Shurayukihime/Lady Snowblood (Japan, 1973)

Hello my dears. I am the Raven who speaks to you.

In the West, Quentin Tarantino made a resounding success with two films based on revenge performed through the katana’s sound cutting nerves and bones. Of course I'm talking about “Kill Bill”, Volumes 1 and 2. But what many people don't know is that these two great films have absolutely nothing original. Conceptually, Tarantino borrowed from a bloody, scarlet, much older source: the wonderful film called “Shurayukihime” or, as it became known in the US, “Lady Snowblood”.

Tarantino even confessed the deep admiration and impact that this japanese film had on him. And as I point out the Shurayukihime’s aspects, everything will become very clear. But, I need to go further: Tarantino not only was inspired to direct Kill Bill; he copied “Lady Snowblood” in every possible way. In 1973, this film had already built all the pillars that made “Kill Bill” a visually interesting experience. The characteristic soundtrack, well set and that communicates the feelings of the protagonist; the excess of blood in the exacerbation of the wounds, which brings out the red through the torrents and jets of blood; a photograph very concerned with portraying colors, lots of colors; the narrative aspect, which is engaged in the linearity of the protagonist's steps; the division into chapters; and finally, the central motivation that moves the character: the rooted feeling of deep hatred, due to the loss of a loved one, which motivates her to take revenge, whatever the cost.

All of this had already been portrayed in “Shurayukihime”. And in 1973, thirty years before “Kill Bill”. For that time yes, it was something notorious. This kind of characteristic cinema that director Toshiya Fujita presented. The japanese film is also not 100% original, as it is a film adaptation of Kazuo Koike's manga of the same name. However, the portrayal is quite faithful to the spirit of the manga. Even the director had the concern to portray some scenes of the film through manga arts, showing the past of the protagonist Yuki, where she retrospectively presents us with the barbarities done to her mother.

Toshiya Fujita was quite assertive when he chose to maintain the foundations of Kazuo Koike's work. And he did so by placing the film within a genre called jidaigeki (period dramas). In this sense, we see here in “Shurayukihime” a characteristic that was not so contemplated by Tarantino's film: the focus on drama, on the suffering of the characters involved. Tarantino even did something along those lines with Beatrix Kiddo, but with Yuki it's even more pronounced. “Shurayukihime” isn't quite a movie that will bring you to tears, but it will leave you emotionally moved. The soundtrack is composed of quite romantic tracks. It is a film that, unlike “Kill Bill”, does not focus so much on the action, but on the biography of those involved. On the ordeal they had to go through and how this ended up shaping their personalities and lives. Especially when we talk about the protagonist, the lady of the underworld, the orphaned child who was born with the burden of avenging the death of her relatives: Yuki Kashima.

Something I find notorious and I couldn't fail to mention is how much the performance of the actress and singer Meiko Kaji makes all the difference. Toshiya Fujita filmed the actress' face a lot, and scenically her expression is fascinating. We see very transparently the weight of the burden on her face, mixed with hatred and a lot of pain. Meiko Kaji was a very beautiful actress, but her expressiveness is one of the highlights of this film. The sensitive way she acts, gets emotional and enters the character with great immersion it's something quite moving. It even impacted not only me, but Tarantino himself: when he filmed the first “Kill Bill”, the character O-ren Ishii, played by Lucy Liu, was inspired by Yuki. The final scene of “Shurayukihime”, when the protagonist is walking bloodied and dying in the snow, with sublime photography, also inspired the director: he practically plagiarized in Kill Bill’s snow scene, where by the way the song “Shura no Hana” (The Flower Of Carnage) is sung by Meiko Kaji. She is phenomenal.

The sword fights are something more realistic. “Kill Bill” had the intention of amplifying the reality standard, it is a film that intends to exaggerate and exaggerates, as the Tarantino's style dictates. He learned from this movie. But “Shurayukihime” doesn't exaggerate that much, except for the excess of blood. In other characteristics, and also due to the technological limitations of the time, the sword fights are quite organic and choreographed with simplicity. There are some leaps that presuppose a higher than normal level of reality, but it is something that is only presented to us in the period where Yuki was still being trained to carry out her revenge. It's just a few moments. The choreography is quite simple, but satisfying: Yuki isn't looking to show off, just send to the grave those who destroyed her mother's life and, consequently, hers as well. And she tries to do this bluntly, because there is a certain urgency in her to put an end to this suffering that she has been carrying since she was a baby.

