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The crossover between the samurai and the western genres is one of the biggest and most important intersections in cinema history. Every movie buff knows that westerns influenced samurai movies, which inspired westerns, which influenced the samurai genre to evolve, with the back-and-forth repeating for several more cycles. Tornado, a new action thriller directed by John Maclean, is a love letter to both genres as it blends the tropes, conventions, and iconography of samurai and western movies to create a truly unique amalgamation. As you'd then expect, Maclean was inspired by some true classics, as well as some lesser-known gems of both genres.

John Maclean sat down with MovieWeb's George Edelman to discuss his new feature, Tornado. The film held its world premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival in February of this year, and is set for a wider theatrical release on June 13. Tornado is far from Maclean's first western — 2015's Slow West,...

Quick Links The Times, They Are A-Changing, Including Theaters Tarantino's Comments From the Ivory Tower

My perception of Quentin Tarantino and his works has always been a love-hate relationship. Films like Pulp Fiction mesmerized me in my youth, and the release of Jackie Brown timed perfectly with my growing interest in exploitation films. Yet the hype and sensation around Kill Bill began to sour me on his work. At that point, I was deeply obsessed with Japanese cinema and was hyped to see great works paid homage on screen. Lady Snowblood, Zatoichi, and Goke: Body Snatcher From Hell were among my favorite features referenced in the movie. However, the discussion around these films was minimal when it came to Kill Bill outside of those in the know.

While some personal reflections may seem like a non-sequitur, Quentin Tarantino's recent comments about the state of the movie industry seem to take a very pro-corporate,...

Due to Akira Kurosawa and Masaki Kobayashi's directorial prowess within the samurai genre, crafting a list of the greatest samurai films of all time is essentially just assembling the best works by Kurosawa and Kobayashi. Nine of the 32 films Kurosawa directed were within the samurai genre and each of the nine is iconic enough to qualify as one of the genre's very best. Kobayashi's two seminal samurai movies, Harakiri and Samurai Rebellion, are also undeniable masterworks of the genre that arguably belong among the top five samurai movies ever made.

While Kurosawa and Kobayashi's samurai films are more well-known to Western audiences, the samurai genre has a plethora of other brilliant movies that are formative works of Japanese cinema. Auteurs such as Hiroshi Inagaki, Hideo Gosha, Kihachi Okamoto, and Kenji Misumi played an equally important role in the development of the samurai genre as Kurosawa and Kobayashi. Films such as The Sword of Doom,...

If you are a fan of Kill Bill, the two-part martial arts revenge epic from director Quentin Tarantino, you may not recognize the name Meiko Kaji, but you have heard her voice. Near the end of the climactic fight between The Bride, played by Uma Thurman, and Lucy Liu's deadly O-Ren Ishii, a song begins to play. This song is the theme from Toshiya Fujita's Lady Snowblood, a 1973 Japanese revenge film starring Kaji. She performs the theme herself, as Kaji is a talented singer in addition to her ability as an actress. The influence of Kaji's work in Lady Snowblood can be traced directly to Kill Bill, which has overt musical and visually stylistic homages to the film, as well as a narrative that is strikingly similar. So who is Meiko Kaji in the larger context of Japanese cinema?...

When Guillermo del Toro accepted the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature ("Pinocchio") in 2022, he proclaimed during his speech, "Animation is cinema. Animation is not a genre. Animation is ready to be taken to the next step, we are all ready for it." Well, 2023 certainly heard him, because this year we were gifted an embarrassment of riches — all using the animated medium to push the limits of storytelling and visual artistry. At the same time, animated projects are constantly under attack by powerful millionaires in positions of power who can't or refuse to see the value in animation and instead still operate under the false assumption that it's nothing more than "kid's stuff." And even still, there was plenty of incredible animation this year specifically targeting young audiences, like the "Craig of the Creek" prequel film "Craig Before the Creek," Apple TV+'s "The Snoopy Show," and of course, the undisputed children's champion,...

