the complete lady snowblood (spine 790/791)

Lady Snowblood / Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance
Directed by: Toshiya Fujita
1973/1974
​Spine #790/791

In the opening scene of Lady Snowblood - Toshiya Fujita’s 1973 classic of hyper-stylized Japanese revenge porn - a female figure hidden beneath a lavender parasol tiptoes daintily across freshly fallen snow. A rickshaw transporting Genzo Shibayama, leader of the Asakusa Senryo gang, arrives and the woman (played by Meiko Kaji) proceeds to slice and dice her way through his bodyguards, painting the screen with fountains of arterial spray. Shibayama takes her on and quickly finds himself skewered on the end of her blade.

“Why?”
“Revenge.”
“For whom?”
“For the powerless people you made suffer.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Lady Snowblood.”

In recent years, Criterion has done a commendable job incorporating more and more genre cinema from Asia into the collection - the Infernal Affairs trilogy, the Once Upon a Time in China box set, the Lone Wolf and Cub box set, Police Story I & II, the Bruce Lee box set, Throwdown (hopefully the first of many films from the great Hong Kong genre specialist Johnnie To), and, of course, the Lady Snowblood Collection. The first film in particular was a major creative influence on Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill saga, both in a narrative and visual context (see the above referenced opening, which clearly evokes the Bride’s climactic showdown with O-Ren Ishii in Vol. 1). The story (adapted from the manga of the same name) begins with a woman named Sayo, whose husband and son are murdered by a quartet of ruthless criminals - and QT fans may note a rather striking similarity in terms of how the seeds of vengeance come to be sown --

Sayo, consumed with torment, eventually lands in prison… where she proceeds to seduce every guard she comes in contact with, in a calculated bid to bear a son who can become her “wrath incarnate.” Her plan comes to fruition - well, except for the “son” part. Instead she gives birth to Yuki - named after the falling snow - who, in spite of her sex, is then trained relentlessly for a singular purpose - assassination with extreme prejudice. 

The plot is what it is. The film isn’t particularly interested in psychological dimension or moral equivocation. Yuki has a list with three names on it and by God, after 90 minutes those names will be crossed off - each bisected by a bloody red slash. The obvious draw of the movie is its gory pulp fervor. Fujita, working with a vivid color palette (that lavender parasol, along with the yellow-and-black butterflies on Yuki’s kimono, pops right off the screen, like a champagne cork), fills his widescreen compositions with lavish swordplay and visceral geysers of crimson (blood just bled brighter in the 70s). Meiko Kaji isn’t exactly given a great deal to play, character-wise, but she has an arresting presence - features as delicate as her character’s namesake, but eyes like smoldering chunks of obsidian. The outrageous climax, set amidst an elaborate masquerade ball, is thrillingly staged… leading to a bittersweet ending that suggests revenge is simply an endless red circle. A provocative thought, certainly, though Fujita can’t help but leave the door ajar for a sequel…​

… which, in fact, would arrive the following year in the form of Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance. The second film takes more of an overt political slant. Doggedly pursued by the authorities, a weary Yuki accepts her fate at the end of a hangman’s rope… only to receive a Faustian offer from the Japanese Secret Police, who want her to spy on Ransui Tokunaga, a local anarchist who has a MacGuffin - *cough* political document - in his possession that’s of great threat to the government. Once again, the script mostly skims the psychological surface. Yuki agrees to the deal - because, well, there’s no movie otherwise - but quickly comes to sympathize with Tokunaga’s cause. Fujita feels like he has more on his mind this time, but - paradoxically - Lady Snowblood herself is left adrift in her own movie. Turns out political intrigue suits her far less than samurai retribution. Nonetheless, this is the sort of movie in which the corrupt Chief of Police gets not one, but both of his eyes stabbed in gruesome close-up. The plot meanders, but the climax is still big, bold and bloody. Like the first Lady Snowblood film, it understands its lead character’s claim to fame; there are few titles in the Criterion Collection that average more arterial spray per frame.