Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance is a pulpy, blood-soaked testament to film violence and the repercussions of violent acts. Every scene seems designed for beauty, yet the film still exudes meaning. It’s clear just how much these films and director Toshiya Fujita influenced Quentin Tarantino in style, storytelling, soundtrack, and blood spewing—particularly, Kill Bill: Volume 1.

Lady Snowblood 2 works so well because of how functional the artistic style is to the action-packed, blood-filled story. The protagonist, Lady Snowblood, has always lived in a sort of abstract world filled with violence. She is an assassin, born solely to seek vengeance for her family. In this sequel—the final half to her story—she is now a woman with a mission completed, on the run as a criminal for her acts of violence in the name of vengeance.

This is what a feminist looks like.

The film is built less on Lady Snowblood’s story and more on the repercussions of the Russo-Japanese War—yet there is a very political linking of the two. Although a decided victory for the Japanese, the country was given little property or reparations, leaving much of the population to deal with the resulting poverty and loss of family members who were killed in the line of duty. The Japan seen in Lady Snowblood 2 is almost dystopic or post-apocalyptic: hordes of impoverished folk live together in villages that seem close to collapse, while political intrigue runs amok. Positioned as the villain in this story is not the Russians or even Lady Snowblood’s personal enemies, but the Empire itself and a secret police led by a ruthless maniac.

Lady Snowblood 2 is very critical of the fact that, to those in political power, the only acceptable and morally right acts of violence are those that are sanctioned by the state.

Lady Snowblood’s true crime in the eyes of the state was not the 37 lives she took, but in her waging of a personal war. Still, in the film, and true to reality, one is only a deviant as far as one can’t be exploited. And so the very Empire that criminalizes Lady Snowblood pulls her into a political battle, full of intrigue and deceptions. She becomes a part of the long tradition of women warriors ostracized for their identities, yet forced to do the bidding of the powers that be. Arguably, this ostracizing has much to do with the dichotomy of a woman with strength and impressive technique; that is, women warriors are stigmatized because their femininity is expected to limit them and they are seen as limited because of their femininity. Femininity is then a double-edged sword, at once used to punish women who live up to it and punish those who don’t.

Throughout the film, Lady Snowblood’s feminity is highlighted in her presentation and her dress—there’s a scene of her walking down a hallway that shows how limited her movements are in the outfit she wears. Even with these restraints, in clothing and in society, Lady Snowblood overpowers men with ease through her fighting and her intelligence. She subverts the limitations, turning them into a source of strength; for instance, her fighting style is very much predicated on men coming to her.

Spoiler alert: these henchman don’t survive.

The screening of Lady Snowblood 2 during International Women’s Month is rather fortuitous, since the film is rather feminist. It does not punish a violent woman whose violence is in response to a patriarchal society, nor does it stigmatize her for being strong and capable. Likewise, although the violence is beautifully shot, the film does not celebrate it or reward it. Lady Snowblood is a woman bound as much by the patriarchy as she is to her own personal history of violence—a tragic figure bound to vengeance until her death. At one point she wishes to be simply Lady Snow, yet the blood can never be dropped from her name or history. Although there are some definite old-fashioned elements—her minimal speaking could be argued as counter progressive—Lady Snowblood 2 is at it’s core an anti-authoritarian film about a strong, highly skilled woman fighting against an oppressively masculine Empire.

So I ask you, what better way to celebrate International Women’s Month then with the fall of an old regime at the hands of a working-class woman?

Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance
1974
dir. Toshiya Fujita
89 min.

Movie plays at Coolidge Corner Theatre on March 11th,  at 11:59pm. Tickets are $12.25.