(Welcome to Animation Celebration, a recurring feature where we explore the limitless possibilities of animation as a medium. In this edition: "Blue Eye Samurai.")

When's the last time you watched something and felt compelled to fist pump at the TV? For most, it was probably a favorite sports team winning the big game. But for me, it was the first episode of the new Netflix series, "Blue Eye Samurai." During the premiere of the show (attended by /Film's Jenna Bush-Henderson), it was revealed that the seed for the new animated series from Michael Green and Amber Noizumi was first planted about 15 years ago after the show creators welcomed the birth of their daughter. She was born with blue eyes, and Noizumi, who is half-Japanese, found herself wondering, "Why am I so excited that my daughter has blue eyes? What's the big deal about that? And why am I so excited...

You can tell in every minute of Blue Eye Samurai that husband and wife duo Michael Green and Amber Noizumi have a vast knowledge of and passion for samurai films. The confidence and excitement radiate on screen throughout the first season's eight episodes. Blue Eye Samurai has echoes of Toshiya Fujita's jidaigeki film Lady Snowblood, Akira Kurosawa's revered masterpiece Seven Samurai, and more recent additions to the genre like Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins.

It’s always fun to dive into the homework a director gives an actor prior to filming their collaboration, especially when that director is a religious cinephile like Quentin Tarantino, who just prior to shooting Kill Bill, gave star Uma Thurman three classic action movies from different parts of the world so that she could embody the Bride with all her fury. Earlier this year, Greta Gerwig compiled a 33-film Barbie watchlist that highlighted the unlikely influences feeding into her box office smash. In Tarantino’s case towards Thurman, the list was significantly sparser and more direct, consisting of Jack Hill’s Pam Grier-star making 1973 blaxploitation classic Coffy, Toshiya Fujita’s jidaigeki classic of the same year Lady Snowblood, and action auteur John Woo’s 1989 hitman-with-a-heart-of-gold flick The Killer.

When discussing Meiko Kaji, it is difficult not to rely on the word ‘iconic’. After all, what better term is there to describe a performer whose work has influenced and inspired countless filmmakers and who was once the face of female empowerment in Japanese cinema? First gracing the screen billed under her birth name, Masako Ota, Kaji has over a hundred acting credits to date and has also enjoyed a successful music career. However, her golden period undoubtedly came during the height of the exploitation boom in Japan, a time when cheap films characterised by sex and violence were produced en masse in an attempt to pry audiences away from their television sets. It was during this era that the feisty young actor earned herself a lasting place in the history of cult cinema.

Kaji had already appeared in over thirty feature films for Nikkatsu when she starred in what...

The swan song of the series is a whole other animal, since Meiko Kaji has a distinctly secondary role as Ruriko while the social commentary of the rest of the movies has given its place to intense action, which frequently feels and looks a bit too much like a western.

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The story begins literally in the bushes, where Ruriko and her boyfriend Ryumei attempt to have sex in hiding. Unfortunately, even before they have taken off their clothes, a biker gang headed by The President appears and beats them up, despite the latter’s effort to resist. However, Ryumei manages to stab one of them to death, before the gang takes him with them after the instructions of a yakuza, who even proceeds in putting the murder weapon in Ruriko’s hands. The unconscious girl is arrested and sent to prison; however, after her release a few months later,...

After their first quite successful collaboration, it was only a matter of time before Meiko Kaji and director Toshiya Fujita would revisit the story of Yuki Kashima, better known under her nickname “Lady Snowblood”. While the first entry into the series followed in the footsteps of the manga series by Kazuo Kioke and Kazuo Kamimura, the sequel titles “Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance” is quite an interesting entry into the franchise, but also within Kaji’s career, as the political undertones which were already present in its predecessor became even more evident, which might have been also thanks to Norio Osada’s script. In that context the second movie about the female assassin wandering the roads of rural Japan in the Meji era is again on the one hand a period piece, albeit quite exaggerated or “heightened” at times, and on the other hand a sign of its times,...

