It all started with a movie poster.
A long time ago, when I was hanging out on Taobao, I brushed a set of CCC standard collection Blu-ray discs, the film is called "The Wolf with the Belt". Although I had heard of the movie for the first time, this poster designed by American cartoonist Paul Pope really amazed me: in the middle of the flames and waves, the black samurai held a knife in his left hand and a baby in his right hand, standing on a high mound made of corpses and looking into the distance.
I later went to Douban to check the information, "The Wolf with the Belt" was originally a manga created by Kazuo Koike, and it has been remade into movies and TV series many times. One of the most well-known is the six-part film starring Tosaburo Wakasayama between 1972 and 1974, namely:
The Wolf with the Belt: Renting a Child and Martial Arts (1972)
The Wolf with the Ribbon: The Nursing Mother Car of the Sandu River (1972)
The Wolf with the Ribbon: The Wind of Death Blowing toward the Nursing Mother's Car (1972)
The Wolf with a Son: Father and Son Connect hearts (1972)
The Wolf with the Belt: The Magic Road of the Underworld (1973)
Wolf band: Journey to Hell! Daigoro! （1974）
Tomisaburo Wakayama Edition Book
Incidentally, my personal favorite actors Masaru Tamura and HisaoYe also played the protagonist of "The Wolf with the Belt" in 1993, but this version is relatively unpopular, and there has been no high-definition film source on the Internet.
Masakazu Tamura version
You can understand "The Wolf with The Belt" as a well-known Japanese action movie IP that belongs to the same category as "Humpback City", "Sleep Crazy Shiro", and "Shura Yukihime".
In terms of global influence, "The Wolf with the Belt" is no less than the latter: the English version of the original manga is one of the first Masterpieces of Japanese manga that Western readers come into contact with; the famous cartoonist Frank Miller and director Quentin Tarantino are its fans; the number of novels and films influenced and inspired by it is numerous - "Kill Bill", "The Mandalorian", "Meteor Butterfly Sword"... Nowadays, it seems that the ministry is a classic.
Before the showdown of "Kill Bill 2", Black Snake accompanied his daughter to watch "The Wolf with the Belt"
Just recently, I took the time to watch six "BeltEd Wolves", only to feel that they met and hated each other. Whether it's a novel character setting or an action scene that emphasizes a violent aesthetic, there are very few people in my few movie-going memories who can stand out from the right.
Such a film should not be simply buried in history. I decided to write an article about why "The Wolf with the Belt" is the coolest Japanese sword movie I've ever seen.
Just like the title, the main line of "The Wolf with the Belt" tells the story of the executioner of the Execution Department, Bai Yidao, who was framed by the Liusheng clan, was beheaded by the door on the charge of treason, and Bai Yidao took his young son out of the siege, and since then he has become a bounty killer and wandered the world. Because the male protagonist is highly skilled in martial arts, and the surname "Bai" is close to the pronunciation of "wolf" in Japanese, the Jianghu people call the belt male wolf (子連れ狼).
Is this setting of a macho man walking the rivers and lakes with a baby very familiar? Whether it is the high-scoring American drama "Mandalorian" or the popular comic book "Dart Man" created by Xu Xianzhe, its story core and "Wolf with a Belt" can be said to be in the same vein.
Xu Xianzhe once mentioned in an interview about "The Wolf with the Belt" and the manga artist Tsuyoshi Kojima
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="22" > role</h1>
The audience who watches this series for the first time will definitely be attracted by the two protagonists, one big and one small. Unlike the manga version, the movie version of Ichigo is more sturdy and even a little "rich", played by the brother of the famous actor Shintaro Katsushitaro (1989 version of "Humpback City") Wakayama Tozaburo.
The older brother on the left, the younger brother on the right
As for how he got the role, there is a passage circulating like this:
One day, Without greeting him in advance, Wakasayama quietly took a wooden knife to the home of the original author, Kazuo Koike, and told him that he especially wanted to play the protagonist Bai Yidao.
"If you're still hesitating because I'm too fat... Look at the tricks! ”
The 42-year-old Wakayama Tominaburo performed a ferocious and dazzling swordplay on the spot, bringing several back and forth flips. In this way, the experienced actor won the role of Bai Yi knife.
