Meiko Kaji: Creation of a Myth
For my first post, I thought it would only be natural to write about my favourite actor: Meiko Kaji and some of her most well-known films. Kaji, for me, is someone whose screen presence is one which is entirely unique not only to the period of the Japanese film industry in which she inhabits but also to the entirety of film history. Often imitated — most famously in Tarantino’s ‘Kill Bill’ series — but never replicated; Kaji’s stoic and intimidating physicality mixed with her piercing and emotive eyes create an unforgettable shadow over film history.
Much more akin to the acting style of many silent actors as opposed to her contemporaries, Kaji’s acting style was one which was almost entirely physical and without the need for dialogue. In many of her most famous performances (the ‘Lady Snowblood’ series and the ‘Female Prisoner Scorpion’ series) her dialogue is always kept short and emphatic creating a screen persona which emanates cool. As previously stated, Kaji’s most important and emotive feature is her eyes. In comparison, her acting style strangely perhaps resembles that of Buster Keaton in that the emotion and story of the character are almost entirely communicated through the eyes. For Keaton, this was melancholic whimsy following another pratfall and for Kaji, this was the burning desire for revenge which haunts her character’s every waking moment.
It is this very unique style that made Kaji stand out from her contemporaries and this was deliberate on her part. Unwilling to conform to the traditional sexual object roles which were all too common in the Japanese studio system of the time for women, she left Nikkatsu having finished the ‘Stray Cat Rock’ series and following the studio deciding to focus on the Roman-Porno genre. This series not only cemented Kaji as an upcoming star but also planted the seeds of what would become her unmistakable film persona. Whilst this was perhaps her most dialogue-heavy of her well-known films, her introduction via knife fight and cool, calm persona would go on to be the starting point to her famous persona.
Following her split from Nikkatsu, Kaji went on to join Toei and it was here that she starred in her most famous film series’. And it was within these film series where it could be described that her persona which had sprouted during the ‘Stray Cat Rock’ series came to be a fully realised entity. Refined into almost pure physicality, her performances began to be built upon her immense talent for physical acting. Her eyes became the focal point of this acting and combined with her overwhelming charisma, her screen persona as the immortal spirit of vengeance was born. Upon creating an almost mythical screen figure, however, there must be a distinct look and this was realised through her now-iconic floppy black hat and black trench coat (popularised in the ‘Female Prisoner Scorpion’ series). Kaji’s presence transcended her performances so much so that this look was parodied in Sion Sono’s ‘Love Exposure’ where the main character dresses in Kaji’s iconic clothes to appear as cool to the woman he loves and takes on the persona of Sasori (Scorpion in Japanese).
This screen persona was one which undoubtedly fit itself well to the exploitation films which Toei was producing at the time. Her two most well-known roles — as Lady Snowblood and Sasori — were in the much-maligned rape-revenge genre. However, whilst these films can often become meaningless exploitation which only exists to show naked actresses, Kaji’s performance is able to give weight and meaning to the genre. Again, her most regarded asset — her eyes — are essential as she appears to carry the weight of female anguish and oppression entirely in herself. Her eyes are filled with an insurmountable rage and a desire for revenge not only for herself but for any woman who has been oppressed by the patriarchy. As such, her performances aid the feminist readings of her films as she is not objectified, or even humanised but rather becomes an unstoppable spirit of vengeance the likes of which is usually only seen in male action stars.
The ‘Female Prisoner Scorpion’ series was influenced heavily by Kaji’s own reflections on the character of Sasori and particularly how she should act. It is within her inputs on the character that the series was able to become something more than an exploitation film meant to titillate Toei’s large straight male fanbase and one that spoke to women’s struggles in a patriarchal society. The films began to take on their own life with Kaji and Shunya Ito (the director of three of four of the series) collaborating to create films which were both anti-authoritarian in their very nature and featured a feminist perspective on the women-in-prison genre which was mostly served as soft-core porn for studios at the time.
