Blu-ray, DVD Release: Lone Wolf and Cub

By
Laurence
– November 18, 2016Find Others: Blu-ray, DVD, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: , ,

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Nov. 8, 2016
Price: DVD $84.99, Blu-ray $79.99
Studio: Criterion

Based on the best-selling manga series, the six awesome and intensely kinetic Lone Wolf and Cub films of the Seventies elevated chanbara (Japan’s samurai cinema) to bloody, new heights. The shogun’s executioner, Itto Ogami (Tomisaburo Wakayama), takes to wandering the countryside as an assassin—along with his infant son Daigoro (Akihiro Tomikawa) and an infinitely weaponized perambulator—helping those he encounters while seeking vengeance for his murdered wife.

Tomisaburo Wakayama and Akihiro Tomikawa in the Lone Wolf and Cub and series

Tomisaburo Wakayama and Akihiro Tomikawa in the Lone Wolf and Cub and series

Delivering stylish thrills and a body count that defies belief, Lone Wolf and Cub is beloved for its brilliantly choreographed and unbelievably violent action sequences as well as for its tender depiction of the bonds between parent and child.

Oh, and for the record, here are the names of the films: Sword of Vengeance, Baby Cart at the River Styx, Baby Cart to Hades, Baby Cart in Peril, Baby Cart in the Land of Demons and White Heaven in Hell.

Criterion’s Lone Wolf and Cub collection, as it is has been issued on DVD and Blu-ray, contains the following:

  • New 2K digital restorations of all six films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks on the Blu-rays
  • High-definition presentation of Shogun Assassin, the 1980 English-dubbed reedit of the first two Lone Wolf and Cub films
  • New interview with Kazuo Koike, writer of the Lone Wolf and Cub manga series and screenwriter on five of the films
  • Lame d’un père, l’âme d’un sabre, a 2005 documentary about the making of the series
  • New interview in which Sensei Yoshimitsu Katsuse discusses and demonstrates the real Suio-ryu sword techniques that inspired those in the manga and films
  • New interview with biographer Kazuma Nozawa about filmmaker Kenji Misumi, director of four of the six Lone Wolf and Cub films
  • Silent documentary from 1937 about the making of samurai swords, with an optional new ambient score by Ryan Francis
  • Trailers
  • New English subtitle translations
  • A booklet featuring an essay and film synopses by Japanese pop culture writer Patrick Macias
Buy or Rent Lone Wolf and Cub
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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.