent release instead of a film from the 70s. Additionally, these DVD releases contain the original Japanese audio tracks (matched with the AnimEigo's superb subtitles) not a horrible English dubbing as contained in Shogun Assassin.

All this combined, it is impossible for me to recommend this film over the originals to anyone. Granted, they both still contain ridiculous blood spurting and great swordplay and you'll still have a good time watching either Shogun Assassin or the original Lone Wolf and Cub movies but Shogun Assassin is just inferior. However, if (and only if) you really hate subtitles in your movies, then Shogun Assassin might be the way to go.

The Lone Wolf and Cub films themselves are based off of a classic manga; partly released by the same name in the US by Action Comics. More recently, Dark Horse Comics released it in its entirety in a 28 vol. (8,000+ pages) series. The story is more fleshed out and much more involved in the manga and the artwork is incredible. Anyone who enjoys the Lone Wolf and Cub films would be doing themselves a favor by checking them out. It should be noted to anyone who has seen the movie series to its "conclusion", that the manga does has an appropriate ending unlike that of the film series and its conclusion is more than satisfying.