Dir. Toshiya Fujita, Japan, 1973, 97 mins, subtitles
Cast: Meiko Kaji, Ko Nishimura, Toshio Kurosawa, Masaki Daimon, Miyoko Akaza
To view this brutal yet strangely beautiful film is to realise the true skill and genius of Tarantino; Kill Bill is a meticulously crafted and most loving homage to Lady Snowblood and its genre.
As with Kill Bill, our protagonist is a beautiful female assassin, hell bent on revenge.
Set in the 1890s, Japan is in a state of flux as it moves from the Shogun era into militarisation. A group of bandits take advantage of this situation by setting up a scam that involves telling the locals that they can avoid the now compulsory 'draft' by paying large amounts of money, and spread rumours that people dressed in white are really government secret officials. When the gang meet a young white-attired teacher, they kill him and his young son before gang-raping his wife, Sayo. One of the gang keeps Sayo as his sex slave so she bides her time for an opportune moment to kill him, an act that leads to her arrest. Unable to continue hunting down the remaining three killers, Sayo takes to having sex with the prison guards in the hopes that she will fall pregnant. Finally, she gives birth to a daughter, Yuki. Sadly, the delivery is an arduous one and Sayo dies, but not before telling her story to her fellow inmates, swearing that her soul will enter Yuki so that she may grow up to avenge the deaths of her family.
After long years of training with a Buddhist monk who knows exactly what to do with a samurai sword, Yuki grows into a most beautiful, delicate geisha, a dainty parasol concealing her vicious samurai weapon. Bred only for revenge, Yuki begins her life's work, picking off her enemies one by one. In the November 2003 edition of Uncut magazine, Tarantino is quoted as saying: "what I took from this movie was the idea of revenge that takes a long time to come to the boil".
As with most films of the 'chambara' genre, the deaths are most gory, with lashes of high-spurting blood. However, Meiko Kaji ("one of the true queens of genre cinema" according to Tarantino) plays the adult Yuki with a deep sensitivity, making her more than just a cold-blooded killer and most 3-dimensional. She is moved by the beauty of nature, and feels compassion and mixed emotions when she realises she has befriended the daughter of one of the men she must kill, and is confused when she can carry out her obligation and still feel the stirrings of love. The most tender moments are when she is forced to muse over her life and consider what life could have been had she not been sworn to do what she must do.
That Tarantino has referenced this film extensively in his own love song to the genre is immediately apparent and, indeed, could even be considered as a companion piece. There are little, succinct touches, such as his use of Lady Snowblood's theme song "Flower of Carnage" following the showdown between Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu, and the use of chapters in both films. We also hear little introductory voice-overs from a narrator, and stylistically many of the upward, oblique camera angles are replicated in Kill Bill. Furthermore, parts of Yuki's story are told in manga style cartoons, whereas Tarantino has similarly utilised the popularity of anime to tell O-Ren's story. But the real genius comes in the way in which he has taken the themes and plot of this story and transposed it onto a film that will appeal to western audiences without compromising the essence of the original film, and not detracting from either as being classics of their genre or culture. Revenge, and honour, and the love of family are universal themes, and both Yuki and The Bride are strong exponents of these, but with whom we can sympathise. However, Tarantino has been astute enough to realise that his own telling needs to take some of the elements of the genre and inject them with touches of humour so whilst Lady Snowblood is meant to be a realistic story set in a certain period, Kill Bill is not set in the real world, but rather an alternative 21st century world, imposing modern day sensibilities on the story. Had Yuki been born in this time and place, she would have been The Bride. The setting allows Tarantino to bring in popular culture, and tweaks the genre by portraying the so-called 'campier' elements - the arterial spurting blood, the deft chopping up of body parts, the melodrama - and exaggerating them, making them larger than life.
Ultimately, both films appeal to the emotions and invite you to put yourself in the shoes of the female protagonist. Who wouldn't act like them in their position - if only they could?
To enjoy Kill Bill is to enjoy Lady Snowblood, and vice versa. However, the latter deserves to be appreciated also on its own merits, namely a wonderful plot; beautiful, haunting cinematography, and the moving performance of its leading actress.
Full marks to Tarantino for opening up the door for popular audiences to see this important entry in world cinema.
Jean Lynch
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