Lady Snowblood, the 1972 film in which the titular heroine slashes her way through Meiji-era Japan on a mission to avenge her murdered father, remains a steadfast cult classic, known as much as anything for inspiring Kill Bill as it is as a masterpiece of its genre. Less well known are the imitators that spawned in Japan and across East-Asia in its wake. Broken Oath, less an imitator, more a remake in everything but name, gets the usually magnificent Eureka release treatment here, and we find a film that while far short its original, remains an interesting work for genre fans.

The film follows the main plot points of Lady Snowblood but eschews the original’s temporal freeness, opting for a more straightforward plotting. Less of an unfurling mystery it is instead brutal in its commitment to its place as an example of the revenge film. We meet a woman coming to an inescapable prison island, convicted of attacking a government official. It transpires the official was part of a gang that had murdered her husband, and later attempted to rape her (an act the film unforgivably lingers on and eroticises). She gives birth in prison but dies in the process, and the child is raised to avenge her parents. This is all bashed through in a solid ten minutes, so as not to leave a second not spent in pursuit of anything that isn’t fly kicks.

This economy of narrative is admirable, particular from the vantage point of the 2020s in which Hollywood has banned any genre film from being anything less than twenty minutes too long. It is miraculous then the extent to which it manages to overcomplicate itself in its latter stages. The plot becomes totally unwieldy in its final act, squirming around like a runaway hosepipe so as to corral as many boss-like figures into the same room and have them batter each other.

What a battering it is though. The martial arts direction itself is as masterfully done as you’d expect from Chung Chang Wa who has more than a few genuine classics of the era under his belt, both workmanlike in its precision, but also endlessly creative, where even the briefest skirmish is given at least one moment of sly innovation. Take the simultaneously dour and architecturally beautiful shot that opens the courtyard battle, or the final fight in which seven identical masked men face off against the heroine, making for a brilliantly hallucinogenic conclusion. Crucially the performances are likeable enough that you care for your protagonists in these fights, something you can’t say for a lot of films of the era.

Broken Oath doesn’t bear comparison to Lady Snowblood. That’s a real Stewart Little vs Godzilla match up that does it no favours. But, if you can come to the film in its own right it allows you to experience a brilliant martial arts director, and a film that is magnificently choreographed, even as the narrative stumbles.

Broken Oath will be released on Limited Edition Blu-ray on 21st October