Choose The Sword takes a (brief) look at the film series Lone Wolf and Cub. Twice a month, Chris and Jon share their impressions of each film, both on its own terms and its intersection in the Cinema Dual hosts’ lives.
In our previous Something Like A Filmography series, Chris and I set out to bolster our understanding of one of film’s great directors, for whom our shared love is foundational to our friendship, this podcast, and miscellaneous endeavors. Given Kurosawa’s prolific career, for us to properly give the man his due we spent more than a year going through each and every one of his films: masterpieces to failed curiosities and everything in between. Sandwiched between posts we also devoted a podcast episode to The Lower Depths and a book report about the movie Condorman, so our interest in film contains multitudes.
I doubt neither Chris nor myself have any familiarity with the original manga of Lone Wolf and Cub (he’s right – Chris), which ran from 1970-1976 in Japan, and from which sprung a film franchise, a TVshow, English translations, sequels and video games. Personally, I can only speak to having previously seen the first film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance and the English re-edit of the first two films, Shogun Assassin. But the influence of this series can be observed everywhere, like Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol 2. GZA’s album Liquid Swords heavily samples dialogue from Shogun Assassin (ok, THAT I am familiar with – Chris). And the father/son dynamic established in the series is used as a template in any number of stories, most recently in The Mandalorian. What we lack in familiarity and experience regarding this series, we hope to make up with curiosity.
We plan to follow the same rhythms as before, covering two movies a month, on the 15th and 30th (starting May 30). We plan to take a break in July (extended European vacation time! – Chris), with a goal to come back and finish the sixth and final movie in September, right around the time Chris starts to lose his mind with the latest Hooptober marathon (true – Chris).
We hope you’ll join us on what we’re hoping will be a fun and brief dive into an enduring piece of film history.
Cinema Dual 
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