Lady Snowblood

 

        I've recently been playing the Ghost of Yotei a great successor to its predecessor, Ghost of Tsushima. Both fantastic video games on the PlayStation and if you don't have a PlayStation 5, Ghost of Yotei is a great start. Though while playing Ghost of Yotei, I've begun to see more of a female protagonist in the game and typical me, playing open world, Samurai themed video games I begin to search for some Samurai movies or Akira Kurosawa films to watch and of all films I can find is Lady Snowblood, a film that inspired Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill film series. 

        A woman is raised from birth for one terrible and vengeful purpose - to murder those who raped her mother and left her to rot in a women's prison, where she died in childbirth. 

        When it comes to watching any Japanese films from the past I tend to get a nice breath of fresh air when it comes to some of these great films and Lady Snowblood is a great example of something new and fresh that you as an audience member have not seen in any American films, though granted when you watch any of Tarantino's Kill Bill films, sure you can get that but technically doesn't count for good reasons they're just inspirations to films from the past. What really intrigues me about the film, personally is how they were able to get away with the amount of blood they use for special effects and how gruesome it looks on screen, and granted this is the seventies a year after this film’s release The Godfather held the standard with the head of a horse in the movie producer's bedroom moreover were granted a R-rating, but with this movie sure you can tell were Tarantino got his inspiration, though this movie was made in the early seventies and with the gusher's of blood effects they used I'm surprised how they were able to get the R-rating, but in all fairness this film was made in Japan and I believe there were different rules back then especially since the film wasn't released in the States. If you’re not interested in foreign films that consist of a ton of foreign languages with a ton of subtitles then you don't have to watch this, because it's obviously not for you. Though if you’re a fan of cinema like I am then this is a great revenge movie for you and personally it's always sense of refresh fullness when watching any Japanese movies because the filmmakers in Japan along with Akira Kurosawa were ahead of their times and expressing a lot of their arts and crafts especially through martial arts and the way of the Samurai sets for amazing storytelling and when you reflect between America and Japan, America has it's Cowboys and Japan has their Samurai moreover the way they do it much better than today. Even from cinematography standpoint the imagery in Lady Snowblood is simply outstanding so that you can even look at it as beautiful poetry in film and I especially love the way they were able to use lighting and imagery to tell a simple story of revenge. So, if you’re a gamer and love playing Ghost of Yotei game then I would highly recommend taking breaks and watching any golden age Japanese films as well especially since they're on HBO Max as well as Hulu.