Dante’s Weekend Double – Week Two Of “Wrath Of August” Brings A ‘Death Wish’ And The Blade Of ‘Lady Snowblood’
It’s a pair of 70s hits this week as we continue to carve our way through a collection of movies that redefine the word “beef,” and we’re doing it one pound of bloodied flesh at a time.
Death Wish
The first cut stars the great hero of antiheroes himself, Charles Bronson, in this gritty 1974 neo-noir by director Michael Winner, and based on the 1972 novel of the same name by Brian Garfield.
Paul Kersey is an architect from Manhattan, a city that appears to be in the very depths of urban decay. In every shadow waits a mugger, every subway cart harbors a murderer, and the park is a nest of crime.
A very liberal Paul blames the city’s sad state on poverty, and that completely explains the psychotic behavior of some of those New York low lives. Then one day, a group of muggers (featuring a young Jeff Goldblum) follow his wife Joanna and daughter Carol home and brutally assault them in more ways than one.
Joanna is dead when he gets to the hospital, and Carol’s trauma has left her catatonic and eventually institutionalized. That’s what it takes for Paul’s blue blood to start boiling the colors of deadly justice. Armed with a Colt .32 revolver, he sets out into the night for a good time in the big town.
Paul kills the first person who tries mugging him, a few guys who were robbing an old man, and even lures some thugs into dark corners to take them out. This rampage of social justice eventually gets the attention of the feckless police force, but then the public gets on his side for having the gumption to stand up to those criminals.
This movie triggered a lot of critics when it was released, and a lot of what they said would be repeated by some smarmy “compassionate” weasel in a ton of 80s action movies who would inevitably get punched out by Sylvester Stallone by the end.
Not that this film needed him. Charles Bronson can be more threatening than any musclebound catchphrase without a word uttered. He just looks like someone dug him from out of rough sedimentary rock deep within the earth, and he’s not at all happy to be here.
The movie spawned four sequels, but it’s best to stop with the fourth installment. Trust me. Death Wish can be seen on Prime Video.
Lady Snowblood
Blood spills across this 1973 killfest based on the manga series of the same name by illustrator Kazuo Kamimura and legendary writer, Kazuo Koike (Crying Freeman, Lone Wolf and Cub). This is the tale of Yuki, but first let’s start with her mother, Sayo.
The year is 1874, and Sayo is sent to prison for life after killing a man…who had just murdered her husband and son and raped her with a few of his criminal associates. While locked up, she hooks up with several guards in order to conceive a child, and that eventually happens.
Problems during the birth cut her lifeline, and before dying she declares that her daughter is to be raised to carry out the vengeance against the remaining attackers that she cannot. The worst part? People listened. Cut to eight years later, and Yuki is already in the school of hard knocks, and getting sword lessons from a priest named Dōkai.
Another time jump, she’s twenty years old and an assassin. Not just any regular assassin though, but a complete badass who can blade a group of guys with predatory ease. With her sword (and umbrella), Yuki has become the dark spirit of her mother’s vengeance-made flesh.
She finds out the names of the last three names in her mother’s hit list, and things get dicey…literally!
Before Ellen Ripley and Sarah Conner roared across the screen, there was Yuki. Just like those two other badasses and their movies, this one had the perfect actor for the role. Meiko Kaji owned it like nobody ever would. From her haunted eyes to the scary blank expression of an animal ready to shred something, and boy, does she.
This movie is a celebrated classic within the genre, and Yuki was a major influence on Uma Thurman’s character “The Bride” in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films (for those who liked those movies), and it’s pretty obvious. Lady Snowblood is currently killing it over on Max.
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