Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx, Kenji Misumi, 1972

Cinematographer, Chikashi Makiura. I've seen three of the series. 

The great Japanese films connect to the Japanese history of printmaking, which was always storytelling,  and so do these, but cheaper, and faster. It's not copying manga or comic books; it's the parallel.  I've never seen anything like it, but it made me think of Daido Moriyama and Willaim Klein.  

Leone is pretentious, the grandeur of Italian opera, puffed up bourgeoise melodrama. Kurosawa became arty. These feel closer to their origins on newsprint so more honest, like film noir, if cheap Hollywood producers allowed screenplays with characters spouting epigrams from Euripides, about necessity, or even from the Bible. The equipment is cheaper, the eye is better, the emotions sometimes surprisingly subtle. And they're still simply fun.  Leone's imagination is second-hand by comparison. They're all on Criterion, and YouTube. And there are other ways.

It's been years since I've seen Night of the Hunter. Something classical but not put on.