Review #1,229: 'Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance' (1974)

Based on the manga comic by Kazuo Koike, 1973's Lady Snowblood is a simplistic rape-revenge thriller, pitting one woman with a mastery of swordsmanship against a hoard of faceless and disposable foes standing in her way. Opening with snow falling on darkness, Toshiya Fujita's film is also incredibly beautiful, offering a variety of strikingly colourful images, more often than not spattered with blood red. Stills from the movie could be framed and hung on your wall, but the main joy to be had is with its narrative simplicity and thrilling swordplay. The sight of Meiko Kaji slicing down one baddie after the next combined with her thirst for revenge propelled Lady Snowblood to exploitation royalty.

The sequel came the very next year, and like most successes in which the hero achieves their goal and nicely wraps up the story, the only option going forward is to broaden the scope and give the protagonist a new mission. This approach is rarely successful, and Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance struggles to recapture the magic of its predecessor. With Snowblood a wanted woman, she is mercilessly pursued by the police until she eventually throws down her sword to prevent further bloodshed. Sentence to death, she is saved from the noose by Seishiro Kikui (Shin Kishida), the head of the Secret Police, and given the task of infiltrating anarchist Ransui (Juzo Itami) to locate a document that will convince the people to rise up against the government. When her allegiances change, the deadly assassin finds herself on the run again, and soon out for further revenge.

The fight choreography is once again startling, with buckets of blood spurting from the unlikeliest of places. If anything, it improves on the first and certainly delivers more of it, with an early beach massacre and a climactic battle on a row of steps being the standout set-pieces. It moves at a fast pace, and offers historical context in snippets of black-and-white news footage (although some, if not all, were made for the film) and narration. Yet this also means that we're hit with a rather convoluted plot involving many characters, each with their own personal turmoil and ambitions. This takes away the sense of personal fury of the first film, with Kaji given few lines and little to do other than fight when called upon. She does shine when given the chance however, and hardcore fans of the genre will no doubt lap the balletic carnage.


Directed by: Toshiya Fujita
Starring: Meiko Kaji, Jûzô Itami, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Yoshio Harada, Shin Kishida
Country: Japan

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #887: 'Blind Woman's Curse' (1970)

The dragon-tattooed leader of the Tachibana Yakuza gang, Akemi (Lady Snowblood's Meiko Kaji) tries to avenge the death of her father in a rain-drenched showdown, only when she is about to deal the final death blow, she slashes at the eyes of the rival's boss younger sister, rendering her blind while a mysterious black cat laps up her blood. Akemi spends three years in jail before returning to the head of the Tachibana clan, where she intends to stop the violence that is causing her city to bleed and live out her days in peace. With the help of a Tachibana turncloak, a rival gang headed by Dobashi (Toru Abe) starts to invade Akemi's territory, planting drugs in their stalls and fighting them in the streets.

Dobashi finds some unexpected help with the arrival of a blind female swordsman, Aiko (Hoki Tokuda), the woman from the opening scene who is seeking vengeance. It's here that the film starts to get seriously weird. Working as a knife-thrower at a carnival show, Aiko is accompanied by two assistants, a grotesque hunchback with a fetish for decapitation, and the black cat that Akemi believed put a curse upon her for mutilating an innocent. Soon enough, Akemi's gang are turning up dead, often with their dragon tattoo flayed from their back. Less of a threat and providing most of the film's comic relief is another gang boss permanently adorned in a thong and cursed with foul-smelling body odour.

Blind Woman's Curse's mix of sword opera, Yakuza gangster movie, horror and surrealism is an unbalanced and occasionally frustrating concoction. If the story wasn't out-there enough, Kaji's disappointingly limited screen-time means that there is little holding everything together. The supernatural elements occur so sporadically that they seem out of place, but thanks to cinematographer Shigeru Kitaizumi, are beautiful to behold. The carnival scene is a montage of macabre and vibrant colours, with strange dancing and avant-garde plays from it's performers, and the climactic showdown between Akemi and Aiko plays out against a lavish painted backdrop of spiralling clouds. It's completely nonsensical, but it's an experience like no other.


