Framed to Perfection XVII

KOZURE OKAMI MEIFUMADO (1973)

Director: Kenji Misumi

Cinematographer: Fujio Morita

Golly, we finally clock round to a new year in Lone Wolf and Cub’s brutal shooting schedule!

Ah 1973, the year Roger Moore tragically took over as James Bond for longer than any rational human being should allow; The Exorcist disturbingly told the world it was acceptable to quickly give up on medical science and instead strap a troubled 12-year-old girl down on a bed to have a pair of strange men physically and mentally abuse her; and George Lucas found financial success for the first time with American Graffiti, which would eventually enable him to bring us The Phantom Menace.

Good grief.

As you can and have been able to tell, I’m not working with the greatest quality of home video releases here. They’re just modest low-grade DVDs, I’m afraid. The moment a brand spanking new Blu-ray set is jettisoned from the UK’s miserable distribution scene, however, will be the moment I recapture these screenshots so as not to look quite so low-grade myself.

In this opening scene, Lone Wolf and Cub are being stalked through the woods/rainforest/jungle by members of the Beasts of Hell gang. Yes, I actually put some effort in and stuck on the subtitles to find out what the bloody hell was going on here.

Don’t tell anyone.

Needless to say, stalking Itto and Daigoro does not go well for their assailants, otherwise this film would end after a mere three minutes. Thankfully for us, we get some wonderful shots of a foliage-covered waterfall and its surrounding stream system, which gave birth to the above amazing shot.

Meanwhile, in the real world, there is finally air movement in the room as I type this, after five-long-days of stifling heatwave torture. I did sadly fall off the wagon over the weekend, but I proudly stuck to beer and wine, rather than the cheap supermarket whisky that has brought me down so low these past few years.

Baby steps, just like Daigoro takes.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!