(The following review
pertains to the UK release of the film on Region B/2 formats)
By Howard Hughes
The Girls with the Dragon Tattoo
Following
on from its release of ‘Lady Snowblood’ and ‘Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of
Vengeance’ in 2012, UK company Arrow
Films has released another Japanese cult classic in ‘Blind Woman’s Curse’, a
film which mixes swordplay, horror and the supernatural into a bloody vengeance
scenario.
Also
known as ‘Kaidan nobori ryû’, ‘The Tattooed Swordswoman’ and ‘Black Cat’s
Revenge’, this is unusual action fare from director Teruo Ishii. Meiko Kaji,
who went on to star as Lady Snowblood, cuts her teeth – and several villains’
major arteries – as Akemi, the head of the Tachibana Clan. In the opening rain
swept swordfight, she accidentally blind’s Aiko (Hoki Tokuda), the younger
sister of Yakuza clan leader Boss Goda. After a three-year stretch in prison,
Akemi returns to her role as Tachibana leader, but fears she’s been cursed by a
black cat – the animal licked the bloody eyes of blinded Aiko as she lay in
agony. Upon their release from prison, Akemi’s five cellmates join her clan –
having acquired dragon’s tail tattoos to match their leader’s. The arrival of a
blind swordswoman at a rival clan results in the Tachibana gang girls suddenly
developing a high mortality rate. The murdered corpses of Akemi’s cellmates are
found, one by one, with the dragon tattoos gruesomely sliced from their back.
It a plot twist that surprises no one, the blind stranger is revealed to be Aiko
Goda, back to take revenge on Akemi. Following a violent, score-settling
encounter between the rival clans, a sword-swishing showdown of bloody
violence, the final duel between Akemi and Aiko is artfully lit against a
maelstrom swirl of night sky.
‘Blind
Woman’s Curse’ packs an awful lot into its 81 minutes and despite erratic
plotting is never dull. The cast is a gallery of grotesques and stock genre
characters. Beautiful Kaji is perfect as Akemi, though she’s underused here
compared to the ‘Lady Snowblood’ movies, which showcase her charisma and sword
fighting talent much better. Tatsumi Hijikata played the scarily strange
hunchback Ushimatsu, who behaves like a cat and is an unsettling presence
throughout. Makoto Satô was heroic Tani, Yôko Takagi (in her film debut) was
his lover Chie Mitsui – who are tortured by being thrown down a well – and
Yoshi Katô played Chie’s father Jutaro, who is beheaded but returns as a reanimated
deadman brought back to life by the hunchback. The warring gangs scenario
recalls Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Yojimbo’ (1961), but Ishii populates his underworld
with Yakuza gangsters with questionable personal hygiene, cocky gang bosses, assassins,
traitors and human scum. The story also veers off into weird moments of
suspense and horror, with bizarro theatre presentations, nightmarish allusions
to cannibalism, references to the opium trade, drug-hooked pleasure girls,
torture sequences and shades of Peckinpah and Poe.
Some
of the costumes are fairly out there – check out one gangster’s bowler hat and red
loincloth combo – while the fight choreography by Masatoshi Takase is riveting.
Despite ‘Blind Woman’s Curse’s visual splendour and cult movie oddness, I’ve a
nagging feeling that the rest of the film never quite matches its magnificent title
sequence, as Akemi and her five henchmen fight the Godo clan, in muddy, rain-drenched
slow-motion. Each of the Tachibana fighters has part of a dragon tattooed
across their backs, with Akemi as the head, her men as the tail. The eerily melodic
music of Hajime Kaburagi plays delicately against the balletic bloodletting,
and the cat’s ocular blood-feast is an unsettling climax to the scene.
In
summary: Swift swordplay, much blood. Highly recommended.
Special
Features:
· New high definition
digital transfer of the film prepared by Nikkatsu Studios
· Presented in High
Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD
· Uncompressed mono PCM
audio
· Newly translated English
subtitles
· Audio commentary by
Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp, author of ‘Behind the Pink Curtain’
· The Original Trailer
(which includes alternate takes from shots used in the film)
· Trailers for four of the
films in the Meiko Kaji-starring ‘Stray Cat Rock’ series, made at Nikkatsu:
‘Wild Jumbo’, ‘Sex Hunter’, ‘Machine Animal’ and ‘Beat ‘71’.
· Reversible sleeve
featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx
· Collector’s booklet
featuring new writing on the film by Japanese cinema expert Tom Mes,
illustrated with original archive stills.
The Blu-ray/DVD edition of ‘Blind Woman’s
Curse’ is available now, in Region B/2 format, rated certificate 15.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON UK