Kazuo Koike, original manga author
To tell the truth, on the screen, I am accustomed to seeing the image of a emaciated and lean samurai, and it is quite fresh to see a strong man like Tominaburo, and his strong figure is also in line with the audience's imagination of people who learn martial arts. Not to mention that the baiyi knife in the movie is still a flexible fat man, rolling forward, rolling over, jumping high action scenes are endless, and dancing swords cut people in the clouds.
In the past two years, Ma Dongxi's tough guy image has not been able to work, and if Tomizaburo Ishiyama is born 40 years later, I am afraid that he will not let go.
However, I personally think that the most suitable role for Wakayama Tozaburo is still Duke Togo in "Skull 13", who is also a paralyzed tough guy who kills people without blinking, on temperament and appearance, is there a candidate more like him?
Coincidentally, Kazuo Koike also participated in the creation of Skull 13
Daigoro, the son of Ichigo, is also the central character throughout the story, and there is even a manga sequel featuring him. In the movie version, Daigoro has almost no lines and participates in the performance with a pair of watery eyes and body movements.
The father-son relationship between him and Bai Yidao is a unique highlight of other sword films in "The Wolf with The Belt", and also brings a touch of warmth and buffer to the continuous bloody killing.
Bizarrely, child star Tobukawa Jinghiro, who plays Daigoro, later became an avid military enthusiast and was sentenced to three years in prison in 2004 for smuggling guns and ammunition. The actors of the TV drama version of Daigoro, Nishikawa and Takashi, also committed a criminal case when they grew up, or murder, and were sentenced to life imprisonment in 2000.
I can't help but think of the line of a samurai in the movie: This child has a pair of eyes that have seen countless people killed, which is incredible.
Does the filming experience in childhood really lead to the violent tendencies and crimes of actors as adults? This question may only be known to me.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="39" > plot & drama</h1>
In addition to the two protagonists, "The Wolf with the Belt" also has many innovations in the plot arrangement and play design. The most obvious is in terms of rhythm, "Wolf with a Belt" is much more compact than the previous traditional sword and blade films, and the proportion of literary drama is very low, but it is one assassination, breakout, and duel scene after another. The climax of each ending must have a big kill with one hundred enemies, which has become the signature of this series.
"The Wolf with the Belt" is clever in not deliberately expressing any profound themes, but only spends the funds on the blade, and interprets the revenge of Bai Yidao and his son with a sharp and concise slash scene. Fake but well-managed plasma, brain-opening props, and conspiracy theories, espionage elements, and bad tastes make the entire series a Cult classic in Japanese samurai films.
When it comes to the drama part, there are too many things worth remembering. The first is the creativity of the weapon props, as you may have noticed, two of the six films have "nursing mother cars" in the title, that is, strollers.
In the play, Daigoro's special seat is not only a means of transportation, but also a big killer that does not lose the 007 Bond car: the seemingly unremarkable stroller has several hidden weapons built-in, the handle and body can throw sharp blades, and how many assassin killers in the six parts have killed under its wheels.
Aside from not being able to go to heaven, this stroller is almost impossible, whether it is a boat or a sleigh.
In the last book, Journey to Hell! Daigoro! At the end of "", you can also see the spectacle of Bai Yi Dao and the old enemy Liu Sheng Lietang racing in the snow, full of joy.
Hey, the actor in front, you're laughing, right?
Several other weapons of the knife are also quite innovative, such as the combinable chopper, such as the spring spear hidden on the side of the car, and the setting of the helpless stroller is too conspicuous, overshadowing the light of other weapons.
As a comic book adaptation, these ideas are attributed to the ghost brains of the original author Kazuo Koike - after all, in that year, "The Wolf with the Ribbon" was a work that competed with the immortal "Lupin III" in the Weekly Manga Action.
Kazuo Koike tweeted in tribute to Monkey Punch, and he died of pneumonia on the day of the post
In terms of play action choreography, "The Wolf with the Belt" retains the clean and sharp style of the traditional sword and sword film, and also adds a lot of innovative scenes of showmanship.
At the beginning of the first part of the film, the audience is shown the stunt of worshiping a knife - the water gull pie wave breaking knife. This is a killing knife method that can only be fully used in the water.
The softness of the water and the rigidity of the knife form a visual unity of beauty.
Followed by high jumps and side rolls are a variety of unexpected killing moves, in addition to highlighting the physical strength of the actors, but also confirming the identity of a knife master.
