Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972) is a Japanese samurai action film you can watch online on iFILM, the second entry in director Kenji Misumi's Lone Wolf and Cub series based on the celebrated manga by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima.

Ogami Itto pushes his baby son's cart deeper into the assassin's road. The Yagyu clan sends its most lethal weapon this time: the all-female Akashi-Yagyu ninja squad, trained specifically to bring him down. He is also contracted to kill a clan traitor who plans to hand a lucrative dye-making secret to the Shogunate. Standing between Ogami and the target are three warriors known as the Gods of Death. The name is ironic only if you haven't seen what Ogami does.

Misumi shoots the duels with a stillness that makes the bursts of violence land harder — this is not the fast-cut action of the decade that followed, but slow, almost ceremonial bloodshed. The image of a killer and his infant crossing feudal Japan in a pram became one of the iconic visuals of 1970s world cinema and influenced filmmakers from Sam Peckinpah to Takashi Miike. Stream Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972) online on iFILM.