Kaji’s idea to have Sasori as a figure who relied entirely on her physicality led to her stardom and as such would have a big influence on her career to come. Sassori would stand against the atrocities she was submitted to with a stoicism that was at once terrifying and sympathetic. Her body may waver to the torture inflicted by the patriarchal prison authority but her spirit was ever-eternal and her eyes promised that a swift and terrible revenge would be reaped at the hands of Sasori. Without Kaji, these films would perhaps lose the vast majority of their political meaning. Ito may have kept in the anti-authoritarian overtones which permeated a lot of Japanese cinema in the 60s and 70s but it was in Kaji’s desire to move away from the trappings of the exploitation genre and her incredible (inimitable) performance of Sasori which gave the film series its feminist and anti-patriarchal depth. Kaji can be argued as the most important creative influence of the ‘Female Prisoner Scorpion’ series.
Following her success as Sasori, Kaji would go on to star as Lady Snowblood. Many of the staples of Kaji’s performance as Sasori can be found in her equally remarkable performance as Lady Snowblood. An almost silent figure that was a spirit fo vengeance hellbent on revenge for her mother; Snowblood is another example of Kaji’s impressive physicality. However, gone is the modern setting — replaced by Edo-era Japan — and gone is Kaji’s iconic black trench coat and floppy hat — replaced by a simple kimono and wagasa. Adapting another manga character, Kaji manages to carry on her famous persona whilst adding a new dimension to her performance in ‘Lady Snowblood’.
Snowblood is a character who — more so than Sasori — represents the generational fallout that comes from a patriarchal system. Imbued by a vengeance which stems from the rape and abuse that her Mother suffered at the hands of four individuals (three men and a woman who was complicit in the oppression and abuse of women). As a result, Snowblood is not a human being but rather a conduit for her mother’s posthumous revenge. It is in this characterisation that highlights the generational trauma that occurs at the hands of the patriarchy. Its actions suppress generations of women and suppress several generation’s creativity and humanity. Once Snowblood begins to fall in love, her tale becomes a tragedy. She is driven by revenge; an unstoppable spirit of vengeance; but to become such an entity humanity must be abandoned. Individual expressions are suppressed highlighting patriarchal suppression through generations. Through this characterisation, Kaji allows her character to at once be the mythical persona she had already cultivated and a tragic soul wishing for liberty but suppressed by the patriarchy. As the film proceeds her emotive eyes soften and allows her true soul to be expressed though she cannot express herself otherwise.
Once her task has been completed and her mother has finally been avenged, Snowblood finally succumbs to her injuries collapses into the snow in an anguished scream into the nether. The spirit of her mother has finally been freed but it has come at the expense of her daughter; not a human but a conduit rendered as such by a patriarchal system which oppresses. If ‘Lady Snowblood’ is truly a tragedy then it was always certain that the eponymous character would die but it is Kaji’s acting that makes her death such a tragic fate. Again, another example of entirely physical acting, Kaji portrays Snowblood’s death as a predetermined fate that she succumbs to as opposed to accepts. Having tasted briefly the idea of individuality through her love, Snowblood wishes to live on her own terms but the price for her vengeance was her life. Perishing amounts the untouched snow, her blood is the only blemish on the ground representing her character — a lone entity rebelling against the patriarchal system which surrounds her.
Due to the successes of her film series, Kaji began to get typecast as a spirit of vengeance which went against her desires as an actor. She essentially left the film industry and focused on television as a result of a lack of interesting parts. And this persona which was created in her legendary film series’ is both a blessing and a curse to the career and legacy of Meiko Kaji. It ultimately allowed her to have a great influence on cinema history — especially Western cinema — but it also relegated her other performances to footnotes in a career filled with varied and interesting performances. Kaji’s revenge film performances are her most well-known internationally but she also worked in several of Masumura films and acted in several films by Fukasaku whose output was eclectic in the studio system. The mythic figures of Sassori and Snowblood who are engrained in the history of film overshadow a career which was rich and varied.