Directed by: Teruo Ishii
Starring: Meiko Kaji, Hoki Tokuda, Makoto Satô, Hideo Sunazuka
Country: Japan

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #759: 'Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss' (1970)

In the first of what would become a successful five-film series, Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss is a passable and sporadically entertaining introduction to the 'girl gang' genre and one of the key entries in a series of films known as 'pinky violence'. Anchored by a performance of undeniable presence by Akiko Wada, who plays a no-nonsense biker and who surprisingly didn't appear in any of the sequels, the film gets bogged down by a plodding series of events and set-pieces that are too free-spirited for it's own good, and lingers far too long on various pop performances from flavour-of-the-week bands.

Plot-wise, the film doesn't have much going for it. Ako (Wada) is a drifter who picks up Mei (Meiko Kaji - later to play the eponymous Lady Snowblood (1973)), who is caught up in a beef with a rival girl gang. A fight ensues, and Ako chases away the gang and the various yakuza that have gathered for the entertainment. It becomes apparent that Mei's boyfriend Michio (Koji Wada) is caught up in a plot with the Seiyu Group, a powerful Yakuza organisation, to throw a boxing match. Naturally, things don't go quite to plan and Michio is hunted by the Seiyu Group, but not if Ako has anything to say about it.

Visually, the film is often splendid, using ultra-chic locations, split-screens and obscure camera angles that give it a trippy aesthetic. It's colourful yet undeniably grim, encapsulating the rebellious hippy spirit that undoubtedly made it's way over from America in the late 1960's. Reversing the usual gender roles, the Stray Cat girls are a rather repulsive lot, even though they plays our heroes, and Ako especially berates men for being weak if they refuse to stand up and fight, even when one is beaten to a pulp during a boxing match. It's certainly interesting thematically, but as a piece of entertainment, it's often extremely dull, stretching out it's wafer-thin plot when it should be giving us girls kicking ass.


Directed by: Yasuharu Hasebe
Starring: Akiko Wada, Meiko Kaji, Kôji Wada, Bunjaku Han
Country: Japan

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #640: 'Lady Snowblood' (1973)

In 1874 Japan, a woman gives birth in a prison. Almost a year before, the woman, Sayo (Miyoko Akaza), her husband and son are attacked in a village by four criminals - Okono (Sanae Nakahara), Banzo (Noboru Nakaya), Tokuichi (Takeo Chii) and Gishiro (Eiji Okada). The husband and son are murdered in cold bold, and Sayo is taken by Tokuichi to work for him. After Sayo murders him, she is sent to prison, where she has sex with many guards in the hope of becoming pregnant, to give birth to a child that can avenge her. That child is Yuki (Meiko Kaji), who after receiving years of training from a priest, becomes Lady Snowblood, a lethal assassin whose only thirst is for revenge.

While this may sound similar to countless martial arts or samurai films to come out of Japan and China during the 1970's, there's something profoundly different to Lady Snowblood. While it certainly offers scenes of outlandish violence (the blood spurts from the body like a gushing fountain), director Toshiya Fujita, taking inspiration from the manga Shurayukihime, seems more interested in building the foundation to the sweeping story than having scene after scene of flying limbs. Separated by title-carded chapters, the film makes a point of giving us a decent story to each target, subtly interlinking the stories to make sure they flow, rather than simply jumping from one person to the next.

What also separates this from others of similar ilk on the grindhouse circuit is the cinematography by Masaki Tamura, which is nothing short of beautiful. I promised myself I would try and get through this entire review without mentioning Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill (2003-2004), but it's not hard to see why he chose to steal (sorry, it's 'homage' when its Tarantino doing it) the same setting and colour palette. Every scene is wide and lovingly crafted, and when the violence ensues, it turns out that red on white is truly stunning. It may not have the outlandish violence of, say, the Lone Wolf and Cub series (1972-1974), but this has a calm yet quick slash of a sword, rather than an extended sword fight, and the film is clinical in that aspect to say the least. While the pace may be often too slow, this is still a satisfying revenge drama featuring one of the most iconic character of its genre.


Directed by: Toshiya Fujita
Starring: Meiko Kaji, Toshio Kurosawa, Eiji Okada, Sanae Nakahara
Country: Japan

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie