A former executioner and his infant son battle a tyrannical Shogun and his zombie army in the snow.

“MEET THE GREATEST TEAM IN THE HISTORY OF MASS SLAUGHTER.”*

BAR TRASH celebrates our 3rd year and 10th sensational season with WE ARE TRASH!, a fan-made mixtape of cult and chaotic cinema (May to Aug 2025).

What started with SHOGUN ASSASSIN (1980), must end with LONE WOLF AND CUB: WHITE HEAVEN IN HELL (1974).
Back in BAR TRASH Season 8 (BANNED!) Token Homo screened a number of the so-called ‘Video Nasties’ including grindhouse oddity SHOGUN ASSASSIN, queer filmmaker Robert Houston’s re-edited/dubbed compilation of the first two films in the LONE WOLF AND CUB franchise (SWORD OF VENGEANCE and BABY CART AT THE RIVER STYX, both directed by Kenji Misumi, 1972). Demand was so high, we simply had to bring the series back, and this time in its original Japanese…

LONE WOLF AND CUB: WHITE HEAVEN IN HELL is the sixth and final film in the franchise that sees former executioner Itto Ogami (Tomisaburo Wakayama) still wandering the countryside with his infant son, Daigoro (Akihiro Tomikawa), but this time their long-running feud with the Yagyu clan must come to a chilling climax. Taking a bold swerve into new territory, you don’t need to have seen the previous titles to love this one.

Series director Kenji Misumi (1—5) declined to come back for the final entry, and they had run out of stories from the original manga written by Kazuo Koike and illustrated by Goseki Kojima to adapt… “and so star Tomisaburo Wakayama decided to make the sort of wild movie he’d always wanted to: one in which Lone Wolf battles zombies and Daigoro’s baby cart zips improbably across an icy landscape on skis” (Patrick Macias). The final snowy battle scene took a month and a half to film, closing the LONE WOLF AND CUB series with a suitably jaw-dropping sense of deranged spectacle.

Polite notice: We are showing LONE WOLF AND CUB: WHITE HEAVEN IN HELL in Japanese with English subtitles from the best available digital source. *Poster tagline from the release of SHOGUN ASSASSIN (1980).

Programme supported by Film Hub London, managed by Film London. Proud to be a partner of the BFI Film Audience Network, funded by the National Lottery. www.filmlondon.org.uk/film-hub-london

/// BAR TRASH is a celebration of cult and curious cinema, hosted by queer film fanatic Token Homo and friends. Films are served with themed drinks, introductions, intermissions, prize giveaways, and subtitles / captions where possible. Tickets from £3.50. Adults 18+ only. Follow @tokenhomo on Instagram for updates. More info at tokenhomo.com ///