David Desser's essay, "Towards a Structural Analysis of the Postwar Samurai Film," outlines the sub-genres of samurai film, describes their properties, and examines their cultural implications. The first of Desser's sub-genres is the "nostalgic samurai drama." The chief characteristic of the grouping is what Desser calls "mono no aware." The term refers to a "feeling of sweet sadness, or an almost inexpressible sensation of life's mortality, which is pleasantly painful" (Desser, 148). Characters in these films are generally "powerless yet proud samurai," condemned by the society that created them. However, he does not rebel against the system, instead he "takes the path of righteousness out of a sense of obligation" (Desser, 149). Next, Desser discusses the "anti-feudal drama." The anti-feudal drama, a reaction to America's post-war presence in Japan, tracked its hero from a position of prominence to his ruin. In these films, self-hatred replaces mono no aware. The anti-feudal drama is also more violent than the nostalgic samurai drama, as the protagonist must rage against the flawed conventions of society. Finally, Desser analyzes the "sword film," or chambara. While the author admits that critics generally apply the term chambara as a pejorative, he believes the sword film to be the "most interesting and revealing of all the sub-genres within samurai film" (Desser, 155). The Western viewer's inability to appreciate chambara stems from the movement’s extreme aesthetization of violence, specifically, gores. Sword films use violence as a kind of nihilism. Furthermore, the genre subverts Bushido (“the way of the warrior”) through the meaninglessness of death.

Through Desser’s essay, we can classify Shogun Assassin (1980) within the larger context of the samurai film. The film most fits the conventions of the chambara. Its slow motion decapitations, spurting blood, and high body count all work to undermine the established order. Desser’s assertion that the film’s movement provides both an agenda and an aesthetic, denotes artistry unfound in the exploitation film.

The chapter, "Speed and Movement in Chambara: Stylistic Conventions," from Isolde Standish's book, A New History of Japanese Cinema, examines the use and function of speed in its application to the human body and filming technique. Standish argues that Japanese film uses speed as a "mimetic response to the mechanical ordering of temporality" (Standish, 97). In contrast to Western directors, who frequently used the convention to reflect mechanized industry's effect on the human timetable, Japanese films glorify the process through "spectacle and display" (Standish, 97). Standish grounds her polemic with examples from Japanese theater and early Japanese cinema.
            The section attributes Japanese cinema's emphasis on speed to two sources: reactionary sentiment to a rigidly stratified society and the shinkokugeki theater movement. Standish ascribes chambara's (sword-play film) appeal to its visceral effects. The physical freedom of the chambara's characters "provided subjective moments of corporeal intensity and fantasy" (Standish, 99). Images of movement fascinated young Japanese men, who felt constricted by society. The shinkokugeki theater movement of the early 1920s introduced the display of realistic sword fighting scenes on stage. The new style was much more exciting than the detached, suggestive style of kubuki theater. Japanese filmmakers combined real sword fights with filming techniques like long tracking shots and crosscuts over different parallel lines of action to accentuate on screen movement.

Standish's chapter enumerates the different tropes of the chambara. Using her criteria, one can evaluate the effect of Shogun Assassin's (1980) use of speed, movement, and editing. Ogami Itto's fencing skills seem inhuman: his blade often moves too fast for the eye to see. Furthermore, Shogun Assassin uses crosscuts in every fight scene. The shots, which shift between Ogami and his opponents, maintain focus on all characters involved without sacrificing tension. Finally, Shogun Assassin culminates with a tachimawari, or a "climactic sword-fight scene" (Standish, 98). Standish claims that the tachimawari is the hallmark of the chambara film, as it features the most pace and movement.

            Patrick Galloway’s review of Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (1972) provides an acclamatory summary and informed analysis. Central to Galloway’s review are Lone Wolf and Cub’s origins in manga and its extreme violence. Galloway explains, “The Lone Wolf and Cub Saga, six films in all (1972-1974), was adapted from the popular manga of the same name” (Galloway, 151). The critic praises the film for its efforts to capture the “spurting gore” of the comics. But the movie’s relationship to its predecessors transcends imagery. Galloway argues that the film emulates the psychotic conceptual framework of the manga. In this way, Lone Wolf and Cub propagates a sense of destruction and rage, unprecedented in samurai film. This ambience allows the viewer to understand Itto Ogami’s “bloodlust [and] twisted Bushido rationalizations” (Galloway, 153).