You're a samurai, and you don't even need a sword
At the climax of the third part, "Father and Son Connecting Hearts", there is a group scene of worshiping a knife in the tunnel with one enemy. The injured Bai Yi knife relied on the advantages of the terrain to assassinate several people in succession, obviously a sword blade, but it filmed Rambo's sense of vision in "First Blood", which made me directly addicted.
The interesting thing about the character of Bai Yi Dao is that he accepted his identity as a hired assassin and no longer bound himself with the rules of a samurai.
Traditional Bushido emphasizes dignified duels and suicides to protect honor, but Bai Yidao does not eat this set at all:
Surrounded by Yanagi samurai, he took off his coat to reveal the family pattern inside, making it impossible for his opponent to take the sword;
Carrying his son on his back to duel with people, he let his son wear a reflector on his head to blind his opponent and kill him easily;
He even took advantage of the sympathy of his opponents to let his son pretend to drown, sneak attacks behind his back when the killer took off his musket to save people, and finally killed the enemy master with the musket he picked up.
From this perspective, "The Wolf with the Belt" is somehow an anti-samurai film. Only by breaking the traditional rules can a knife become a legend of the unkillable.
In addition to worshiping a knife, the various villains in the movie also contributed a lot of strange tricks that had never been seen before, which was breathtaking.
Golden Cicada's shelled female assassin in a one-piece suit
A ninja dressed as a clay statue of Buddha
There are also earth spiders who come back from the dead and walk freely through the land... Each movie can produce several very characteristic villain characters, adding a bright color to this revenge road movie and earning the audience's attention.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="66" > others</h1>
Literary drama, play drama, and bed drama. Perhaps for the sake of entertainment and commerciality, the six-part "Wolf with The Belt" has several large-scale nude scenes, although some bad taste, but not vulgar.
In the first part, in order to save the prostitute who intends to commit suicide, Bai Yidao is willing to be humiliated and intercourse with her in the eyes of everyone. The fog is thick and the shadows are layered, which is not only unpretentious, but also has a bit of artistic beauty.
In "The Nursing Mother Car of the Three Tu River", Bai Yidao rescues the Yanagi female ninja who came to assassinate him after the wooden boat caught fire, and the three of them report naked to the group for warmth. The female ninja had already touched the hilt of the sword in her left hand, but because Daigoro's hand inadvertently touched her nipples, stimulating motherhood and giving up the assassination, this scene is a stroke of genius.
The fine art photography of "The Wolf with the Belt" is also commendable, and the high contrast ratio combined with the film texture makes many scenes in the film beautiful like oil paintings.
Blue sky, yellow sand, white snow, green waves, and red blood constitute a classic model of violent aesthetics.
Another interesting scene ends in "The Wind of Death Blowing toward the Wet Mother's Car", when a knife is used to solve the mistake of the defeated warrior. With the knife in hand, the camera unexpectedly switches to the first-person perspective of the slashed person.
28 years later, Jiang Wen made the famous work "The Devil Is Coming", and the scene at the end of the scene where he loses his head is a tribute to this movie across time and space.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="75" > summary</h1>
As a cultural IP, "The Wolf with the Belt" has left a profound impact in the East, the West and even the world, which is quite rare.
Excerpt from Wikipedia
Despite being a film shot half a century ago, the fashion value of "The Wolf with the Belt" is still explosive. I can say without hesitation that this is the coolest Japanese sword film (samurai film) I have ever seen.
All I want to say about this series is here. If this post can arouse your interest in this series of old movies, it will be worth it.
Individual rating: 7.5/10
The Japanese sword and sword film series, which is perfect for newcomers to get started, is not to be missed by cult film lovers.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="82" > references and references</h1>
https://www.looper.com/182503/the-untold-truth-of-lone-wolf-and-cub/,The Untold truth Of Lone Wolf And Cub
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B8%B6%E5%AD%90%E7%8B%BC, Banded Wolf - Wikipedia
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4287-samurai-and-son-the-lone-wolf-and-cub-saga,Samurai and Son: The Lone Wolf and Cub Saga
https://www.douban.com/note/590991281/, the curse of Daigoro, the biggest black history in the sub-service world
https://www.sohu.com/a/240618414_231856, the Sensational Japanese Chinese Manga "Dart Man": An Interview with The Author Xu Xianzhe
https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/260173647, the godfather of violent aesthetics - Kazuo Koike