I thought the first movie was extremely grim. This one had a more thoughtful approach. I like that Lone Wolf confronted the sword woman five times. It was interesting that each confrontation was different, and that he spared her life. She was sworn to kill him but respected him, and had compassion for his son, when she could have tried to kill the boy. There were nuances as to their code of honor, their obligations, and their personal morality.
There were a couple of funny moments relating to the little boy and his participation in the various battles. The use of the boy for some humor was a plus.
The fighting scenes were mostly good, but not as good as the Zatoichi movies which I love and have seen them all. The bloody effects were pretty bad in some scenes, as the injured (killed) samurai sometimes started bleeding many seconds after they were stabbed or sliced. In one scene, Lone Wolf impales two guys at the same time. One of them immediately starts spraying lots of blood from his wound. The other guy gets a trickle of blood dripping out. It would have been more impressive if the double-impalement lead to double sprays of blood.
Several heads were sliced open, and the last one looked like a venus flytrap popping open, and there were no brains, eyes, or other material visible, it looked totally silly. Then a single spray of blood shot straight up into the air from the middle of the head. Laughable and really bad special effects.
Otherwise, the film was pretty good. It had a lot of action, some good story lines, and some humor.
