{"id":2717,"date":"2024-08-24T14:59:32","date_gmt":"2024-08-24T14:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2717"},"modified":"2024-10-13T19:21:24","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T23:21:24","slug":"lady-snowblood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/24\/lady-snowblood\/","title":{"rendered":"Lady Snowblood"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Lady Snowblood<\/strong> (1973)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Toho Films\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (strong graphic bloody violence, sexual content, brief nudity, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Toshiya Fujita\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Norio Osada\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Masaaki Hirao\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Masaki Tamura\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 22, 1974 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Meiko Kaji, Toshio Kurosawa, Masaaki Daimon, Miyoko Akaza, Shinichi Uchida, Takeo Chii, Noboru Nakaya, Yoshiko Nakada, Akemi Negishi, Kaoru Kusuda, Sanae Nakahara, Hosei Komatsu, Makoto Matsuzaki, Hiroshi Hasegawa, Eiji Okada, Ko Nishimura.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spoken in Japanese w\/English subtitles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Like any movie geek worth his weight in popcorn, I have certain titles that I like to watch as double features. Mine include Five Deadly Venoms\/Master of the Flying Guillotine, Double Team\/Maximum Risk and Thriller: A Cruel Picture\/Lady Snowblood<\/strong>. That last one is inspired by Quentin Tarantino who references both pictures in his Kill Bill duology. The titular heroine in the period martial arts film Lady Snowblood <\/strong>is the primary inspiration for Lucy Liu\u2019s heartless assassin O-Ren Ishii in the first Kill Bill. Nobody pays tribute to obscure movies like good old QT. If not for him, I never would have known Lady Snowblood<\/strong> even existed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Based on the manga series by Kazuo Koike, Lady Snowblood<\/strong> is a tale that unfolds in non-chronological order. Yuki Kashima (Kaji, Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion) is a \u201cchild of the netherworld\u201d, a child born for vengeance. Her sole purpose in life is to find and kill the four criminals who brutally raped her mother after murdering her husband and son twenty years earlier.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Of the four malefactors who took part in the crime, only three are still among the living. Yuki\u2019s mother took care of the other one, stabbing him in the back during sex, an action that gets her sentenced to life in prison. It\u2019s where she conceives and gives birth to Yuki. It was her final wish that her daughter take up the mantle of revenge when she comes of age. She spends her whole childhood training under the harsh tutelage of the priest Dokai (Nishimura) until she\u2019s ready to undertake her mission of revenge. He relentlessly trains her in martial arts and sword fighting. He turns her into a total bad ass.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This is all background information woven through the narrative as flashback scenes. The movie proper opens with a cool scene of Yuki confronting and killing a corrupt official with a sword concealed in the handle of her umbrella. She uses it as leverage to make Matsuemon (Takagi), the leader of a network of street beggars, use his connections to track down her remaining targets- Takemura Banzo (Nakaya), Tsukamoto Gishiro (Okada) and Kitahama Okono (Nakahara). When he provides her with their current whereabouts, she heads off to settle the score.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The only other thing I\u2019m willing to reveal about the plot of Lady Snowblood<\/strong> is the newspaper reporter Ryurei Ashio (Kurosawa) who decides to publish a fictionalized version of Yuki\u2019s story in order to lure one of the intended targets out of hiding. I\u2019ll also say that Yuki\u2019s murderous actions incur the wrath of Kobue (Nakada), the daughter of one of the targets. That\u2019s it. I wouldn\u2019t want to spoil the greatness in store for any new viewers.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Lady Snowblood<\/strong> is excellent. There\u2019s no better way to say it. It has a great story, plentiful action, balletic fight choreography and a heroine who\u2019s equal parts beautiful and deadly. Our first glimpse of Yuki is her sandaled little foot stepping in snow on the sidewalk. This shot definitely influenced the climactic fight scene between O-Ren and The Bride in the first Kill Bill. Yuki moves as gracefully as a ballerina and as fast as a snake. She might look delicate, but looks can be deceiving. This girl is seriously deadly. She has impressive physical prowess. She leaps around and over her opponents. She swings from a lamp wire between two balconies. She\u2019s not intimidated by anything. When Ryurei is abducted by one of the targeted criminals, she makes short work of the guards patrolling the grounds of the estate where he\u2019s being held. The violence in Lady Snowblood<\/strong> is literally showered in blood red. When Yuki cuts her opponents with her sword, blood sprays from the wounds in abundance. It happens often. At one point, she cuts somebody in half.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Kaji does a great job as Yuki, a deadly but not completely emotionless killer. The scene where she tearfully visits her mother\u2019s grave is proof. She\u2019s a heroine ahead of her time. In the early 70s, female-led action movies weren\u2019t the norm. I would have loved to see Kaji, who works primarily in the Asian film market, do some American actioners. She\u2019s so neat!<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t understand why Lady Snowblood<\/strong> didn’t attain classic status. It\u2019s AWESOME! It\u2019s completely period authentic (19th<\/sup> century Japan), beautifully filmed and well acted. It has a wonderful score and a sad, beautiful theme song. It\u2019s practically flawless. I owe QT a great big debt of gratitude for bringing it to my attention.\"\"<\/p>\n

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Lady Snowblood (1973)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Toho Films\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (strong graphic bloody violence, sexual content, brief nudity, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Toshiya Fujita\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Norio Osada\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Masaaki Hirao\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Masaki Tamura\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 22, 1974 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Meiko Kaji, Toshio Kurosawa, Masaaki Daimon, Miyoko Akaza, Shinichi Uchida, Takeo Chii, Noboru Nakaya, Yoshiko Nakada, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Lady-Snowblood-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2717"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3675,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717\/revisions\/3675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}