Watch Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance For Free

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance. Viewed on DVD. Cinematography = six (6) stars; choreography = four (4) stars; sound effects = four (4) stars; makeup = four (4) stars. Director Toshiya Fujita's rush-job, cheap-production sequel comes up short in practically all departments starting with a nonsense title and a overly contrived scenario (the latter involves Meiji secret police who usually can't shoot straight!). Fujita and his film-making colleagues would seem to have strained hard to dream up further adventures of a fashion-model assassin-for-hire (now with a price on her head) who is a walking, flamboyant self-advertisement (and not particularly choosy whom she works for at any moment). The Director provides little more than a photo shoot of poses in exotic/unusual settings for lead actress Meiko Kaji with and without eye bags (from too many all-night drinking parties?). Kaji's acting chores are pretty much limited to delivering about 10-12 lines of dialog (she does widen her eyes now and then), but Kaji's character makes up for this with a magic sword that only has to brush against her opponents (or just be in their general vicinity) to kill off countless stunt actors. Inter-scene continuity of successive close ups repeatedly demonstrates the lack of make-up artistic skills, as Kaji's eye bags come and go. The sound track offers a selection of 3-4 standard cries of pain for slashed/stabbed combatants. Alas, sandal walking only gets one, as the sound of foot steps is independent of the surface actors are walking on (unless walking in the ocean). Cinematography (wide screen, color) is fine. There is a spectacular scene early on of ocean waves breaking on a beach followed by a crab's eye view of same! Scene lighting is occasionally on the dark side. Theatrical blood (of which a fair amount is on display) looks like, well, dyed liquid dish-washing soap. Subtitles are okay. The appeal of this Toho Film studio programmer would seem to be limited to die-hard fans of Meiko Kaji. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

Shurayuki-hime is a word-play on Shirayuki-hime (the Japanese name for Snow White) and comes straight from the manga the first film was based on. I don't have anything to add to that. It's just a fun bit of trivia. Anyway, Meiko Kaji returns to her signature role of Lady Snowblood for this sequel (even though the first movie implies she doesn't survive its events), but her character is unfortunately pushed to the side as there are various other characters and sub-plots taking up the runtime. Also, the trademark umbrella sword doesn't appear in the sequel. Lady Snowblood doesn't act fueled by vengeance in this movie, despite its title, but instead gets tangled in a web of Meiji era politics, anarchism, police brutality, and the main villain politician's strange HQ with bright red walls, an aquarium with koi fish, and a stuffed tiger which demonically flashes its eyes in one scene.Unfortunately, the sequel doesn't have Lady Snowblood's awesome title tune from the first movie, but it does offer some neat instrumental music. The tone of the film is much darker and there are fewer violent scenes, but they are more graphic and some of them are just plain unsettling, like the scenes of torture of political prisoners. The story isn't divided into chapters this time around, but the recognizable narration is still there, not to mention the stock footage combined with scenes from the manga. Juzo Itami, director of Tampopo and A Taxing Woman appears as anarchist Ransui Tokunaga.The cinematography is once again, fantastic, and Toshiya Fujita proves himself as a director who knows how to work with colors and framing. The opening sequence taking place on the beach is especially well done.Lady Snowblood 2 isn't as good as the original; mostly because the plot is messier and Meiko Kaji's role isn't as significant and somewhat downplayed. The sequel is also more serious in tone and has more nudity. It's a moderately entertaining movie (outside of the gory scenes) and it's technically well done, if you can overlook stuff like Lady Snowblood being wounded by two gunshots at the end and looking like it isn't even a big deal.

Well-made, but unpleasant sequel to one of the greatest cult Japanese films of the 70's, "Lady Snowblood II: Love Song of Vengeance." This installment focuses less on classic blood spray sword fight scenes and more on the corrupt politics of the time. Fascinating history lesson, but of course the more serious subject matter does mean less fun. The film itself looks beautiful, with extravagant sets and costumes, and an excellent music score, and Meiko Kaji gets to show a more human side of her persona here. One thing that must be mentioned is that the violence factor in this sequel is more extreme; although there is less of the theatrical arterial blood sprays here, we get instead some thoroughly unpleasant and grisly scenes of human torture, including stabbings, burnings, eye gougings, savage beatings, as well as one man being injected with plague, which causes his skin to break out in nasty sores. A few scenes are kind of sickening, and i wasn't really expecting such serious subject matter. The film does tend to drag a bit in the middle segment, but comes back strong for the final third, when Yuki gets her revenge on the corrupt officials who have looted and burned an entire village for their own financial gain. Peopled with some truly slimy villains, and a heroic finale, this is a worthy sequel to a classic.

The first film had a solid story, good acting, and some nice stylistic flourishes. This film has a rambling story that doesn't carry any of the emotional weight of the first one. Kaji Meiko was spell binding in the original, but here she isn't given much to do. The sword fighting scenes are far less bloody than the original which is a good or bad thing depending on your taste. To me it's bad. The straight choreography of both films was lacking compared to Hong Kong films and some of the better Samurai films, but the exaggerated gruesomeness of the original's scenes gave it a kick. Here it seems as though they were trying to shoot the scenes as quickly as possible (lots of long takes). The second film didn't have the humor either. Just stick with the first one.