790-791 The Complete Lady Snowblood

[swo17]

The Complete Lady Snowblood



A young woman (Meiko Kaji), trained from childhood as an assassin and hell-bent on revenge for her father's murder and her mother's rape, hacks and slashes her way to gory satisfaction. Rampant with inventive violence and spectacularly choreographed swordplay, Toshiya Fujita's pair of influential cult classics Lady Snowblood and Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance, set in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan, respectively, are bloody, beautiful extravaganzas composed of one elegant widescreen composition after another. The first Lady Snowblood was a major inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill saga, and both of Fujita's films remain cornerstones of Asian action cinema.

Lady Snowblood

Gory revenge is raised to the level of visual poetry in Toshiya Fujita's stunning Lady Snowblood. A major inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill saga, this endlessly inventive film, set in late nineteenth-century Japan, charts the single-minded path of vengeance taken by a young woman (Meiko Kaji) whose parents were the unfortunate victims of a gang of brutal criminals. Fujita creates a wildly entertaining action film of remarkable craft, an effortless balancing act between beauty and violence.

Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance

Meiko Kaji returns in Toshiya Fujita's invigorating sequel to his own cult hit Lady Snowblood. Our furious heroine is captured by the authorities and sentenced to death for the various killings she has committed; however, she is offered a chance of escape—if she carries out dangerous orders for the government. More politically minded than the original, Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance is full of exciting plot turns and ingenious action sequences.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 2K digital restorations of both films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks on the Blu-rays
• New interviews with Kazuo Koike, the writer of the manga on which the films are based, and screenwriter Norio Osada
• Trailers
• New English subtitle translations
• PLUS: An essay by critic Howard Hampton

[lacritfan]

One Blu-ray and they're calling Lady Snowblood a box set?

[FakeBonanza]

One Blu-ray and they're calling Lady Snowblood a box set?

Gates of Heaven/Vernon, Florida is listed the same way. I assume it's just for cataloguing purposes (so that any multi-film releases are included in the "Collector's Set" page).

Doesn't really matter, as long as the price hasn't been affected.

[manicsounds]

Blu-ray.com says the new 2K transfers are an improvement over the Arrow UK BD.

[jbeall]

Well, damn. For years, I'd put off watching this, and now I'm kicking myself for waiting so long, and not just because of its obvious influence on Tarantino. Really formally interesting--indeed, a near-perfect marriage of formalism and pulp sensibilities--especially near the beginning with its foray into the early years of the Meiji Era. Though the historical context recedes into the background of the revenge story for a time, it reappears and perfectly bookends the film, as the last of the original villains/grifters is found to be hobnobbing with the international and governmental cadre of grifters.

Looking forward to the sequel, albeit with tempered expectations.

[manicsounds]

DVDBeaver

[hollis]

DVDBeaver

Wowwwww. The Criterion looks better in some ways, but it looks like a huge amount of visual information got lost. People who know more: what's up with this? DVDBeaver gives it favorable marks.

[feihong]

There's also pretty massive color shifts on a lot of those comparison captures. The one of Meiko Kaji in the snow stands out; the Criterion is intensely blue, while the Arrow is not. The difference is so drastic.

[tenia]

It looks contrast boosted as hell. It's clear that there is IRE-levels issues on the Arrow disc but it's well beyond that.
I'm not especially buying the heavy blue bias too on some shots.

[Mel]

Drastic differences indeed. I don't like the contrast boosted image of the Criterion at all. The Arrow seems a bit dull colorwise but I think I still prefer that one.
Both releases seems to have problems of their own. Tough choice which release is the best.

[domino harvey]

Finally watched these via the Arrow Blu-ray and man, Love Song of Vengeance has to be one of the worst, most misguided sequels I've ever seen. Completely 180 in tone, style, and execution from the original. It's like someone saw the first film and said, "How can we cast the same star but take out all the things that made this good?" I was shocked to realize afterwards that it wasn't a for-hire job but a product of the same director as the original.

[feihong]

It's not uncommon in Japan, at the time of Lady Snowblood, for a sequel to be a different film project rebranded only slightly. The success of the first film could have meant that Fujita's next project with Meiko Kaji was given a Lady Snowblood title in spite of lots of obvious differences. Fujita was also a director who improvised large parts of his films, and I think he was as a filmmaker a little too anything-goes to be very sensitive to tone or mood. The two Stray Cat Rock films he directed were the weak links in that series, to my mind. They don't just have nothing to do with the other entries in the series, but they recast the entire premise of the series and its whole, rather distinctive value system.

Fujita acts as one of the leads in Seijun Suzuki's Zigeunerweisen, and I like him very much in that context. But as a director I've never been able to appreciate what he does. He always seems a very superficial filmmaker to me.

[criterion10]

Why would Criterion be using a "low-contrast" negative, as stated in the transfer notes? Is this why the colors look so different from the Arrow, and which would technically be correct?

[MichaelB]

Original camera negatives are by definition low contrast, which is why the entire film has to be regraded if that's used as the source.

[dwk]

The Criterion transfers are from new 35mm low-contrast prints from the original negatives. Which I assume were the best elements that Toho made available. (The Samurai trilogy and a number,if not all, of the Zatoichis are from 35mm low-contrast prints, so I assume that Lone Wolf and Cub will be mastered from similar elements.) As for what is correct, 35mm low-contrast prints should closely match the look of the projection prints. So, that, combined with the various problems with the masters Arrow used, I'd lean towards the Criterion being correct.

[movielocke]

The first film is quite entertaining and seems to me to be required viewing for fans of Kill Bill. The gore sprays are silly and goofy as required, but the revenge plot and acting are excellent. I particularly like how the story twists into self reflexivity at the mid point with the story being told about her within the film becoming a crucial plot development. One unexpected bit at the end (which made me think of the mission impossible films) was the only part of the film I didn't like.