Lady Snowblood is a 1973 live-action adaptation of the manga of the same name. It was directed by Toshiya Fujita, starring Meiko Kaji as Oyuki.
The plot of the film is roughly similar to the manga. In the backstory, Oyuki's father was murdered by some evil criminals from her village. Oyuki's mother was raped, and then dies in childbirth with Oyuki, but not before getting her cellmates to swear to raise Oyuki as a tool of her revenge. Eventually, Oyuki goes on a (somewhat delayed) Roaring Rampage of Revenge for her mother's abuse.
The film created a cult following, resulting in a sequel, Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance. Quentin Tarantino was inspired by the film, which resulted in the creation of Kill Bill.
Tropes found in the 1973 film:
- The Alcoholic: Takemura has become this in the present day.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the manga, Kobue never learns that Yuki was responsible for her father's death and views her as a kind woman who sent her to Tokyo. Here, she becomes her brutal enemy and final foe.
- Anachronic Order: The film starts with Yuki's birth. The rest of the movie continually switches back and forth between an adult Yuki pursuing her revenge, and flashbacks to Sayo's backstory and the training of little Yuki.
- Artistic License – History: In the final sequence at the Rokumeikan, we see several flags of countries that either didn't exist at the time of the film's 1897-ish setting (e.g. Pakistan, which declared independence in 1947) or didn't use the flag depicted at the time (e.g. Germany, which would still be using the Prussian flag
rather than the modern one shown in the film). - The Bad Guys Are Cops: About halfway through we learn the police are essentially hired henchmen of the villains.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: Yuki is going after people who did horrible things beyond the pale, but she is also stone-cold-ruthless and her allies are a pickpocket, a gang ringleader and a tabloid journalist.
- Book Ends: The film starts and ends with a woman letting out very similar grief-stricken howls: Sayo at the beginning and Yuki herself at the end.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Kobue, daughter of Yuki's first victim, who is pretty much forgotten about until the end when she shows up and stabs Yuki in the stomach.
- Color Motif: Fitting the title, bright red (as in blood) and stark white (as in snow) reoccur frequently as a contrast of violence and beauty.
- Cool People Rebel Against Authority: No one in the heroic half of the cast is fond of government authority (and two of the villains work hand-in-hand with the government). Buddhist priest Dokai (Yuki's mentor) outright says that he likes Ashio because he is filled with righteous anger against the status quo.
- Death by Adaptation: In the manga, Yuki frames Okono for murder rather than actually kill her. In the film, Okono hangs herself when it becomes plain there's no escape from Yuki.
- Death by Childbirth: Sayo dies after giving birth to Yuki, a breech baby.
- Dirty Coward: While horrified and wracked with guilt to learn of Kobue's sex work, Takemura ultimately isn't strong enough to stand up for his daughter if it means getting out of a rough situation.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The burgeoning Imperial Japan (which was just getting off the ground in the film's period) and its future atrocities frequently looms over the narrative. The entire narrative is explicitly kickstarted by Japan's aggressive mass drafting of peasants to form a "national army" and the Big Bad later comments out loud how an empire of Japan is rising and he's going to aid its expansion all over the globe. The camera also gives some particular (and suspicious) attention to the flags of Germany, Japan and the US in the climax with the main villain notedly bleeding out on the last two and dying wrapped up in Japan's flag. The sequel tellingly makes these themes a lot more overt.
- Dutch Angle: How the onlookers are portrayed during Sayo's rape scene.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Takemura is a con man and a drunkard, but he genuinely loves his daughter and is shocked and horrified when he learns Kobue is selling herself to pay his debts. He also spends his last moments furiously begging for his daughter's safety. Its also why Kobue can't accept Yuki's motives.
- Fixing the Game: Takemura is caught cheating at cards in a gambling den. Yuki intercedes and stops the gamblers from killing him—so that she can kill him herself.
- Foreshadowing: Ashio is visiting Gishiro's grave for no apparent reason when he first meets with Yukio. We later learn Gishiro is his father.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Ashio holds Gishiro off, getting shot multiple times in the process, so Yuki can kill him, even if it means her stabbing through him to get to Gishiro.
- High-Pressure Blood: Whenever someone is stabbed their blood tends to shoot out as a high-pressure jet.
- The Ken Burns Effect: The film includes occasional sequences with stills and drawings, doubtless as a tribute to the manga, complete with pans and zooms.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Yuki fights in a beautiful white kimono, and when splattered with blood it becomes one of the most iconic outfits in film history. Averted during her Training from Hell, where her disrobing during a fight is a sign that she's taken a level in badass.
- Latex Perfection: Yuki kills Tsukamoto, only to notice a mask afterwards and discover that it was really a mook.
- Long Game: Sayo seduces every guard in sight for the chance to get pregnant and have her child raised to be a living force of revenge.
- Made of Iron: Yuki gets shot in the gut by Tsukamoto and then stabbed in the gut by Kobue, eventually collapsing into the snow. She is alive and struggling to get up the next morning when the film ends.
- Made of Plasticine: Yuki slices Okono in half at the waist with one swing.
- Mythology Gag: Ashio's publication of Yuki's story contains panels from the original manga.
- Narrator: Tells Yuki's story.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Ashio publishes the Yuki's story in order to lure out Okono. In the process, Kobue learns the truth about her father's death and begins her pursuit of Yuki.
- Out with a Bang: How Sayo kills Tokuichi. She pulls out a hidden knife and stabs him in the back while he's on top of her humping away. After an unpleasantly surprised Tokuichi dismounts, she stabs him in the gut a few more times just to make sure.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Yuki has finally gotten revenge, but Ashio is dead and Kobue wants revenge of her own. Now that her life's purpose has been fulfilled, she has no real connections to anyone or anything and nothing else to do with her life besides contract killing. The manga ending is more optimistic, with Yuki tossing her blade into the sea and closing the chapter of violence of her life.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: Much was cut from the manga. Elements that were not included in the film: all the lesbian sex (of which there was quite a bit, lesbian Fanservice being the whole point really) the lesbian stripper plot, Oyuki getting trained as a pickpocket, and several contract murders carried out by Yuki (the film does include one, in the opening sequence). Additionally, the final violent confrontation between Kobue and Yuki does not happen in the manga.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: What this movie is all about.
- Rule of Symbolism: Tsukamoto Gishiro, an asset of the Japanese government who's eager to aid their imperial ambitions through gun-smuggling, dies gushing blood on the flags of Japan and the US, wrapping himself in the former as he writhes to death.
- Snow Means Death: Sayo dies while giving birth to Yuki, and names her after the snowfall. Subverted in the end, where it appears Yuki has been killed by Kobue, though she wakes up in the morning.
- The Spymaster: Matsuemon, leader of some kind of beggar criminal outfit, who supplies Yuki with the info she needs to pursue vengeance.
- Training Montage:
- The opening credits of the movie roll over a montage of Yuki refining her combat skills.
- Later the movie shows a pre-teen Yuki going through rather brutal training with Dokai the monk.
- Waif-Fu: Yuki is quite slender, but has no problem taking out scores of mooks if necessary.
- You Killed My Father: The impetus for Sayo's decision is the brutal murder of her husband and son by criminals.
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