Lady Snowblood (film)

Alternative Title
Shurayuki Hime (Japanese Title)

Film Year
1973

Directed by
Toshiya Fujita

Writting Credits
Kazuo Uemura
Kazuo Koike

Starring
Meiko Kaji (as Yuki Kashima/Shurayuki-hime)
Toshio Kurosawa (as Ryûrei Ashio)

Genre
Drama
Thriller

Tagline
None

Plot Summary
Yuki's family is nearly wiped out before she is born due to the machinations of a band of criminals. These criminals kidnap and brutalize her mother but leave her alive. Later her mother ends up in prison with only revenge to keep her alive. She creates an instrument for this revenge by purposefully getting pregnant. Though she dies in childbirth, she makes sure that the child will be raised as an assassin to kill the criminals who destroyed her family. Young Yuki never knows the love of a family but only killing and revenge.

Run Time
01:37:17

Thanks to Kill Bill that there are more people (including me) know about this movie. Why? Because the song "The flower of carnage" (Shuka no hana), used after the bride kills Oren I-shii, is actually taken from Lady Snowblood. And ironically, the re-released DVD of Lady Snowblood has the line: Movie soundtrack contains the song "The flower of carnage" ("Shuka no hana") featured in Quenten Tarantino's "Kill Bill vol. 1" . It should be the other way around, I think.

Aside from the song, Tarantino has borrowed more from Lady Snowblood: the revenge theme (tracking and taking down one by one) the chapter format, the assassin heroine as well as many similar shots (and blood spray). After watching Lady Snowblood, I could say that they are pretty similar to each other (or should it be Kill Bill is pretty similar to Lady Snowblood). While I (maybe) don't really care about that, I've been thinking about one thing: when will be it be "inspiration" and when will it not?

Now for the film itself. It was made on 1973 so so obviously it can't be compared to Kill Bill or any films nowadays. However, except from the fact that the blood looks too fake and the low-quality picture, everything else is fine. The film focus more on Lady Snowblood's revenge (it's the main story, anyway), and has less (if not none) sexuality (in the manga Lady Snowblood tends to use her body frequently to achieve her goals). The film is good standing alone, but because most people watch it after watching Kill Bill, the joy is pretty much lessened.

There is a sequel of this one, namely "Shuryuki Hime: Urami Renga" (Lady Snowblood: Love song of vengence) and it has nothing to do with either the manga or Kill Bill so I just leave it out.

Anyhow, anybody watched Kill Bill should watch this one, to see how much Tarantino has been inspired.

References:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158714/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072157/