Although the role of Yuki Kashima, better known under her nickname “Lady Snowblood”, is one of Meiko Kaji’s trademark characters and perhaps has become increasingly more relevant within global pop culture, initially director Toshiya Fujita had doubts about Kaji, perhaps refusing to act as the titular character in his next project. However, Kaji, having worked with the filmmaker on the “Stray Cat Rock”-series, was quite eager to collaborate with Fujita on what was quite a risky project for both of them, given its period setting during the Meji era in Japan. In the end, “Lady Snowblood” would mark another milestone in the career of the actress, and even inspired the likes of Quentin Tarantino, to name the most prominent examples, with the finale of “Kill Bill, Vol. I” being the most direct homage to Fujita’s film and Kaji’s performance. Considering its status as exploitation cinema and its influence on pop culture,...

“Flowing , a woman’s tears pour out/

Softly floating on the river./

The river overflows/

Overflowing to the shore/

Overflowing, overflowing/

Drowning all the men.”

After the commercial success of the first movie, it was obvious Japanese production company Toei wanted a sequel to the “Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion”, a movie which not only manifested leading actress Meiko Kaji’s but also director Ito’s reputation among the Japanese film industry as well as audiences. The success was also proof Kaji’s and Ito’s approach to the role of Nami Matsushima nicknamed “Sasori” (scorpion) had been the right direction playing her in almost complete silence with only Kaji’s eyes doing most of the talking, a movie which would make the character iconic beyond the borders of Japan.

For Kaji, who was 25 at the time the second movie was filmed, the sequel was a blessing as well as a curse.

– “So why did you become a yakuza?”

– “Do you need a reason to become a yakuza in this country?”

When Shoichi Yomi (Hiroyuki Watanabe) takes on a kamikaze mission to eradicate a rival crime faction single-handedly, it ends tragically with him in a coma, tied to a hospital bed.

10 years later, Yomi wakes up to everyone’s surprise, only to see that the power lines have shifted, and new alliances formed. He seeks out his old buddy Eto (Tatsuo Yamada), but it becomes clear soon that too many people would have preferred for him to stay comatose. Yomi is banished to Hiroshima on some false pretence, where he starts putting together a comeback and revenge plot to settle the debt once and for all.

“Shinjuku Outlaw” is an deceptively ordinary Miike film. It’s one of Miike’s numerous V-Cinema (straight to video) entries that deals its cards fast and dirty.

Craig Lines Dec 6, 2017

Christmas and martial arts movies? They rarely crossover. But amazing fights in the snow? Now we're in business...

I love martial arts movies and I love Christmas so I'm kinda sad that the two have never really come together (Kung Fu Panda Holiday doesn't count). I'd hoped to find at least one good example to write about, as we move into the festive period, but I guess since most martial arts films come from Buddhist countries and Christmas is a Christian holiday, I was destined for disappointment.

I did briefly consider making one up with the aid of Photoshop, but wasn't sure I could get away with it so, alas, The 25th Advent Chamber Of Shaolin is not to be. For what it's worth, I'd got as far as an apprentice monk named Ho, fighting his way through 25 'doors' of a giant temple designed to resemble an advent calendar.

Mubi is showing the Stray Cat Rock series in the United States from August 29 - October 23, 2016High on snorted glue and really, really pissed off, the Stray Cat Rock series takes a switchblade to the Japanese Old Guard. Released in five parts during 1970 and 1971, the series, with its unabashed feminist, anti-colonialist and anti-militaristic politics, is a surprisingly detailed and sprawling account of both the radical spirit that intoxicated the air and the racist, sexist and nationalist sentiments that were planning a coup in Japan around the same time. Packaged in a consumable genre form, as ubiquitous as the films’ reoccurring Coke bottles, the series is an effective bait-and-switch, a “fuck you” from inside the system.As Japanese studios were falling apart and Hollywood imperialism was claiming more and more of the box-office pie chart, the ruling class welcomed its own critique, commodifying the anti-establishment sentiments that had crossed the Pacific.

