Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance

Ogami Ittō, the shogun's executioner, is destroyed by a rival clan's plot and loses his wife and his office. What remains is an infant son and a debt. The most striking scene comes early: he sets a ball and a sword in front of the child and will kill him or keep him depending on which one is reached for. Kenji Misumi refuses to sentimentalise the moment, because the point is not that the father saves the boy but that he conscripts him. The source is the manga by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima. The violence is exaggerated, arterial and deliberately stylised, a register plenty of directors copied later. The pram becomes a weapons platform and stays one. Who it is for: viewers who like seventies Japanese swordplay and stylised violence. Who it is not for: anyone troubled by a child placed in danger, which the film makes central.