Baby Cart: Le paradis blanc de l'enfer

The series goes out with a bang, not a whimper, with its 6th and final film. It vies with film #2 (River Styx) for my favorite of the bunch, with its very cool subterranean warriors and those fantastic scenes out on the snowy hillside. The cinematography is excellent, and there are some great warriors, starting with a badass woman who juggles daggers and calmly kills three practice partners before heading out to face the Lone Wolf. The real star is the bastard son, however, who unearths three warriors who've been buried for 42 days after a death rite to be resurrected as "violent, immortal souls." They burrow underground and kill anyone the Lone Wolf comes in contact with, and I loved how he really seems in danger more than once, with real fear in his eyes, in contrast to his ordinary calm demeanor.

There are wonderfully framed fight sequences, including one out on a dock at night that then leads out into the reeds, with the Lone Wolf almost being sucked into the marsh. There's also an unfortunate (and unnecessary) scene of incest/rape, in there seemingly for shock value and to get some nudity into the film, but mercifully it's brief. It has a lean, uncomplicated story, one that works to the film's advantage, which leads to a memorable skiing sequence out in the snow, with the Lone Wolf pursued by a horde of attackers. At that point the film has a James Bond vibe, even playing a little bit of the 007 theme song. It's unfortunate that Tomisaburo Wakayama walked away from the franchise, upset that he wasn't given the role in the TV series that had started up, because it ends with an unresolved feeling, though it's not one that spoiled my enjoyment of the film.

The sixth entry in the Lone Wolf and Cub saga ... and the last one. Since it has been a while I don't think they'll ever do another one ... although I guess you could go animated. Would be fitting since these are based on an Anime. And the blood and nudity might be a testament to that too. You can tell this is quite over the top, to say the least.

This adds a finale with snow ... just fantastic. I would not call these exceptional tension filled (you kind of know your main character will not perish ... at least until the end of the movie), but they are fun, if you are not too politically correct or easily offended. If you are, stay away from these ... The ending of the series (at least movie wise, never read the animes) is quite ... well let's say it is quite open. If you think this not satisfying ... well I would totally understand it ...

I was really looking forward to seeing WHITE HEAVEN IN HELL, the conclusion of the six-part LONE WOLF & CUB series of films charting the misadventures of Itto Ogami and his son Daigoro as they travel the violent landscapes of feudal Japan. Earlier films in the series – especially my favourite, the second one – have been excellent, so I was enthused to see how they finished the long-running storyline off. The bad news is that they don't; this was never intended to be the last film in the series, so things just close on a cliffhanger that was never followed up. I won't pretend that I'm not disappointed.

There's both good news and bad news for fans of this series. It's simple: WHITE HEAVEN IN HELL offers more of the same of what's come before. So there's plenty of villainous plotting, scenes of Daigoro being the lad we all know and love, and Ogami taking down numerous opponents without breaking much of a sweat. The villains are hissable, Ogami is effortlessly cool, and by now we all know what's going to happen come the end.

Yet the familiarity of this film's plot is also its downfall. I was starting to feel that things were getting a little stale in the last instalment, and that feeling is now overwhelming. The expert direction and effortless atmosphere of the earlier films is missing, and I couldn't help but feel that things were getting a little run-of-the-mill this time around. Certainly, nothing much happens we haven't seen before.

The writers try to mix things up a bit by introducing more outlandish elements to the script. I like crazy stuff in films, so I was pleased to see the presence of the undead here, and some elements of horror mixed into the narrative, but it's never fully capitalised upon. And the ending is a real let-down, an icy encounter between our feared hero and an army of skiing enemies; it's neither particularly gory nor exciting, instead coming across as rather silly. If you sit back and remember the triumphant, eye-popping ending of BABY CART AT THE RIVER STYX and compare it with what's on offer here, it's a real disappointment. And although they never did close that storyline, I'm kind of glad that things ended with this film. I can only feel they would have otherwise run this series into the ground eventually.

Honestly, I think that the Lone Wolf and Cub series is the greatest samurai series ever. EVER. Although some of the events are, ahem, not the most plausible things in the world, the journeys of Ogami Itto and Daigoro are fascinating to watch. Actually, the perfection of the direction and cinematography makes even a machine gunning baby cart seem perfectly normal. A great movie.

Fabulous conclusion to a fine series with less dubious samurai philosophy and more creative and marvellously choreographed fighting sequences. The stupendous snow scenes that open and close the film are jaw dropping and whilst watching could only imagine the filming difficulties. Subsequently I discover that these relatively short scenes took some six weeks to film with the youngster playing the cub crying at the pain of the cold and his 'Papa' near to collapse on several occasions. It is a remarkable episode in many respects and not least with regard to the cinematography which seems even finer here with some truly wonderful moments. i think I actually gasped when the opposing forces appeared on the brow of the snow clad mountain-side. The ending here differs from that in the manga partly because the film actually came before the story had been concluded - so keen apparently were the film makers to carry on with the series. Far from being a let down, as I feared it might be, this sixth and final film in the series is a fine way to conclude what, overall, is a most enjoyable and magical experience - with rather a lot of bloody violence.