“Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance” (修羅雪姫 怨み恋歌), Original Japanese First-Release Movie Poster 1974, Meiko Kaji / Toshiya Fujita, B2 Size (51 × 73 cm) S279
This is an original Japanese B2 theatrical poster printed in 1974 for the first release of Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance (修羅雪姫 怨み恋歌 / Shurayukihime: Urami Renga), the second and final film in the celebrated Lady Snowblood series. Directed by Toshiya Fujita and starring Meiko Kaji as Yuki Kashima, the film was produced by Tokyo Eiga and released theatrically in Japan by Toho.
Following the extraordinary visual and thematic world established by Lady Snowblood in 1973, this sequel shifts Yuki’s story into the political unrest of Meiji-era Japan, combining swordplay, revenge and melodrama with a darker narrative involving state power, political resistance and social upheaval.
Film background
Meiko Kaji returns as Yuki Kashima, the deadly swordswoman whose life has been shaped by violence and vengeance.
Where the first film follows Yuki’s carefully orchestrated revenge against those responsible for the destruction of her family, Love Song of Vengeance begins with a more weary and isolated heroine.
Arrested and facing execution, Yuki is instead recruited by the authorities for a secret assignment involving political dissidents.
Her mission draws her into the world of Ransui Tokunaga, an anarchist and political activist whose opposition to the government forces Yuki to confront a different kind of injustice from the personal vengeance that defined her earlier life.
The film consequently broadens the series beyond individual revenge.
Its story places Yuki inside the rapidly changing political and social landscape of modernising Japan, where the violence of the sword is increasingly intertwined with state repression, radical politics and resistance.
Meiko Kaji
By 1974, Meiko Kaji had become one of the defining screen presences of Japanese genre cinema.
Her performances across the Stray Cat Rock, Female Prisoner Scorpion and Lady Snowblood films established a uniquely controlled screen persona: restrained, intense and capable of communicating enormous emotional force with remarkably little dialogue.
As Yuki, Kaji combines elegance with lethal physicality.
The character’s visual identity—kimono, traditional coiffure and concealed blade—creates a deliberate tension between classical Japanese femininity and the violence surrounding her.
That contradiction is at the heart of this poster.
Poster design
This original first-release design is dominated by a magnificent full-length image of Meiko Kaji as Yuki, occupying almost the entire B2 sheet.
She turns toward the viewer in a striped grey-green kimono, her body caught in motion as one hand draws or controls a hidden blade.
Rather than presenting a conventional sword-fighting tableau, the composition isolates Yuki against a broad field of pale blue-grey brushwork, making her figure feel almost like a photographic subject placed inside a painted Japanese scroll.
The effect is exceptionally elegant.
Kaji’s face remains calm and controlled, while the position of her arms and the visible weapon introduce latent violence into an otherwise graceful portrait.
A sweeping red curved line cuts dramatically through the composition from the lower-left toward the upper-right.
It functions almost like a slash across the page, adding movement and dividing the photographic figure from the calligraphic title treatment.
Title typography
At upper right appears:
修羅雪姫
— Lady Snowblood —
inside a narrow vertical title cartouche.
Beside it, the sequel title:
怨み恋歌
— Love Song of Vengeance —
is rendered in enormous deep-purple brush calligraphy.
The handwritten quality of the lettering contrasts beautifully with the photographic image of Kaji and gives the design a distinctly Japanese visual identity.
Rather than relying on Western-style block typography, the poster uses the expressive qualities of brushstroke, negative space and asymmetrical placement.
The result feels closer to traditional Japanese graphic composition than conventional exploitation-film advertising.
Japanese campaign copy
Running vertically beside Kaji is the poetic campaign text:
「涙はとうに捨てました
心はとうに捨てました
恋することもできないで
哀しく咲きます怨み花……」
Approximately:
“My tears were discarded long ago.
My heart was discarded long ago.
Unable even to love,
the flower of vengeance blooms in sorrow…”
The copy is an especially strong distillation of Yuki’s character.
Rather than promising action or spectacle, it presents her as a tragic figure whose emotional life has been consumed by violence and revenge.
That melancholy tone makes this campaign markedly different from more conventional samurai posters of the period.
Graphic structure
The design uses an unusually restrained palette:
cream, pale blue-grey, muted green, purple and a single brilliant red line.
Small outlined flowers float through the composition, reinforcing the recurring association between Yuki, femininity and death.
At lower left appears a stark photographic portrait of one of the male characters, interrupting the otherwise spacious design and hinting at the political and emotional conflict underlying the story.
The bottom section contains the original Toho production credits, including director Toshiya Fujita, original story credit to Kazuo Koike, and Meiko Kaji prominently named among the cast.
The overall effect is sophisticated and unusually refined for a violent revenge film.
Rather than illustrating the film’s bloodshed directly, the poster builds tension through pose, calligraphy, restrained colour and implied movement.
The Lady Snowblood legacy
The Lady Snowblood films have become internationally recognised as landmark works of 1970s Japanese exploitation and revenge cinema.
Their combination of highly stylised violence, female-centred revenge narrative, bold colour and graphic visual composition would later influence generations of filmmakers and artists.
Meiko Kaji’s Yuki remains one of the most recognisable female antiheroes of Japanese cinema, and imagery from the films has become inseparable from the global cult reputation of the series.
Original Japanese first-release material is therefore particularly desirable, especially examples featuring large-format Meiko Kaji imagery such as this design.
Condition
Good+ / Very Good original condition overall.
The poster retains strong colour and excellent visual impact, with Meiko Kaji’s central portrait remaining clear and attractive and the purple, red and green typography retaining good saturation.
This example was previously folded and has subsequently been stored flat. The original horizontal and vertical storage folds remain clearly visible, with pronounced fold wear and creasing around the central intersection.
There is additional age-related handling throughout, including surface creasing, small abrasions, minor edge and corner wear, and scattered marks consistent with theatrical use and long-term storage.
The reverse shows extensive evidence of its historical life, including numerous small pieces of old tape applied along the folds and margins, handwritten notation, age toning and general handling marks. These points have been fully taken into account in the condition grading.
Despite this wear, the poster remains an extremely attractive and evocative original first-release example, with the principal Meiko Kaji artwork retaining considerable presence.
Please review all photographs carefully; they show the exact poster for sale, front and reverse.
This is an original Japanese B2 theatrical poster from the film’s 1974 first-release campaign.
It is not a reproduction or a reprint.
It is approximately 52 years old.
Certificate of Authenticity included.
Code: S279
