Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance (1974)

Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance (1974)
Aka: Web of Treachery
Japanese Title: 修羅雪姫 怨み恋歌
Translation: Lady Snowblood – Grudge Love Song

 

Starring: Meiko Kaji, Jûzô Itami, Ransui Tokunaga, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Yoshio Harada, Yoshio Harada, Shin Kishida, Tôru Abe, Rin'ichi Yamamoto, Kôji Nanbara
Director: Toshiya Fujita
Action Director: Kunishirô Hayashi

 

In a review of the first movie that I read many years ago, online film critic Scott Hamilton mentioned that one detail he thought should have been touched upon in Lady Snowblood was the question of: “What does a person who has literally been raised as tool of vengeance do with their lives once their mission is accomplished?”

The question is sort of answered in Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance.

The initial answer is: “Not much.” The movie opens with Yuki Kashima (Meiko Kaji) on the lam from the police and different assassins trying to collect a bounty on her head. While other movies gloss over the legal ramifications of vicious, martial arts-fueled vengeance, the police in the Meiji Period of Japan simply cannot overlook the murder of 37 people, including important arms dealers and policemen, too. Yuki has been a fugitive for a decade or so by this point, but she’s getting worn down, both physically and psychologically. It isn’t long before one police ambush results in her simply throwing down her sword and letting herself get captured. Considering the numbers of dead bodies that she has accumulated over the years, it isn’t surprising that she gets the death penalty.

As Yuki is on her way to her hanging, the police carriage she’s in is attacked by a bunch of masked men, led by a sai-wielding mute named Toad (Kôji Nanbara, of The Bloody Shuriken and The Resurrection of Golden Wolf). Toad works for the head of the Japanese Secret Police, Kikui (Shin Kishida, of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla and Evil of Dracula). Kikui wants to employ Yuki’s services as a spy. Specifically, he wants her to infiltrate the home of a known anarchist, Ransui Tokunaga (Jûzô Itami, the director best known for Tampopo and A Taxing Woman) and get a secret document in his possession.

Yuki reluctantly accepts and is able to enter the Tokunaga household as a maid. It doesn’t take long for Ransui to figure out who she is. But instead of killing her, he leads her to the pet cemetery where his fellow anarchist buddies are buried, treated like mere animals by the authorities. There, he reveals the document to her, which is a letter consisting of recorded conversations between Kikui and high-ranking official Terauchi Kendo (Tôru Abe, of Shogun and Girl Boss Guerilla). The nature of these conversations is enough to bring down the entire Meiji government, it would seem. However, Yuki is swayed to Ransui’s side, bringing the ire of the Secret Police down on her and the Tokunaga family. And to put it bluntly, the Secret Police do not screw around.

Like the first movie, there is a historical context to this film, which mainly serves as background info, but ultimately makes the film more political than it might have been otherwise. Whereas the first movie dealt with the early tax rebellions of the Meiji Restoration and those who sought to profit from it, this movie is set after the Russo-Japanese War, which is referenced in the opening narration. The war itself is mentioned in several scenes, but the narration points out that the war more or less cemented Capitalism as the replacement for Feudalism, with there once again being a class of winners and losers, the latter being devastated by post-War inflation (gosh, was this movie made today?). There is a lot made about people who worked in menial jobs being forced to live in slums, none of whom the government ever gave a flying rat’s a** about. It isn’t directly related to Yuki and her mission, but it helps set the stage to showing us the Japan that Lady Snowblood was living in.

The general criticism levied against this film—which I agree with to an extent—is the pacing. It starts out promising, with Meiko Kaji getting in three different fights in the first 15 minutes. But, after she gets arrested, the action is toned down for the next hour or so. There is also a prolonged sequence where Lady Snowblood is incapacitated and we focus on the love triangle between Ransui, his wife Aya (Empire of Passion’s Kazuko Yoshiyuki), and the former’s brother, a slum-based doctor named Shusuke (Yoshio Harada, of Yagyu Clan Conspiracy). There is a lot of bad blood between them, plus a conflict of motives and goals. There is also an extended subplot involving the Bubonic Plague, which is very Camp 731 in its atrociousness.

Also, while there are some great moments of bloodshed—like one character stabbing a police inspector in the eye with a hairpin—it feels like the geysers of blood are saved for the last swordfight or so. A lot of the early sword duels are surprisingly bloodless, making me wonder if the film’s make-up effects budget was smaller than that of the first film. Once the action gets going again at the end, there are some nice moments of red paint splattering all over the film’s “canvas,” plus a few severed limbs, too. You’ll just have to wait a while to get there.

The action is once again staged by Kunishirô Hayashi. He doesn’t do quite a good job as he did in the first film, and the fight scenes are ultimately saved by the film’s marvelous cinematography. The first fight is filmed a single continuous shot of Meiki Kaji walking toward the camera as it draws back at the same pace. All the while, sword-wielding assassins are running around her, occasionally mustering up the courage to charge her, only to get cut down in a brief moment. The bravura camerawork and Meiko Kaji’s beauty ultimately stand as the main reasons to watch this movie. The beautiful bloodshed and gorgeous scene compositions are toned down too much and the second act is a bit too slow more my tastes. I can’t call this movie a waste of time, but it certainly does not live up to the standards of its predecessor.

This review is part of the "Oh, the Insanity! Oh, the Japanity!" series (click the "banner" below):