Editing Shogun Assassin (section)

==Reception==
From contemporary reviews, [[Vincent Canby]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'', wrote ''Shogun Assassin'' "is as furiously mixed up as  ''[[What's Up, Tiger Lily?]]''" and that outside "the little-boy's narration, the movie's not much fun once you've gotten the picture, which is that of a tubby, outcast samurai wandering the length and breadth of Japan, pushing an antique baby carriage that contains his tiny, remarkably observant son."<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1980/11/21/archives/shogun-assassin.html | title=Shogun Assassin | last=Canby|first=Vincent|authorlink=Vincent Canby| newspaper=[[The New York Times]] | date=1980-11-21 | access-date=2019-08-05}}</ref> John Pym (''[[Monthly Film Bulletin]]'') found that "the impetus of the original director's intention seems somehow to have been turned round by having the story related from the point of view of the uncomprehending Daigorō", whose narration he compared to that of Linda Manz's ''[[Days of Heaven]]'').<ref name="mfb-review">{{cite magazine|magazine=[[Monthly Film Bulletin]]|title=Kozure Ohkami-Sanzu no Kawa no Ubaguruma (Shogun Assassin)|page=248|volume=48|issue=564|year=1981|publisher=[[British Film Institute]]|last=Pym|first=John|issn=0027-0407}}</ref> "What has evidently animated this American version is the packaging of ample bloodshed with the minimum of explanation. Thus, we never really learn why the samurai's wife is murdered; and such scenes as the one in which the headsman compels his son to make a fateful choice between a sword and a pretty raffia ball go for nothing."<ref name="mfb-review" /> The review concluded that "the swordplay is of a high, non-exploitative order, and what narrative elements remain—the fire of the ship, for example—are handled with admirable vigour".<ref name="mfb-review" />

From retrospective reviews, [[Stuart Galbraith IV]] of [[Internet Brands|DVD Talk]] said, "A radical reworking of not one but two Japanese movies combined into a single action-filled extravaganza, ''Shogun Assassin'' floored audiences with its dream-like, poetic action and pressure-cooker bloodletting."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/43813/shogun-assassin/ | title= Shogun Assassin (Blu-ray) | first=Stuart | last=Galbraith IV | authorlink=Stuart Galbraith IV | date=August 12, 2010 | publisher=[[Internet Brands|DVD Talk]] | access-date=2019-08-05}}</ref> [[Tim Lucas]] (''[[Sight & Sound]]'') described Houston's version as an "ingenious and deeply imagined reinterpretation also turns out to be a conspicuous example of a beloved grindhouse experience that was in fact rewritten, [rescored] (by Mark Lindsay of [[Paul Revere and the Raiders]]) and disembowelled in the cutting room"<ref name="sightsound">{{cite magazine|magazine=[[Sight & Sound]]|title=10 Picks from the Grindhouse|volume=XVII|issue=6|pages=25–27|date=June 2007|issn=0037-4806|last=Lucas|first=Tim|authorlink=Tim Lucas}}</ref>