Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance
Plot. Yuki Kashima is surrounded by policemen on a beach. She fights and kills several of them but is overwhelmed. She is quickly tried and sentenced to death by hanging, but suddenly rescued by the mysterious Seishiro Kikui, head of Secret Police. Inside his headquarters, he propositions Yuki to spy on an "enemy of the State", the anarchist Ransui Tokunaga. Ransui is in possession of a critical document which Seishiro seems quite obsessed with, deeming it highly dangerous to the stability of the government. If Yuki can obtain and deliver the document to Seishiro , he will grant her immunity from her charges. Yuki infiltrates Ransui's home posing as a maid, and sets about looking for the document. But the more she observes Ransui, the more she questions the path Seishiro has put her on. When Ransui confides in Yuki, knowing full well who she is, asking her to deliver the document to his brother Shusuke, Yuki will be forced to decide her allegiance. Production. "Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance" is the sequel to "Lady Snowblood" (1973), based on the manga series written by Kazuo Koike and illustrated by Kazuo Kamimura. The sequel  was greenlit after the moderate financial success of the first film. As writer Norio Osada had approached the first film as a standalone adaptation, the second film freed him to write his own story not directly based on the manga. Osada later reflected that he considered the script unsatisfactory, partly owing to different creative approaches between him, screenwriter Kiyohide Ohara, and director Toshiya Fujita; however, the shortcomings of the script probably enabled Fujita to make the film more in his own style, which he had not been allowed to do on the first film. The anarchist Ransui Tokunaga was based  on Kōtoku Shūsui. Release. "Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance" was released theatrically in Japan on 15 June 1974 where it was distributed by Toho. The film was released on DVD in the United States by AnimEigo with English-language subtitles on March 24, 1998. The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD by the Criterion Collection along with its predecessor, "Lady Snowblood" (1973), as "The Complete Lady Snowblood".