The Complete Lady Snowblood (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

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. BLU RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 2K digital restorations of both films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks 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