#841: MISUMI, Kenji: Baby Cart To Hades (1972)
MISUMI, Kenji (Japan)
Baby Cart To Hades [1972]
Spine #841
Blu-ray
89 minutes
The Booklet
Thirty-six page booklet featuring an essay and film synopses by Japanese pop-culture critic Patrick Macias.
Commentary
None.
Interview 1
With Koike, writer of the Lone Wolf and Cub manga series and screenwriter on five of the films.
L’âme d’un père, l’âme d’un sabre
A 2005 documentary about the making of the series.
Interview 2
In which Sensei Yoshimitsu Katsuse discusses and demonstrates the real Suio-ryu sword techniques that inspired the ones depicted in the manga and films.
Interview 3
With biographer Kazuma Nozawa about Misumi, director of four of the six films.
Silent documentary
From 1937 about the making of samurai swords, with an optional new ambient score by Ryan Francis.
Trailers
Extras Rating (0-40):
Baby Cart To Hades [1972]
Spine #841
Blu-ray
Baby Cart to Hades opens abruptly, like the turn of a manga page, and unfolds within idyllic countryside scenery that contrasts sharply with the different kinds of violence that occur there. In the first act alone, swords are drawn for vengeance and for glory but also for random senseless acts, with terrible consequences.
Itto Ogami and Daigoro continue their journey, this time traveling up a river by boat. Meanwhile, nearby, a group of lowlife swordsmen from the watari-kachi class ambush a passing traveler and rape the two women in his care on the roadside. One of the watari-kachi, Kanbei (Go Kato), realizing the problems this transgression may cause, decides to settle the matter with his weapon. Lone Wolf and Cub happen to pass by the Rashomon-esque crime scene, and Kanbei recognizes Ogami as the legendary former executioner for the shogun. Kanbei, wishing to preserve his honor as a samurai, challenges Ogami to a duel.
Afterward, a young girl sold into prostitution takes refuge from the police in Ogami and Daigoro's room at an inn. It turns out the girl is the property of the Bohachi yakuza gangsters, under the leadship of Torizo (Yuko Hama), who demand her return. Instead, Ogami bids for the girl's freedom by allowing himself to be tied up and tortured in her place by Torizo's gang.
As the title's inclusion of "to Hades" implies, we're in a rough place, not too far from the BDSM fantasies populating Japanese adult media during the early 1970s, when bad guys like the Bohachi gang were rewarded with their own film franchises. Director Kenji Misumi complicates this dangerous vision by frequently framing young Daigoro's face in close-up or otherwise reminding us of his constant presence as his father goes about his grim work. Like the natural world of snails and frogs that he inhabits, this kid may look innocent, but he's also an accomplice to murder, a witness, and sometimes even a killer himself.
89 minutes
Color
Monaural
in Japanese
2:40:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2016
Monaural
in Japanese
2:40:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2016
Director/Writers
Based on the manga by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima.
Screenplay by Koike.
Kenji Misumi was 51 when he directed Baby Cart to Hades.
Other Misumi films in the Collection:
#679a: The Tale Of Zatoichi (1962)
#679h: Fight, Zatoichi, Fight (1964)
#679a: The Tale Of Zatoichi (1962)
#679h: Fight, Zatoichi, Fight (1964)
The Film
A
Film Rating (0-60):
60
The ExtrasThe Booklet
Thirty-six page booklet featuring an essay and film synopses by Japanese pop-culture critic Patrick Macias.
Commentary
None.
Interview 1
With Koike, writer of the Lone Wolf and Cub manga series and screenwriter on five of the films.
L’âme d’un père, l’âme d’un sabre
A 2005 documentary about the making of the series.
Interview 2
In which Sensei Yoshimitsu Katsuse discusses and demonstrates the real Suio-ryu sword techniques that inspired the ones depicted in the manga and films.
Interview 3
With biographer Kazuma Nozawa about Misumi, director of four of the six films.
Silent documentary
From 1937 about the making of samurai swords, with an optional new ambient score by Ryan Francis.
Trailers
Extras Rating (0-40):
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