Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance is a 1972 film from Japan, directed by Kenji Misumi, running 83 minutes. reelscum files it under chanbara.
- Year
- 1972 · 1970s films
- Country
- Japan
- Runtime
- 83 min
- Director
- Kenji Misumi
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- cult (39/100)
- Also known as
- Lone Wolf and Cub 1: Sword of Vengeance · Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance
Defined in the glossary: Chanbara
A disgraced executioner and his toddler take the assassin's road. The pram has blades in it.
The first of six films following Ogami Itto, the Shogun's former executioner, framed and dishonoured, who takes to the road as an assassin for hire pushing his infant son in a wooden pram. The pram, it turns out, is fitted with hidden blades. The premise is pure pulp and the execution is beautiful.
Tomisaburo Wakayama plays Itto as an immovable slab of controlled violence, and the arterial spray that became the series' signature arrives on cue. It is the foundation of a saga that runs straight into Shogun Assassin and, from there, into Kill Bill.
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