THE MUTE SAMURAI

[venoms5]

Has anyone else seen these? I've got 10 of the episodes and they're quite good. For a TV series there's lots of violence. Tomisaburo Wakayama and his brother Shintaro Katsu are in these and it's very reminiscent of there BABY CART series. Wakayama is a lone samurai whose vocal cords have been severed and his family massacred. He's a bounty hunter who wanders Japan looking for the man who's caused his grief. Katsu is an officer of the law who helps him out from time to time. Also actors from the Godzilla series are present particularly Eisai Amamoto(Dr. Who from KING KONG ESCAPES) as an evil priest in the first episode. I've only had a chance to watch a couple of episodes but so far very enjoyable.

[kungfusamurai]

I've got the first two episodes on DVDR. I've been saving up to get the Japanese box sets. They're damn expensive, with each season running at a good $300US. I wish Japanese DVDs weren't so pricey!

KFS

[razorclam]

Do the Japanese dvds have subtitles?

[Battousai]

nope
but it would probabaly run you as much for the bootlegs and id assume people will have ripped the subs off the bootlegs.
Not much help but im assuming somebody will fill you in. You could allways ask at the ninja dojo forum but youll more likley get the bootlegs promoted (its the best place for chanbara and japanese jidai geki info

[venoms5]

I got mine from Far East Flix. They've got 5 volumes so far with the rest coming in the near future. 1 disc with 2 episodes per are $15.00.

[KClosson]

This is a good series. There are a total of 26 episodes that ran from 10/1973 to 3/1974. They remastered the series to dvd in 2001. The first set contains episodes 1-14 and the second set has 15-26. There are no subtitles and you will be running up bill over $600.00.

www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailv...=TKBU-5067 (http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=TKBU-5067)

www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailv...=TKBU-5081 (http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=TKBU-5081)

The ones you see circulating on the net right now with subs are the ones Merlin did with these discs. I assume he will do the rest eventually.

Somewhere I have the NGN subtitled versions that played on tv years ago and what was being passed around during the mid-90’s.

KC

[RANDY1974]

another MUTE SAMURAI volume subtitled and mastered from the JAPANESE DVD's (Volume 5) samuraidvd.com/Wakayama%20Tomisaburo.htm (http://samuraidvd.com/Wakayama%20Tomisaburo.htm)

[platinumrich]

been waiting to get this for a while....just got all episodes with eng. subs and they are excellent.lots of violence for a t.v. series,still wish theese were made as films though,they REALLY would have been awesome.anyway,lone wolf and zatoichi together,classic.pick this up.

[kungfusamurai]

I've been holding off buying these DVDs because I'm waiting for the whole series to get subtitled and offered for sale. Hopefully it'll be cheaper.

You can't go wrong with any movie starring Wakayama Tomisaburo. In addition to this series and Lone Wolf & Cub, he's enjoyable to watch in the Wicked Priest films (I've only seen 3 to 5) and Killer's Mission, which I think was the first in a 3 film series. He's also amazing in Samurai Reincarnation and Episode 1 of Kage No Gundan 3. He's like the Hwang Jang Lee of japanese swordplay films - always gave his best which makes the movies worth getting just for him alone.

KFS

[platinumrich]

hey KFS ,you can get all 5 volumes right now,they are of course ,unofficial,but they are all subtitled and decent quality,i got mine from this dude,super cheap...he's running another one right now cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI...=WDVW&rd=1 (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6417472824&category=617&ssPageName=WDVW&rd=1)

[kungfusamurai]

The series is much longer (26 Episodes in all), so I'm going to wait till it's been completely subbed.

Just out of curiosity, does the quality look like they were taken from VHS or from DVD? The DVDs were out in Japan, but I know the original Vol1 and 2 kicking around were from some old VHS subbed version.

KFS

[platinumrich]

im pretty sure they are the same ones floating around out there at various sites.vhs to dvd transfers,they are decent quality with good eng. subs,but there seem to be only 10 episodes w/ the subtitles so far i guess . would be nice if animigo releaes the whole series remastered with english subs.they did a great job with all the other katsu productions films.
and i have the wicked priest 3,4,5....they are quite good also,the first 2 are supposedly lost or something?...wtf..how can they be lost? i guess its a big mystery.and ive been wanting to check out that killers mission for a while now too,looks good,ill get it soon.

[kungfusamurai]

the first 2 are supposedly lost or something?...wtf..how can they be lost? i guess its a big mystery.and ive been wanting to check out that killers mission for a while now too,looks good,ill get it soon

I don't know about lost. Perhaps they just never got put onto VHS back in the day? I don't know which company produced them, probably Toei? It would be nice if Animeigo or Home Vision put them out onto DVD. Home Vision's been doing a pretty good job digging into the Japanese action film vaults for stuff like the Zatoichi flicks, The Razor, and various yakuza films by Kinji Fukasaku.

Killer's Mission's pretty good. Unfortunately, it's not wall to wall fighting like the Lone Wolf & Cub films, but it's got some pretty good swordplay at the intro. And Wakayama Tomisaburo does a hilarious Zatoichi parody in the film.

KFS

[Battousai]

Ive seen the first episode of Kiichi Hogan, and I really enjoyed it I cant see any zatoichi or lone wolf fans being disapointed.