To celebrate BFI Japan 2021 and 100 years of Japanese cinema, Watershed is teaming up with Bristol Bad Film Club (who is changing their name to Bristol Bushido Film Club for this event) for a special screening of Shogun Assassin with a live score from DJ Cheeba.

When the wife of the Shogun's Decapitator is murdered and he is ordered to commit suicide by the paranoid Shogun, he and his four-year-old son escape and become assassins for hire, embarking on a journey of blood and violent death.

Compiled and edited from the first two films in the legendary Lone Wolf and Cub series, Shogun Assassin consists of primarily the opening of Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance and most of Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx.

The film, and the series, follows former shogunate executioner Itto Ogami and his son Daigoro, better known as Lone Wolf and Cub, who betrayed and exiled by the treacherous Yagyu clan, wander feudal Japan as assassins on the road to hell.

The film became a cult hit and was heavily sampled by RZA for GZA's Liquid Swords LP.

In 2018, DJ Cheeba, along with cinematic hip hop beatmaker Indeed, began work on re-scoring the seminal samurai slasher film with samples and beats taken from the Liquid Swords album and the wider Wu Tang Clan catalogue.

The result is a cult samurai movie with a new score of the dark atmospheric and often gritty hip hop styles of GZA and the Wu Tang Clan. With original beats produced by Indeed, remixes and arrangement by Cheeba and hand drawn artwork from Toby Whitebread (New Analog), this project flips the script on both a cult film and a seminal album to stunning effect.

The live performance of this project is presented by Cheeba and Indeed in association with Watershed and the Bristol Bad Film Club.

Screening as part of Japan 2020: Over 100 years of Japanese Cinema, a UK-wide film season supported by National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network. bfijapan.co.uk

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