Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Brooklynn There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Charlie Picart This is a hard movie to rate. The Criterion version is beautiful; the picture quality is really high and shows off some nice photography and simply nice Japanese scenery and settings (though some of them are obviously studio). The actors play well; the story is simple and well put together... The music is also very enjoyable and the action is clean and brutal. Almost fun... and yes you get this whole Tarantino vibe that explains the gain of popularity this movie has had in the 21st century. But ultimately the movie is slow and a little boring? All the pieces taken separately work well but it's simply not that enjoyable... at least in my humble opinion.

coldpenguin Character and Story: A well executed revenge story, flashbacks were used well, good performance by the protagonist, good pacing, kept me guessing as to when it would end and never seemed tedious. Action: We get loads of violently spraying bright red paint for blood and B-movie dismemberment. This is probably what you are here. The fights seemed a bit cramped and involved a bit much hand-held work, the protagonist not quite as graceful as her deadly results, but I was entertained.Editing\Production: The editing and mixing seemed very uneven. Expect the soundtrack to drop out abruptly in between shots. We get a sense of characters teleporting rather than traveling between locations a few times. The makeup used to depict Ryu's facial injuries was glaringly bad.Overall: 7/10. An entertaining film despite low production values. I would probably recommend people to watch Lone Wolf and Cub over this however.

BA_Harrison Lady Snowblood: Blizzard from the Netherworld stars Meiko Kaji as Yuki, conceived and born behind prison bars and raised to take retribution against the four vicious criminals who raped her mother and slaughtered the rest of her family.Typical of the 70s Japanese exploitation genre, the film mixes stylish visuals with extreme violence, and as Yuki hunts down the guilty four, viewers are presented with stunning cinematography, masterfully staged fight choreography, and a copious amount of arterial spray and bodily dismemberment; director Toshiya Fujita even throws in some manga drawings for good measure.An exciting finalé at a decadent masquerade ball sees Yuki despatching her final target in suitably bloody style, only to be stabbed by the vengeful daughter of one of her earlier victims. How ironic! 7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

poe426 Beautifully directed by Toshiya Fujita, LADY SNOWBLOOD is another Art House samurai saga chock full of geysers of blood. When it all comes together as it does here, the result is a joy to behold. (I'd seen this one years ago, but revisiting it just recently reminded me just how good it is.) Yuki (the lovely Meiko Kaji) is the orphaned daughter of a woman forced into prostitution when her husband was murdered (in a VERY graphic sequence). Armed with her umbrella (which hides a sword, the use of which she has mastered), Yuki sets out for revenge. "You were born for vengeance," her mother told her when she was born to her in the prison where she died for killing her rapist: "A child of the Netherworlds..." "I've immersed my body in the river of Vengeance," her theme song tells us. Much like the current situation here in these United $tate$, her world is one where "unfair practices by mercenary plutocrats and shady businessmen and actions taken by corrupt officials seeking only to benefit themselves" are rampant. "People say... that what cleanses this world of decay is not pure white snow... but snow that is stained fiery-red- the snow of the Netherworlds!" Yuki enlists the aid of the beggar clan to help find her next target, whom she tells: "It's time to start the journey of Death." Says the Narrator: "All life is transitory... but the virtues are eternal." When "liberal" writer Ashio Ryurei begins writing a manga, LADY SNOWBLOOD, chronicling her exploits, he draws the ire of the local authorities (who, like the Democratic Dictators who've ruled THIS country for so many decades, now, get real upset when The Little People get out of line). LADY SNOWBLOOD is one of the better samurai epics (and that's saying a lot, as there are a good many of them of superior quality)- and it doesn't skimp on the bloodletting.