In general, the film ends up focusing more on the artistic aspect. As we are in 1973, Japan already had films in color and Fujita does not hide the animation one bit because he is filming like this, with all the textures available. He focuses on the color of objects, costumes, kanji writing, the prints painted on fabric. Scanning the film only made Shurayukihime's colors even more vivid. It is a very beautiful film to watch, because in addition to being strong, the colors are presented with a lot of contrast, with the use of light and heavy tones combined.

Briefly, let me tell you about the fruit of Yuki's hatred and what drove her to pursue her revenge. We are in the seventh year of the Meiji era, which is at its beginning after the end of the Edo period. Japan was undergoing a process of modernization and society was divided and in conflict: there were those who supported the adoption of technology and cultural references from the West and, on the other hand, there were conservatives, those who did not see with good eyes any kind of transformation. This actually happened at the end of the 19th century; would happen again after the Second World War, but it was something that Japan had been dealing with for a long time, almost a century ago. Contact with western nations was frowned upon by the japanese for a long time.

It is in this hostile environment that, in some villages, government agents who had a characteristic white outfit began to be killed. In one of them, a teacher, accompanied by his wife and young son, was attacked because his clothes referred to these agents. He was brutally killed by four burglars and the child was not spared either. Only the woman is held captive. After the murder, she was raped by the gang and one of them kept her as a concubine for some time. Yearning for revenge, she waited for a propitious moment to kill him, which she manages to do successfully, but ends up being arrested in the process without fulfilling her goal of tracking down and eliminating the other three remaining malefactors. She was sentenced to life in prison, meaning she would never be released again. In jail, she gives her body to several men, hoping to generate a son who, when he leaves, would finish the revenge. And that's how Yuki is born, already destined for this hell. Marked by hate. Because of this people called her "child of the underworld", as she was already born doomed to bring death to those who killed her family. And her mother ended up dying during childbirth, which was very difficult.

Since she was a little girl, Yuki was trained to be an assassin. One of the prisoners who met her mother took Yuki to a monastery to be trained by Dokai, a priest. His rigidity was unprecedentedly brutal, something that completely undermined Yuki's childhood. But from these years of ruthless training and the suppression of empathy, a near-perfect assassin was born, who then set out to find those responsible for her mother's ruin.

The film was divided into four moments, which we can call chapters or arcs. As I mentioned, Yuki's journey is not only action-oriented, but also drama-oriented. One of the main consequences of revenge is that, instead of compensating for one misfortune, it creates several others along the way. It's a snowball, bloody in this case. One of Yuki's targets, for example, already had a daughter during the twenty years following his crime. A daughter who even prostitutes herself to keep the house and his addiction to alcohol. Some moral dilemmas appear throughout the plot, exploring a wider range of issues rather than just venting the character's hatred.

These are characteristics that make japanese films, especially jidaigeki, much more emotional than western films with a similar approach. They are films with very deep feelings, narrated in a way where words tend to translate this emotion in a very poetic way. Photography, music, screenplay, performance by Meiko Kaji and the poetic sense contained in the four chapters make “Shurayukihime” a true and unmissable classic of japanese cinema, very impactful and influential. It's almost surreal to imagine this aesthetic in the early 70's, which clearly demonstrates how well ahead of its time this film was.

“Shurayukihime” got a sequel a year later on account of its resounding success. “Shurayukihime: Urami renka” or “Lady Snowblood: Love Song Of Vengeance”, was also directed by Toshiya Fujita and reprized Meiko Kaji in the role of Yuki. A good film, but the first one in my analysis is the best. It is the quintessence of this beautiful and magnificent character created by Kazuo Koike. Indispensable for those who appreciate all cinema, not just the eastern one.

Corvid greetings!