Lady Snowblood & Lady
Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance (Collector’s Edition DVD-Video Box/Anim Eigo/Koch)
Picture:
B- Sound: C+ Extras: C Films: B+
Quentin
Tarantino is a name that even non-film fans know. He is in some circles highly regarded and in
others he is regarded as nothing more than a film hack piecing together from
various sources. Regardless of your
feelings about Tarantino as a filmmaker, one thing is true. He loves the art of film and has gone to some
lengths to bring lost gems to life again.
When Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 were released there was a new
frenzy started around other films, one of those was Lady Snowblood, which has a title song that is used in the Vol. 1
entitled The Flower of Carnage/Shura No
Hana, which was performed by Kaji Meiko, the star of Lady Snowblood. There is no
doubt that this double set featuring both of the Lady Snowblood features will be right up the alley of any Tarantino
fan.
This
double set from Anim Eigo is also a great way to introduce yourself to the
classic Samurai films of the 70’s, starting with the first film Lady Snowblood (1973), which is the
better of the two films. The plot is
quite simple and is based primarily on Lady Snowblood’s revengefulness. The second film Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance picks up right where the
first film left off. However, the first
film is a bit stronger because it’s new territory, whereas the sequel travels
down a similar path and is nothing new at that point.
The other
good news about this set is the quality, which was better than I was originally
expecting. The 2.35 X 1 anamorphic
transfers have been restored to some degree and cleaned up from the 35mm print
for this DVD transfer. There are still
some minor limitations with what the DVD format can perform, but both prints
are relatively clean of debris with depth and detail being fairly good
overall. Colors seem accurate and
demonstrate the type of interesting cinematography that this genre began to
incorporate. Masaki Tamora’s camerawork
is very striking and stylistic and accomplishes a great sense of both beauty
and death at the same time.
The
2-channel Dolby Digital is fairly clean overall and most people will be happy
to know that there is no dub track…thank goodness! Dialogue is rich and balanced as is the music
score. The only time that the
limitations of the 2.0 soundtrack become aware are during some of the action
sequences when it starts to make one wonder what a 5.1 remix would be like. The DVD’s also include trailers to some of
the other classic Samurai films. This
set can be found fairly cheap and will satisfy even the most skeptical
consumer.
- Nate Goss