10 Things You Didn’t Know About Lone Wolf and Cub

I have always loved the samurai sub-genre of films. Whether released in 1962 or 2020, there has been a consistent stream of excellent films for the better part of six decades. Certainly, though, the genre never kicked as much ass as it did when Kurosawa and the other boss directors like Hideo Gosha and Kihachi Okamoto were clanging around with swords, but recent additions to the genre from Keishi Ōtomo and Takashi Miike have been more than stellar.

A close second to the excellence that was Kurosawa has to be the craziness of the 1970’s. Lone Wolf and Cub started as a manga series and ended up as one of the most beloved film series with a raucous cult following. Its Criterion Collection release a few years ago is something that you need to own and it is the inspiration behind this edition of 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Lone Wolf and Cub.

1. Big Brother- Tomisaburo Wakayama was the older brother of Shintaro Katsu who plays the iconic character of Zatoichi. He saw the promise of the character through the mangas and purchased the rights, but wasn’t ready to play the role. His older brother Wakayama was a very successful actor in his own right and approached the writer for his blessing to play the part.

2. The Star- Tomisaburo came to Kazuo Koike and essentially said, ‘look, I know I’m fat, but watch this shit!’ He then did a series of somersaults and showed off some sweet sword techniques with a wooden practice sword.

3. The Writer- Kazuo Koike wrote the manga and is also credited for writing the screenplays for all but the final film. He was too slow writing so he often had to just give them ideas over the phone and they would go film them. Sounds like George R. R. Martin with Game of Thrones.

4. Kill’em all- The final film in the series was the most expensive to film. The skiers attacking Ogami were paid six times the normal rate for a stuntman and the body count reached double digits.

5. Seeing eye to eye- Only once did Wakayama and Saito disagree on a scene. It was when Daigoro held up a stick like he was going to fight.

6. Stubborn- Wakayama was a very stubborn man. Once the TV rights of Lone Wolf and Cub were sold he refused to do anymore movies. They wanted him to play Ogami on the series but he wouldn’t do it so they had to recast the role.

7. Quick draw- Kazuo Koike claims that he, Tomisaburo Wakayama, and director Kenji Misumi had a competition to see who could draw their swords the fastest and Koike won.

8. A change of pace- The final film in the series, White Heaven in Hell, is the only one in which Kazuo Koike didn’t screen write. Katsu sat this one out, as well, and the film brought on a horror director named Yoshiyuki Kuroda. The movie features much more supernatural elements as Itto Ogami and his son do battle with a clan of zombie-like bad guys.

9. Winter warfare- The final film also saw one of Wakayama’s dreams come to fruition as he had always wanted to stage a battle in the snow. It took a month and a half to film in subfreezing temperatures. It employs over a hundred stuntmen including professional skiers, athletes, and sword-waving locals.

10. Welcome to America- The first two films were cut and edited together to form Shogun Assassin in 1980. It was an incredibly important film in American cinema as it introduced many to the series and caused them to seek out the original films in their entirety. You can see The Bride’s daughter watching this at the end of Kill Bill: Vol. 2 and many of the lines were sampled for the hip hop artist GZA’s album “Liquid Swords”.