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Category:    Home > Reviews > Martial Arts Cycle > Lady Snowblood & Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance (Collector’s Edition DVD-Video Box/Anim Eigo/Koch)

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


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