Shogun Assassin Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Limited Edition CD

$16.80

13 in stock

Featured is a limited edition CD reissue of the cult classic Japanese bloody sword fighting film soundtrack for Shogun Assassin. The music is by W. Michael Lewis and Mark Lindsay.

There were six films in the Lone Wolf and Cub series. These, in turn, were based on the long-running 1970s manga series Lone Wolf and Cub created by the writer Kazuo Koike and the artist Goseki Kojima. The project was directed by Robert Houston and his partner David Weisman, a protégé of Andy Warhol and director of Ciao! Manhattan (1972). A fan of the original Kozure Ōkami films, Weisman had obtained the rights for $50,000 from the American office of Toho Studios. The film was distributed by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures to the grindhouse movie circuit in the United States, and then later as a video cassette from MCA/Universal Home Video.

When released in the United Kingdom by the Vipco video tape label in 1983, Shogun Assassin’s extreme violence almost caused it to be banned in the UK by the Home Office. Vipco played this for publicity in the cover art of their 2000 release on DVD, which was stamped “Banned since 1983!” The poster and title treatment was created by artist Jim Evans. Jim’s son Gibran Evans voiced the narrative as Daigorō. In 2006 it was restored and re-released on DVD in the United States by AnimEigo.

Shogun Assassin begins when the wife of the Shogun’s Decapitator is murdered and he is ordered to commit suicide by the paranoid Shogun. He and his four-year-old son escape and become assassins for hire, embarking on a journey of blood and violent death.

Directed by Robert Houston and Kenji Misumi, Shogun Assassin stars Tomisaburô Wakayama as Lone Wolf, Akihiro Tomikawa as Daigoro, Kayo Matsuo as Supreme Ninja, Minoru Ôki as Master of Death, Shôgen Nitta as Master of Death, Shin Kishida as Master of Death, Akiji Kobayashi as Lord Kurogawa, Taketoshi Naitô as Lord Bizen, Tokio Oki as The Shogun and Reiko Kasahara as Azami, along with U.S. voiceovers by Lamont Johnson, Marshall Efron, Sandra Bernhard, Vic Davis, Lennie Weinrib, Lainie Cooke and Sam Weisman.

This item is part of a limited pressing of 500 units.