Does revenge have a place in any modern civilization? The concept of vengeance incarnated via a young woman becomes a force expanding from individuals to community and finally ignites on a national scale in two surprisingly bloody and yet contemplative "Lady Snowblood" movies, recently remastered and released on Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection. Directed by Toshiya Fujita, a filmmaker whose two “Stray Cat Rock” films have just been issued on Blu-ray by Arrow Video and whose other credits are not well known outside Japan, ”Lady Snowblood" (1973) and the unlikely but fitting sequel "Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance" (1974) star Meiko Kaji as the title character, the single-minded swordswoman Yuki Kashima. The first film follows Yuki as she tracks two men and a woman who are the surviving members of a gang which raped Yuki's mother and killed the woman's husband and son. In the sequel, Yuki’s vengeful motivation is co-opted by a shady.

That’s right. Hulu. I’m here to tell you that there’s a cinematic streaming goldmine available on Hulu that includes recent hits, older classics, domestic releases, and foreign imports. It’s even home to hundreds of Criterion titles. Sure there’s plenty of filler and seemingly thousands of titles I’ve never heard of before, but I’m not here to talk about possible gems like The Ouija Resurrection: Ouija Experiment 2… I’m here to recommend some good movies to watch this month on Hulu. Pick of the Month: Blood Simple (1984) Not that you need an excuse, but since Joel and Ethan Coen’s 17th feature film, Hail, Caesar!, opens this Friday it’s as good a time as any to revisit the brothers’ feature debut. It’s a terrific Texas noir featuring a quartet of characters whose motivations and allegiances aren’t always crystal clear. They’re brought to life through strong performances too...

Lady Snowblood/Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance

Written by Norio Osada

Directed by Toshiya Fujita

Japan, 1973/1974

Even the Criterion Collection’s own synopsis can’t help but mention that Lady Snowblood was a major influence on Kill Bill. Chances are, many who have seen this 1973 Japanese film within the past ten year or so, including myself, have done so only after having heard of its connection to Quentin Tarantino’s 2003-04 dual-volume feature. Make no mistake, though, released by Criterion along with its 1974 sequel, Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance, a lesser film in many regards, this is an exceptional movie in its own right, and a pleasant surprise from the estimable distribution company.

Beginning in a Tokyo prison circa 1874, a baby girl, Yuki, is born. Against the dazzling backdrop of a pelting snowstorm, she is delivered into a life of violence and unpleasantness, and is urged by her mother,...

The bloody adventures of a swordswoman dedicated to murderous revenge provided Quentin Tarantino with a major inspiration. Director Toshiyo Fujita's impeccable images make the gorgeous Meiko Kaji into an almost abstract superheroine in beautiful cultured dress and hairstyles -- and soaked with sprayed blood. The Complete Lady Snowblood Lady Snowblood & Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 790 & 791 1973/1974 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 97 & 89 min. / "Shurayukime" & "Shurayukihime: Urami Renga" / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 5, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Meiko Kaji, Toshio Kurosawa, Noboru Nakaya, Eiji Okada; Meiko Kaji, Juzo Itami, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Yoshio Harada. Cinematography Masaki Tamura; Tatsuo Suzuki Film Editor Osamu Inoue Original Music MasaaakiHirao; Kenjiro Hirose Written by Norio Osada, Kazuo Kamimura, Kazuo Koike Directed by Toshiya Fujita

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

A worldwide revolution hit the movies in the late '60s, with the relaxing of censorship in the west and the collapse of foreign film industries with the rise of TV.

Today the Criterion Collection released their first Blu-ray “box set” for 2016: Toshiya Fujita’s films, Lady Snowblood and Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance, collected as The Complete Lady Snowblood.

While not quite a box set in my eyes, it is still a fantastic collected edition of two influential films. The Lady Snowblood films were added to the Criterion Collection’s iTunes channel last year, and we’re all keeping our fingers crossed that the Lone Wolf and Cub films will join the collection in 2016.

A young woman (Meiko Kaji), trained from childhood as an assassin and hell-bent on revenge for the murders of her father and brother and the rape of her mother, hacks and slashes her way to gory satisfaction in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Japan. Rampant with inventive violence and spectacularly choreographed swordplay, Toshiya Fujita’s pair of influential cult classics Lady Snowblood and Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance are bloody,...

