Lone Wolf & Cub 2 (1972)

AKA:Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx (USA)

Lone Wolf and Cub: Perambulator of the River of Sanzu (literal English title)

Sword of Vengeance, Part II In the second film of the Lone Wolf and Cub series, Ogami Itto battles a group of female ninja in the employ of the Yagyu clan, and must assassinate a traitor who plans to sell his clan's secrets to the Shogunate who is guarded by the three "Gods of Death".



FYI

A formidable warrior and a master of the suiō-ryū, Ogami Ittō (拝 一刀), had become the Shōgun's executioner, the Kogi Kaishakunin, a position of high power used by the Tokugawa Shogunate (along with the oniwaban and the assassins) to enforce the will of the Shogun over the daimyō or domain lords. For those samurai and lords ordered to commit seppuku, the Kogi Kaishakunin would assist with their deaths by decapitating them to relieve the pain of cutting their own stomachs. As it was unthinkable for a person of lesser rank to act as Kaishakunin for a noble, the Kogi Kaishakunin was entitled and empowered to wear the crest of the Shogunate, in effect acting in place of the Shogun.



Shortly after Ogami Ittō's wife's childbirth with Ogami Daigorō (拝 大五郎), Ogami Ittō returned to find his wife Azami and all of their household brutally murdered, with only the newborn Daigorō surviving. They were ostensibly murdered by three former retainers of an abolished clan to avenge their lord who had been executed by Ogami Ittō. However, the entire matter was designed to disgrace Ogami Ittō by placing and then revealing an ihai (funeral tablet) with the shogun's crest on it in Ittō's family shrine (representing Ogami's wish for the shogun's death). This would make Ittō a criminal and thus forfeit his post. The set up was planned by Ura-Yagyū (Shadow Yagyu) Yagyū Retsudō (柳生 烈堂), leader of the Yagyū clan, in order to seize Ogami's post for the Yagyū clan.

Akihiro Tomikawa as Daigoro in Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril.



The 1-year-old Daigorō was given a choice by his father: a ball or a sword. Had Daigorō chosen the ball, his father would have killed him, sending him to be with his mother; however, the child crawled toward the sword, and reached for its hilt. This signified that he would take the path of a rōnin, living with his father as "demons" – the assassin-for-hire team that would become known as Lone Wolf and Cub, vowing to eventually destroy the Yagyū clan to avenge his wife and his