Grindhouse Theater: Shogun Assassin (1980)

The swords fly fast and furious as the Shogun's official executioner is forced into exile after being framed for his wife's murder. Giving his infant son the choice between the merciful release of death (represented by a ball) and the life of constant threat and danger (a sword) the child reaches for the sword, marking the beginning of a brutally violent struggle for survival among a sea of would-be assassins. Utilizing masterful swordsmanship in addition to a cleverly designed and lethal baby cart, father and son are in a constant state of ultra-alert adrenalized awareness, conscious that instant death may lurk beyond every carefully chosen path.

Shogun Assassin was edited and compiled from the first two films in the Lone Wolf and Cub series, using 12 minutes of the first film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance, and most of Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx. Both were originally released in 1972. There were six films in all in the series. These in turn were based on the long running 1970's manga series, Lone Wolf and Cub, created by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima.

This film was included on the Video Nasties list.

grind

A grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly shows exploitation films. It is named after the defunct burlesque theaters located on 42nd Street in New York City, where 'bump n' grind' dancing and striptease were featured.

In the film Lady of Burlesque (1943) one of the characters refers to the burlesque theatre on 42nd Street, where they are performing stripteases and bump and grind dances, as a "grindhouse".

The introduction of television greatly eroded the audience for local and single screen movie theatres, many of which were built during the cinema boom of the 1930s. In combination with urban decay after white flight out of older city areas in the mid to late 1960s, changing economics forced these theatres to either close or offer something that TV could not. In the 1970s these theatres were put to new use as venues for exploitation films, either adult pornography and sleaze, or slasher and dubbed martial arts films from Hong Kong.

Grindhouse films characteristically contain large amounts of sex, violence or bizarre subject matter. One genre of film featured were "roughies" or sexploitation, a mix of sex, violence and sadism. Quality varied, but low budget production values and poor print quality were common. Critical opinions varied regarding typical grindhouse fare, but many films acquired cult following and critical praise. Double, triple, and "all night" bills on a single admission charge often encouraged patrons to spend long periods of time in the theaters. The milieu was largely and faithfully captured at the time by the magazine Sleazoid Express.

By the 1980s, home video and cable movie channels threatened to render the grindhouse obsolete. By the end of the decade, these theaters had vanished from Los Angeles's Broadway and Hollywood Boulevard, New York City's Times Square and San Francisco's Market Street. By the mid 1990s, these particular theaters had all but disappeared from the US. Very few exist today.