Every week we dive into the cream of the crop when it comes to home releases, including Blu-ray and DVDs, as well as recommended deals of the week. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best (or most interesting) films one can take home. Note that if you’re looking to support the site, every purchase you make through the links below helps us and is greatly appreciated.

The Complete Lady Snowblood (Toshiya Fujita)

A young woman (Meiko Kaji), trained from childhood as an assassin and hell-bent on revenge for the murders of her father and brother and the rape of her mother, hacks and slashes her way to gory satisfaction in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Japan. Rampant with inventive violence and spectacularly choreographed swordplay, Toshiya Fujita’s pair of influential cult classics Lady Snowblood and Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance are bloody, beautiful extravaganzas composed of...

Read More: What We Learned from Watching (Almost) the Entire Criterion Collection The latest round of new releases from Criterion have been announced for January, giving cinephiles five new DVDs to spend their Christmas money on. Among the additions is "Inside Llewyn Davis," which will be the first Coen Brothers film available from Criterion. All the films will be available on DVD and Blu-ray. Check out the films below, synopses courtesy of Criterion Collection. "The Complete Lady Snowblood" (1973-74) A young woman (Meiko Kaji), trained from childhood as an assassin and hell-bent on revenge for her father’s murder and her mother’s rape, hacks and slashes her way to gory satisfaction. Rampant with inventive violence and spectacularly choreographed swordplay, Toshiya Fujita’s pair of influential cult classics "Lady Snowblood" and "Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance" set in late 19th and early 20th century Japan, respectively, are...

When dealing with exploitation cinema of the 1970s in the post-Tarantino era, there’s something of a heightened balance between “the thing” and “what the thing looks like.” The dichotomy was always there – the posters typically promised a good deal more than could be delivered on small budgets and quick schedules – but has since become even more grotesque now that celebrating such films has become an industry unto itself. Arrow Video has become a key player in this with their dozens (nearing hundreds) of Blu-ray editions celebrating the best, and a good deal of some of the lesser, genre films from decades past. Their new collection rounding up the films in the Stray Cat Rock series offers a little of each end of the spectrum. None are the sort of hyper-charged, riotous, nonstop-sex-and-carnage onslaughts that modern imitators revel in, but at its best, the series is a rather potent drug...

30. Lady Snowblood Part 1 and Part 2

While American comic books have struggled for legitimacy as adult entertainment for decades, their Japanese counterparts have long enjoyed acceptance as legitimate elements of mainstream culture. So while the American comic book movie only properly took off in the last fifteen years, jidaigeki adaptations of popular manga have been a staple of Japanese pulp cinema since the early 1970s. The best of these remains Lady Snowblood, director Toshiya Fujita’s two part revenge opera of a woman checking off a kill list of the gangsters who killed her family and left her for dead. Any familiarity to Kill Bill is entirely intentional, with multiple visuals, soundtrack elements and plot points lifted whole cloth by Tarantino. But even for those only familiar with the update, Fujita’s films remain feats of hard edged efficiency, actress Meiko Kaji a goddess of death in a world of opposing colors and sudden violence.

Before Toshiya Fujita shot the icon making Lady Snowblood films and Yasuharu Hasebe lensed Female Prisoner Scorpion: #701’s Grudge Son, each staring their ice cold action muse Meiko Kaji, they all teamed up at the famed Nikkatsu Studios just prior to its increased interest in the sexualized pink films on a quintet of psychedelic pop infused series of films produced under the banner title Stray Cat Rock. Bathed in pop tunes and shot, cut and performed with hyper-stylized fervor over the course of just two years from 1970-1971, the series, loosely connected by cast, crew and aesthetics alone, thrives in the clubbing circuit of underground street gangs while dabbling in every pop genre imaginable, from heist film to jailbreak picture with varying results.

Kicking off the series with wild-eyed ambition, Hasebe’s Delinquent Girl Boss sets the tone for the series with a complex yarn of girl power infused gang...

