Review : Lady Snowblood on DVD

Earlier this week finally picked up a obscure Japanese action movie that was in the Martial Arts DVD section of Best Buy. The Lady Snowblood DVD was billed that it contained one of the songs from the first Kill Bill soundtrack. I have read articles about Kill Bill where a theory is that Quentin Tarantino based his modern 70s Samurai movie on the Japanese movie Shurayukihime from 1973. Now that I have seen this movie there is no doubt in my mind that if it were not for this movie Kill Bill would have been a very different movie.

The Japanese do love their costume drama about the Samurai and they are not looked down on as cheesy action movies. The name of the genre is "Chambara" from the sound of two swords clashing. They are an Eastern "Western" style of movie that can deliver all the drama of an opera with stylish cinematography that is as specific to the medium as the swords and high-pressure spraying blood from when some schmuck gets cut.

The plot of Lady Snowblood goes something like this. In the 19th century Japan a group of con-artists kill a nice teacher guy who they pass off as a military draft agent. They then brutalize his widow and she ends up in prison because of their evil. There she gives birth to a girl who soul purpose in life is to get revenge for her parents. Just to be extra dramatic the widow dies in childbirth but she sacrifices her life for the child. The girl is then raised by a kind warrior priest who teaches her in the ways of combat and the sword. When she is twenty she sets out to kill the four villains who screwed over her folks. Some really cool cinematography and bloody sword fighting ensues and evil finally gets it's ass handed to them.

So here is a rough listing of similarities to Kill Bill that I have come up with.

1.Tale of a lone woman tracking down and killing a band of assassins who wronged her after many years. Check

2.Bright orangish blood that is under high pressure. You know how Japanese Animation can be bloody? Well they get it from their action movies.

3.An invincible sword that is the tool of bloody revenge.

4.Macho samurai guys doing voice-over narration. Like the first 20 minutes of Kill Bill vol.1

5.A montage sequence of comic book art (instead of Anime) to tell a character history.

6.A child of one of the bad guys might want to take revenge against our heroine

7.Bright 70s colors and film grain. Think Technicolor Baby

8. The story is broken down into chapters based on the bad guys killed. White lettering on a black screen to let the viewer know that they just got to a new chapter.

9.Oh did I mention it shared the same song. I mean the musical theme of Lady Snowblood ends Kill Bill Vol.1. How much more obvious do you want?

Lady Snowblood is not Kill Bill but it is still a pretty entertaining Samurai movie with a better than average production value, good acting, good action and lots of blood when it is needed. If your a Tarantino then you might want to check out one of this movie.