10 One Man Army Movies Not To Be Slept On
4. Lone Wolf And Cub: Sword Of Vengeance
Chambara, or “samurai cinema”, is a subgenre of Japanese action movies centred around swordplay. It is most easily comparable to Western cowboy or pirate movies, and a top-class example of it can be found in 1972’s Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance.
Adapted from a popular manga series, Sword of Vengeance - the first in the Lone Wolf and Cub series - is about Ogami Ittō, a wandering mercenary in Edo-era Japan. Ittō has more than just his trusty sword with him, as he also pushes along his three-year-old son Daigoro in a stroller.
So much for work-life balance.
Over the course of Sword of Vengeance, the father and son duo encounter all sorts of strange characters as they try to make a living. The movie gets into a lot of detail about samurai and ronin culture, whilst also adding the parental side plot to keep Ittō from going completely off the rails.
Well, most of the time, for this is a very bloody film.
Darren Aronofsky tried and failed to secure the rights to an English language adaptation in the 2000s, so it remains to be seen if the Ogamis will ever make their Western debut.