Shogun Assassin - Enzian Theater

45^th Anniversary!

The legendary midnight movie sensation that firmly embedded samurai mythology within American pop culture consciousness, this English-dubbed reedit of the first two films in the classic Japanese chanbara series Lone Wolf and Cub is a giddily entertaining, mesmerizingly gory classic of East-meets-West grindhouse mayhem.

Following the murder of his wife at the hands of an evil shogun, an avenging ronin (Tomisaburo Wakayama) roams the countryside with his young son—and the boy’s sword-shooting baby carriage—in tow, dispatching ninja assassins with steely resolve in operatically stylized flurries of hallucinatory violence. With its pulsing synth soundtrack (cowritten by Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere & the Raiders) and delirious action set pieces—kinetically edited whirlwinds of flashing blades, spurting blood, and severed limbs—Shogun Assassin proved an instant cult favorite that has bubbled its way up from the underground to the mainstream thanks to its influence on artists ranging from the Wu-Tang Clan to Quentin Tarantino.

Freaky Fridays ticket prices include a free popcorn and soda or lemonade for all attendees! Alcohol can be purchased at Eden Bar. Regular food service will not be available for Freaky Friday events. So, come early, and fuel up outside for the night ahead!

1980, 90 minutes, Japan, In English, directed by Robert Houston and Kenji Misumi

“Shogun Assassin is an undeniable cult classic, a gory samurai re-dub that, in its sampled, re-cut, and mashed up aesthetic, left an indelible mark on pop culture.”
– Casey Broadwater, BLU-RAY.COM
“Extremities are sliced off and blood spurts in arterial sprays in a way that reminds us once more how Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill did nothing other directors hadn't achieved earlier with less…Cult status is compounded by the film's one time position as video nasty in the UK along with the bizarre presence of Sandra Bernhard as one of the dubbing voices and the use of snippets in the soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog.”
– Keith Hennessey Brown, EYE FOR FILM
“Dubbing a movie into English from another language is usually an inherently artless process, sloppy and smelling vaguely of illiteracy. This is a completely different animal though, transmuting a couple of Lone Wolf & Cub movies into a streamlined pop-art killing machine, with murderous synths and buckets and buckets of beautiful bright red blood. Mythic.”
– Joe, LETTERBOXD
“Throw me in movie jail! I might actually like this all killer no filler cutup fiction better than the original Lone Wolf and Cub source celluloid!”
– Patrick Pryor, HYPER REAL FILM CLUB