Lady Snowblood
Director: Fujita Toshiya
Starring: Meiko Kaji, Toshio Kurosawa
This may seem like another kung fu movie, but that technically isn't accurate. First, it's from Japan, not hong kong. This is a part of the chambara genre. These films are characterized as violent samurai swordplay movies. I love samurai films, but am used to the slow burning sophistication of Akira Kurosawa. This was so so different.
The plot for this film was excellent. The main character is Yuki, a girl consumed with the need for revenge. Her father was killed and her mother was abused by a group of four bad people. She has spent her entire life training and is now going one by one to kill each of them. Does this sound familiar? It should!
This film was the most dominant inspiration for Tarantino's Kill Bill: from characters to style to violence to camera techniques to music. The blood spills are abundand (with extreme spray effects and sounds). There are also plenty of intense shots of rage filled eyes. The plot is a little simpler than Kill Bill, but is expertly executed. This was exciting and dripping with cool.
This film's biggest strength is its style. The music was amazing, the fights were wild, and the acting was really good. The costumes were a neat blend of modern and period. I just loved it. This would be the sort of thing my high school friends and I would eat up. I want to watch it again to absorb all the details again. This was way more exciting and action oriented than the Kurosawa films. Not as sophisticated, but a really fun, different form of art. Instead of being a sweeping epic, this was a swell piece of revenge pulp. I'm ready to continue this genre with the Lone Wolf and Cub series.
Lesson learned: The human body is like a garden hose when sliced with a katana.
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