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Wonderful character development!

Purely Joyful Movie!

good back-story, and good acting

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

A young woman who lost her family to a band of heinous criminals gives birth to a daughter named Yuki (superbly played with fierce intensity by the lovely Meiko Kaji) while serving out a life sentence in prison. Yumi gets trained while still a little girl to become an expert assassin and sets out to fulfill her mother's vendetta against all those who wronged her upon reaching adulthood.Director Toshiya Fujita and writer Norio Osada bring a poetic and melancholy sensibility to the standard revenge premise which in turn gives this picture a surprisingly substantial amount of depth and poignancy, with Yuki's single-minded need and desire for vengeance coming at a heavy spiritual and emotional cost that leaves her unable to make any lasting relationships with others and dooms her to a lonely existence bereft of love and warmth. It's this latter element of heart-wrenching tragedy that elevates this film into so much more than just another mindless chopsocky actionfest. Moreover, there are fine supporting contributions from Toshio Kurosawa as pesky writer Ryurie, Noburo Nakaya as wretched drunk Banzo, Yoshiko Nakada as Banzo's loyal daughter Kobue, and Ko Nishimura as flinty mentor Dokai. In addition, the sword fights are quite exciting and adroitly choreographed, the villains are truly wicked and hateful, and blood squirts and spurts all over the place in splashy red geysers. Massaki Hirao's melodic score does the tuneful trick. Masaki Tamura's restless widescreen cinematography offers a wealth of striking visuals. Essential viewing.

Character and Story: A well executed revenge story, flashbacks were used well, good performance by the protagonist, good pacing, kept me guessing as to when it would end and never seemed tedious. Action: We get loads of violently spraying bright red paint for blood and B-movie dismemberment. This is probably what you are here. The fights seemed a bit cramped and involved a bit much hand-held work, the protagonist not quite as graceful as her deadly results, but I was entertained.Editing\Production: The editing and mixing seemed very uneven. Expect the soundtrack to drop out abruptly in between shots. We get a sense of characters teleporting rather than traveling between locations a few times. The makeup used to depict Ryu's facial injuries was glaringly bad.Overall: 7/10. An entertaining film despite low production values. I would probably recommend people to watch Lone Wolf and Cub over this however.

LADY SNOWBLOOD is widely known as one of the main inspirations behind Tarantino's KILL BILL, featuring the same plot (a woman tracks down the members of a gang, one by one, for the purpose of revenge) and stylistic flourishes (not least the separation into chapters). It's another manga adaptation along the same lines as the LONE WOLF & CUB saga, and while it may not be quite as exhilarating as those films, it comes close at times.The story is mannered and carefully paced, so those looking for an action-packed thrill-ride along the lines of modern cinema might be disappointed. It's fairly slow but never less than beautiful, with precise attention paid to costumes and scenery, which makes for a wonderfully cinematic experience. As expected, there are also the requisite fight scenes containing the usual blood-spurting mayhem that Japanese samurai cinema is known for.Okay, so the story is slight, but many scenes resonate with real power, and my favourite bit sees Snowblood cornering one victim on the beach while he pleads for his life. Meiko Kaji's turn as the resourceful, determined heroine is powerful indeed, and it's just a shame that some sub-plots, such as the inclusion of an investigative journalist who teams up with the protagonist, don't really add up to much. In addition, the action scenes, while good, lack the kind of visceral power and innovative style that made LONE WOLF & CUB so great. My overall conclusion is that LADY SNOWBLOOD is entertaining enough in itself but no classic.

Based on a comic by late Kazuo Kamimura and Kazuo Koike, Shurayukihime is a story about vengeance and rebellion. Shurayuki who had her father murdered by conspiracy goes out to avenge the three conspirators.The movie's title "Shurayukihime" is a play on "Shirayukihime" which is the Japanese title for Walt Disney's movie Snow White. Very similar title, but the two movies can't be further apart in their contents.In the original plot, there was some element of rebellion against the government that was the ultimate culprit of the conspiracy, but in the movie, this did not play a main role of the story except where Yuki kills the police force that captured Ashio.The movie which attracted little attention when it was released, now has world wide audience thanks to Tarantino giving it credit as inspiration for Kill Bill. The back drop of battle between Oren Ishii and Black Mamba is almost verbatim copy of the last scene from this movie.There is little known part 2 of this movie released in 1974 which picks up after this one with Kaji reprising her role as Yuki.More recently a version done by Yumiko Shaku was released in 2001 with backdrop set in the future, and story which is almost unrelated to the original except Yuki eventually avenges her mothers murderer and that her organization Takemikazuchi was rebelling against the the government.Some of Kamimura's original artwork of Shurayukihime can be seen in his website at kamimurakazuo.comThe movie is unusually graphic for a Japanese movie of its era. Meiko Kaji was a star of another dark comic turned movie Sasori. Her mood fits this type of role perfectly.Watch this movie for its action, and historical value.