All week our writers will debate: Which was the greatest film year of the past half century. Click here for a complete list of our essays. It’s perhaps a little quaint to choose a year that I wasn’t even alive during to represent the best year of cinema. I was not there to observe how any of these films conversed with the culture around them when they were first screened. So, although I am choosing the glorious year of 1973, I am choosing not just due to a perusal of top ten lists that year—but because the films that were released that year greatly influenced how I engage with movies now, in 2015. Films speak to more than just the audiences that watch them—they speak to each other. Filmmakers inspire each other. Allusions are made. A patchwork begins. These are the movies of our lives. Having grown up with cinema in the 90s,...

Lady Snowblood (original title: Shurayukihime)

Written by Norio Nagata

Directed by Toshiya Fujita

Japan, 1973

On a windy, wintry night deep inside a prison cell for female inmates, with searing pain erupting through her bodya woman delivers birth to a baby girl. With her dying breath the mother whispers a life mission to her child Yuki: avenge her murdered father, big brother and soon to be dead mother. Yuki grows up to be a strikingly beautiful if eerily pale looking woman (Meiko Kaji) that traverses late 18th century Japan to hunt and annihilate the four foul characters who took advantage of her family during a time of great national turmoil. The film occasionally jumps to and fro in the story’s timeline to juxtapose Yuki’s adult mindset, one filled with quiet rage, and her child years whilst under martial arts tutelage of an old priest (Ko Nishimura).

The 1970s ostensibly...

Fantasia 2013 has announced the second wave of titles screening this year. If the first wave, along with the announcements of special guests wasn’t enough to get you excited, this surely will.

009 Re: Cyborg

Japan Dir: Kenji Kamiyama

Mechanized mayhem, mysticism and moral ambiguity meet when the influential ’60s manga/anime property 009 Cyborg gets a dark, postmodern makeover care of the mighty Production I.G, in the spirit of the iconic Ghost In The Shell films. Anime fans won’t want to miss this one. North American Premiere.

Animals

Spain Dir: Marçal Forés

Evocative of both Donnie Darko and Leolo with a touch of Charles Burns, Animals taps into a volatile whirlpool of adolescent anxieties and identity issues, addressing complex themes through a wealth of unconventional approaches. A heavy trip, but an entertaining and fantastical one. Winner: Best First Feature, Sant Jordi de Cinematografia 2013, Official Selection: Sitges 2012, Miami International Film Festival 2013. Quebec Premiere.

The full Fantasia 2013 lineup will be announced next Tuesday, July 9th, but in the meantime we have the second wave of titles to share, and per usual, it's a doozy!

From the Press Release:

Following last week’s first wave of programming announcements, the Fantasia International Film Festival is proud to unveil several additional highlights to warm you up for our July 9th Press Conference, where we’ll be unveiling of our full 120+ film lineup. The festival runs from July 18 to August 6.

Official Opening Night Film – Takashi Miike’s Shield Of Straw (North American Premiere)

Hot off its screening in official completion at the Cannes Film Festival, Takashi Miike’s riveting crime thriller Shield Of Straw will be kicking off Fantasia’s 2013 edition with its first screening on the North American continent. Shield Of Straw stars Takao Osawa, Nanako Matsushima, and Tatsuya Fujiwara. Fantasia’s 1997 screening of Fudoh marked the...

If you have never seen it (or even if you have) we highly recommend you make the trip for this one! Toshiya Fujita’s - Lady Snowblood - blood-splattered Samurai masterpiece, from the golden age of Japanese cult cinema (and credited as one of the inspirations for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill series) is to get a rare UK theatrical screening this month courtesy of the Terracotta Film Club. The event kick off on Wednesday 24 April at 8.45pm doors open/ film starts 9pm. Tickets can be snapped up here. Go see it, it is...and we don’t use this word often....awesome. Synopsis: Meiko Kaji (Female Prisoner Scorpion / Blind Woman’s Curse) is Yuki, a women raised from birth for one terrible, blood splattered purpose...To murder those who raped her mother and left her to rot in a stinking women’s prison, where she died in childbirth. Trained...