            The review classifies Lone Wolf and Cub as a chambara (swordplay film), which is a form of jidai-geki (period film). While this serves the thesis of the paper, it is more important to note the artistic deference Galloway pays the film. The article takes pains to illustrate director Kenji Misumi’s efforts to replicate the manga’s look and feel. Even in his criticism of the film, Galloway is careful to use the Lone Wolf and Cub manga as his measuring stick. He faults the director for allowing the static quality of the manga’s sequenced picture frames to transfer onto the film. Galloway also castigates Robert Houston and David Weisman, Lone Wolf and Cub’s American adaptors, for their shoddy reedited film Shogun Assassin. The writer and director ignored the nuances of the original story and implanted a ridiculously dubbed script. Though focusing on two different films, the contrast between Galloway’s meticulous study of Shogun Assassin’s progenitor and Vincent Canby’s biting New York Times review emphasizes Shogun Assassin’s marketing and reception as an exploitation film. The public did not recognize Shogun Assassin as a stylized reproduction of manga; rather it was just another poorly dubbed film from Asia.

            Vincent Canby’s review of Shogun Assassin (1980) is scathing, but warranted. He begins his diatribe with a critique of the film’s child narrator, Daigoro, the protagonist’s son. Canby finds Daigoro’s commentary on the film’s bloody action “pricelessly funny” because of his matter of fact tone and perpetual understatement. The columnist applies the brunt of criticism to the film’s script, “Shogun Assassin…is as furiously mixed up as What’s Up Tiger Lilly? the classic that Woody Allen made by attaching an English soundtrack to a grade-Z Japanese spy movie.” He sums up the film’s plot quite simply, as the story of a “tubby, outcast samurai wandering the length and breadth of Japan.” Though Canby appreciates some of the film’s photography, the movie’s intense violence and gore disturb him. Ultimately, Canby concludes, “the movie is an unimportant joke.”

            The review illustrates Shogun Assassin’s reception in the United States as an exploitation film. The film’s director, Robert Houston, and writers, Houston and David Weisman, spliced together scenes from the first two installments of the Japanese Lone Wolf and Cub series, fabricated a script, and then dubbed the footage. The film enjoyed moderate success as its release coincided with television’s airing of the epic miniseries “Shogun” (based on James Clavell’s novel). But in marketing Shogun Assassin within the context of more traditional samurai films, Houston and Weisman did the movie a tremendous disservice. Viewers like Vincent Canby attended the film with expectations formed from such legendary Japanese directors as Akira Kurosawa, Masaki Kobayashi, and Hiroshi Inagaki. Shogun Assassin however, is an adaptation of the manga series Lone Wolf and Cub. Thus, the film requires a different set of criteria for judgment. The movie’s unrealistic fight sequences and unlikely heroes are firmly rooted in its manga predecessor. Yet Shogun Assassin’s distributors were not interested in its artistic or cultural heritage; they were interested in turning a profit.

            First published in 1900, Inazo Nitobe’s book, Bushido: The Soul of Japan, attempts to justify the idiosyncrasies of Japanese culture and history to the Western world. Chapter twelve, entitled “The Institutions of Suicide and Redress,” examines the bewildering Japanese practices of ritual suicide and vengeance. Using biblical citations and examples in Classical mythology, Nitobe argues that self-immolation has a rich history in Western culture. By appealing to the Western ideal of balanced justice, Nitobe contends that Western society embraces vengeance too (when exacted properly).

            For the samurai, seppuku, or ritual disembowelment was the preferred method of suicide. Dating back to the turn of the millennia, seppuku had numerous functions. Samurai used seppuku to set an example for other samurai, as a form of protest, or as a form of punishment. Most significantly, however, seppuku served as a form of atonement. The ceremony allowed a shamed samurai to die with honor. Nitobe however cautions, “The glorification seppuku offered, naturally enough, no small temptation to its unwarranted committal” (Nitobe, 85). Thus, rules and circumstances dictated when seppuku was appropriate. Nitobe condemns those that disemboweled themselves purely for the pursuit of honor.

Nitobe likens revenge to a mathematical equation, “until both terms of the equation are satisfied, we cannot get over the sense of something left undone” (Nitobe, 88). It is an “ethical court of equity, where people could take cases not to be judged in accordance with ordinary law” (Nitobe, 88). Vengeance also had its regulations. It was only justified when undertaken at the behest of one’s superiors. Consequently, a samurai should not pursue revenge against those who wronged him personally.

            As Shogun Assassin (1980) is a story of revenge, Nitobe’s study obviously applies. Itto Ogami’s objective in the film is to exact vengeance on the Shogun, who had his wife and child assassinated. Nitobe’s code both supports and rebukes Ogami’s actions. While Nitobe states specifically, “One’s own wrongs, including injuries done to wife and children, were to be born and forgiven,” he also notes the importance of balanced justice. It is unclear whether Nitobe would condone Ogami’s actions, but the fact that there is room for discourse on the subject marks Shogun Assassin as a jidai-geki.