Lightning Swords of Death

Originally a popular Japanese comic strip, the Lone Wolf character in this film is the star of a whole series of hugely successful features. The lugubrious and podgy hero travels around, pushing his young son along in a wooden pram, journeying through a Japan where the samurai tradition has become debased to little more than a licence to rape and kill. It's the hero's job, of course, to define the true code in a series of episodic adventures that end in displays of amazing swordplay. Meanwhile, the kid just looks on. Best is the climax in which the Lone Wolf is confronted by the Warlord's army, about 200 strong. What to do? Start with a fusillade of rockets from the front of the pram (yes, the kid's still sitting in it), followed by dynamite hand grenades, the remaining 50-odd dispatched with spears (hidden in the pram's handles) and of course sword. Tired, wounded and as glum as at the beginning of the film, our hero staggers off, still pushing the pram. One can almost forgive the appalling dubbing.