Today, March 27, 2013, Quentin Tarantino turns 50-years-old. To celebrate, I figured why not take a look back at the eight films he's given us over the last 21 years, from Reservoir Dogs to Django Unchained, and do a quick ranking of the lot. I actually did this four years ago, just prior to the release of Inglourious Basterds and the ranking has changed a bit, though I have to say right now, there isn't a single Tarantino film I do not enjoy. The man has a way of tapping into exactly the kind of stories I find immensely entertaining and his visual style, use of music and affection for dialogue (as long-winded as he may be) is something I can't help but love and look forward to whatever it is he may deliver next. That said, let's dive in and see what's left on the other end... #8 Death Proof Photo: Dimension Films...

Quentin Tarantino has never shied away from the debt he owes to foreign cinema when it comes to his own films, and whether they’re called homages or ripoffs the bottom line remains that certain movies from overseas inspired some of his most well known features. Reservoir Dogs is a blatant lift of Ringo Lam’s City on Fire, Inglourious Basterds found inspiration from Enzo Castellari’s The Inglorious Bastards and Tarantino’s two-part, female led revenge thriller Kill Bill? You need look no further than Toshiya Fujita‘s 1973 classic, Lady Snowblood. Japan, 1874, and the cries of a newborn baby can be heard echoing in the cells of a women’s prison. Deemed a “child of the netherworld” upon her birth we next see Yuki Kashima (Meiko Kaji) twenty years later as an adult walking a secluded and snowy road. A group of men approach carting their gang boss leader in a rickshaw, and...

Lady Snowblood 1 & 2

Stars: Meiko Kaji, Toshio Kurosawa, Masaaki Daimon, Miyoko Akaza, Shinichi Uchida, Takeo Chii, Noboru Nakaya | Written by Norio Osada | Directed by Toshiya Fujita

There is a certain style to vengeance films and it’s arguable that Hollywood is losing the ability to make a truly good one. Kill Bill of course is a good example of a good vengeance story, but the truth is it’s more of homage to films that Tarantino is inspired by, and a damn good one. Lady Snowblood is the obvious inspiration for Kill Bill and of course Tarantino would never hide this, it’s his type of movie and quite honestly, what a movie it is.

Lady Snowblood also known as Yuki Kashima is described as a child of the netherworld, she was born for vengeance then educated in the ways to enact it. Her life has had one aim, even the way she was conceived.

The 1973 blood-soaked cult classic Lady Snowblood arrives on Blu-ray, looking every bit as gleefully demented and violent as the generation of films which have been inspired by it.

Quentin Tarantino has always been open in citing the film as a huge influence on the first Kill Bill, but witnessing the copious amount of limb slicing, identical visual cues and chapter structuring here, director Toshiya Fujita should have received a creative consultant credit at the very least. Like Kill Bill, revenge is also overriding theme here but there’s a purer and altogether more outlandish attempt at addressing the ideas of retribution and justice.

In 17th century Japan a young family are accosted by a vicious gang of criminals. The father and son are slain, while the wife is subjected to a gang rape by the males of the group. Tracking down and murdering one of her attackers, she’s promptly caught and thrown into prison.

Last week saw the release of The Avengers here in the UK, the year’s biggest film to date, and the third-highest-grossing film of all time. Naturally, it was a pretty good week – somewhat marred, however, by the fact that the UK edition has a violent scene edited and Joss Whedon’s commentary track omitted.

Needless to say, I’ll be importing my copy from the Us sometime in the future, after its release there tomorrow. (It also means I’ll have the proper title – ‘The Avengers’ – on the cover, and not just ‘Avengers Assemble’, a name which I refuse to use, because ‘The Avengers’ is just way cooler.)

This week is just as big a week all round, with Whedon returning to the home entertainment market in the form of The Cabin in the Woods, along with the equally-praised Indonesian action film, The Raid, and many more excellent films.

