Lady Snowblood (1973) Movie Review

Lady Snowblood is a 1973 action period (Jidaigeki) film directed by Toshiya Fujita written by Norio Osada and based on a manga by writer Kazuo Koike and illustrator Kazuo Kamimura. It stars Meiko Kaji, Kō Nishimura, Toshio Kurosawa, Masaaki Daimon, Miyoko Akaza and Eiji Okada. The film became a cult hit overseas and was also well known by western audiences for being one of the top influences for Quentin Tarantino when making Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2 (2003-2004). It also had a sequel titled Love Song of Vengeance (1974).

In Japan during the Meiji era, a woman was sexually abused and witnessed the murder of her husband and son at the hands of criminals, she was then imprisoned after stabbing one of the thugs. Years later she gives birth to a baby girl, Yuki Kashima, while captive and passes away. Yuki is trained by a priest to be an expert assassin and once she reaches adulthood sets out to kill the people who destroyed her family in cold blood.

While this film is mostly known as a huge influence on Kill Bill, because of the fragmented narrative with a heavy use of flashbacks, the swordswoman heroine looking for revenge and the great bloodshed as well, there are some key differences. The non-linear storytelling aspect serves in Lady Snowblood to further expand the background of the protagonist, this is similar to Kill Bill in that regard since that movie also reveals important information needed to understand following scenes every time it goes back in time, but in Snowblood the motivation and what the flashbacks reveal isn't nearly as mapped out and the two timelines that we go back and forward from are not as blatantly utilitarian and are more impressionistic, whereas in Kill Bill it's all very functional. Tarantino does a very decent job and structuring that film dramatically, but it's all according to the machine that is the script. Snowblood allows for more nuance and more time to think about the dramatic scenarios.

Both films also have some stylistic flourishes with their formal exaggerations, but the fixation on the saturated hue of the blood and the extravagant choices in framing, composition, angles, music, the zooms, the sound effects and movements all ring more cohesive and are less exhausting in Snowblood than in Kill Bill, which is too slap-dash and eclectic. In Lady Snowblood every shot simply joins into a unity, a flow that is controlled and mediated by the director quite skillfully, and every hyperbolic element is simply a very expressive manifestation of the emotional intensity the story requires, arriving at a more concrete and precise tone that organically emanates from the storyline as opposed to being implemented outside of the story as an eccentric whim.

Related to the description above is the fact that every confrontation set-piece is a masterclass in vigorous action as every editing choice is just as punctual and necessary for the development of the sequence as every maneuver and motion the actor does in these fantastic choreographies. The almost pictorial quality of the movie is never really overdone as in other movies that try to show off only to come off as sterile, when we see the image of white snow contrasted with bright red blood we don't really think this is a fake and forced visual but it comes out so beautifully natural that it reaches a very lyrical dimension successfully. This is very hard to achieve, especially because the film never overexplains itself. The rapid insert shots of the main character remembering things appear briefly and without any bombastic music or sounds to announce it, you have to do the work and infer the intensity of the significance of the image through the montage and the clues you are provided.  

This is, as usual, a very nice production by Tokyo Eiga (a Toho subsidiary) with good production values and a convincing recreation of 1800’s Japan. This setting is also taken advantage of by the writer as it becomes a critique of Japan's imperialistic tendencies as well as this point of convergence between post-feudal Japan, its modernization and its westernization that eventually ended up as its colonization by the USA in the 1900’s but all explored in a particular period of transition that turn this into a more mythical story than a contemporary fad or something more current. 

Soothing music aids the entirety of the film, this beautiful soundtrack features some dramatic melodies of melancholy by Masaaki Hirao and the songs Shura no Hana and Urami Bushi performed by leading lady Meiko Kaji are now legendary. However, the film mostly knows when to use the music for a better effect and when to use silence accordingly, so it never overdoes it, always austere.

A mandatory swordfighting action film from Japan that any fan of Kill Bill or the entire subgenre should enjoy. If you have never seen it then I can absolutely recommend it for all cinephile audiences.