150 Word Review: 'Lady Snowblood' (1973)
Baby you were born to stab
Meiko Kaji is as cold and deadly as a katana blade, a seemingly serene young woman who has spent her life brutally training to kill the people who raped her mother and killed her half-brother. Kaji's character, Yuki, has been called an asura since birth, a demon obsessed with vengeance.
Director Toshiya Fujita's gorgeous adaptation of Kazuo Koike and Kazuo Kamimura's early 70s manga series ‘Lady Snowblood’ is reserved, save for moments of sudden slaughter. Limbs are lopped off—bright red blood spurts, sprays, and gurgles. Set in corrupt late 18th-century Japan, Lady Snowblood is a nonlinear and straightforward revenge story. Our hero is doomed to hunt the guilty as the narrative jumps back and forth in time.
This movie inspired Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2. Uma Thurman is excellent in what’s essentially an impersonation of this Lady Snowblood. But she's no Kaji, whose eyes burn with righteous hate.