To mark the release of the Lady Snowblood films on DVD and Blu-ray, we’ve been given 3 limited edition Steelbook copies of the film to give away. The films stars Meiko Kaji, Toshio Kurosawa, Masaaki Daimon and are directed by Toshiya Fujita.

Next Monday (September 24th) will see the hugely influential Lady Snowblood films lovingly restored and released on Blu-ray for the very first time, anywhere in the world.

From legendary Japanese director Toshiya Fujita, the blood-splattered Samurai masterpieces are widely credited as the main inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies. Packed to the brim with spectacular costume designs, garish sets, beautiful lens-work (courtesy of acclaimed Japanese cinematographer Masaki Tamura), Lady Snowblood’s influence on Tarantino’s Kill Bill films is clear to see.

Kill Bill borrows plot lines, characters, visual motifs and sets from its 1970s predecessor. In particular, the character O-Ren Ishii is based on Lady Snowblood herself.

Arrow Films is pleased to announce that Monday September 24th will see the hugely influential Lady Snowblood films lovingly restored and released on Blu-ray for the very first time, anywhere in the world.

We have two copies of the Blu-ray steelbook to give away to our readers.

From legendary Japanese director Toshiya Fujita, the two blood-splattered Samurai masterpieces are credited as the main inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill series.

Beautifully restored on Blu-ray for the very first time anywhere in the world, these special Arrow reissues are a real visual treat – a must-have for any self-respecting high definition film fan. Available as both a Limited Edition Blu-ray SteelBookTM and a 3-disc Blu-ray & DVD Dual Format Set, these long-awaited releases will contain the following special features:

- “Slicing Through the Snow” – An exclusive interview with Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp – Collector’s booklet “The Crimson Kimono” by critic Tom Mes,...

In 1973, Toshiya Fujita released hell upon the world in the form of a vengeful spirit named Yuki. Meiko Kaji starred in the film about a getting revenge at the end of a sword hidden in an umbrella, and it remains a masterpiece that, as you can probably guess, inspired a certain sword-wielding, yellow jumpsuit-wearing avenger killing for Quentin Tarantino. Now the wonderful team over at Arrow Films is releasing Lady Snowblood on Blu-ray and DVD, special edition style. On September 24th, they’re making a combo edition and a steelbook version available. Both include not only the original, but also its sequel. Both are Region B, so make sure your player is compatible. This year seems like the one to celebrate characters born in prisons seeking revenge on wrongs done to parents, so this timing is perfect. Thanks, Arrow.

The Terracotta Far East Film Festival is on in London through the weekend, presenting, as Electric Sheep notes in the introduction to its newish issue, "the UK premiere of Sion Sono's Himizu [review: John Bleasdale], using a comic to tackle the fallout from Fukushima." Es takes "a look at manga adaptations with Takashi Miike's stylized, violent high school movie Crows Zero [comic strip review: Joe Morgan] and Toshiya Fujita's 70s revenge tale Lady Snowblood: Blizzard from the Netherworld [review: Virginie Sélavy]."

Hiroyuki Okiura's A Letter to Momo, seven years in the making, opens in Japan next week after a run through the festival circuit and, in the Japan Times, Mark Schilling gives it four out of five stars: "Hayao Miyazaki is the obvious point of comparison, but unlike many of Miyazaki's more fanciful landscapes, Okiura's port is vividly, recognizably real — so much so that you can almost smell the salt in the water and feel the warmth of the stones.

Photo: AnimEigo Back in 2003 when I fell in love with Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume One one thing I found out about the film was that Tarantino had based a lot of it on the 1973 revenge film Lady Snowblood from director Toshiya Fujita. Ever since then I had wanted to watch it just to see what it was all about and how it inspired one of my favorite Tarantino films. Flash forward five years and I have finally watched it, and loved every minute of it. I am telling you, if you are a fan of Kill Bill, especially Volume One, this is a film you have to watch. As you will see throughout this article I have put together a few visual comparisons, some that are eerily similar, but there is more than just the visual style of the film and how it influenced some of the...