In turbulent Japan, in the 1870's, the political system was corrupt and often peasants and the poor suffered for their wicked ways of living. But, Yuki Kashima's(Meiko Kaji)mother was a victim of criminal swindlers who would thrive off villagers for protection against being drafted for war. Tsukamoto Gishiro(Eiji Okada), Takemura Banzo(Noboru Nakaya), Shokei Tokuichi(Takeo Chii) & Kitahama Okono(Sanae Nakahara)were responsible for Yuki's father's horrifyingly violent demise, proclaiming him a corrupt member of government just because he wore white(..he was actually an innocent schoolteacher on his way to teach in the village the four thieves had just swindled). Also brutally slain was Yuki's mother's little boy. Yuki's mother was able to kill Tokuichi, but before getting her retribution towards the others was imprisoned. Knowing that she would not have a chance to get revenge towards the others while stuck in prison, Yuki's mother continuously whored herself to any male she could just so she could become pregnant. Through the child could vengeance be dealt towards those who wronged her. Instead of a man-child, Yuki was born, but her mother died shortly after giving birth(..the birth was an extremely difficult one). Through the intense and difficult training with a Master(Kô Nishimura), Yuki would become a weapon of vengeance, her sword-fighting skills unmatched by her foes. But, those she seeks to kill aren't playing by rules, and will use whatever means possible to keep her from achieving the goal from her very birth. Conceived in hate and vengeance, Yuki couldn't merely just hide all emotion and live like a cold-blooded killer, she was fighting for a cause..the right wrongs caused by the ones who not only robbed her mother of a happy life, to die in a prison cell, but swindled her people as well.<br /><br />Essentially, Toshiya Fujita's film is a four-chapter tale of revenge, with Yuki an unstoppable highly-skilled assassin whose sword(..which slides from it's umbrella holster, a perfect-hiding place for a beautiful female killer)opens many wounds that gush blood. Each chapter, "Vengeance Binds Love & Hate", "Crying Bamboo Dolls of the Netherworlds", "Umbrella of Blood, Heart of Strewn Flowers", & "The House of Joy, The Final Hell" displays Yuki targeting those who wronged her mother. Other sub-plots emerge as she blazes her trail of blood. Her first victim, Banzo, has a young daughter who prostitutes herself so that he can have booze and medicine for what ails him. The daughter herself will desire revenge towards Yuki, proving that vengeance begets vengeance. Yuki meets a newspaper reporter, Ryu(Toshio Kurosawa)who novelizes her story, provided to him by her Master, the Reverend. Later, Yuki will discover an unknown fact about Ryu regarding her final target, thought to be dead due to his tombstone, Gishiro. But, through Ryu's novel(..Yuki's exploits which are stirring up the village readers, as if she were a Christ-like figure inspiring them), a hidden adversary will seek Yuki's whereabouts, Okono. Okono has the police in her hip pocket, but no army of men will be prepared for what Yuki has in store. Thanks to a change in times of cinema in his country, Fujita's film is incredibly violent, the blood is actually used not only as a gore-device to display torn flesh spewing, but as an artistic symbol(..despite being grisly, there's something oddly spellbinding regarding Banzo's gushing body being battered by the waves of an ocean as the water slowly turns red, the way blood trickles from the tip of Yuki's sword, or the haunting river pool that flows from her mother's husband's decimated corpse, his ravaged suit barely white any longer). The battles, while not as long as you'd expect, are appropriately staged in grand style with victims falling to the sword in number, screaming from the agony as Yuki slices her way through them. We see Yuki's sword go through certain victims as she pulls it out very slowly. There's a really nifty sequence where one of her targets commits suicide with Yuki slicing the dead body in half with blood showering shortly after. But, Fujita does provide a backstory Yuki lives within, a land riddled in wickedness and corruption, and she is a symbol of justice, while her adversaries represent the evils that are sweeping the country. But, above all, this is an incredibly mounted tale of revenge, using a female assassin as the lead this time, who will stop at nothing to see that her mother's death wasn't in vain. Kaji's performance is stunning(..those moments where we actually see on her face how wrought in agony she is when facing the idea that one of her quarry possibly escapes the slice of her sword while alive, especially)and this is quite an iconic character.