{"id":531189,"date":"2026-06-12T07:08:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T07:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/531189\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T07:08:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T07:08:16","slug":"meiko-kaji-studied-hard-to-smolder-on-screen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/531189\/","title":{"rendered":"Meiko Kaji studied hard to smolder on screen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A breakout star of hyperviolent action movies in the early 1970s, Meiko Kaji is best known for Toei\u2019s \u201cSasori\u201d (\u201cScorpion\u201d) series, playing the eponymous laser-eyed female convict who takes revenge against the men who betray, abuse and torture her. Even though she has largely been absent from the big screen for decades, the actor retains a fervent cult following in the West.<\/p>\n<p>One prominent fan is Quentin Tarantino, who heavily references her films, especially the 1973 revenge drama \u201cLady Snowblood,\u201d in his \u201cKill Bill\u201d duology, released in 2003 and 2004. In addition to modeling Uma Thurman\u2019s take-no-prisoners protagonist on Kaji\u2019s character in \u201cKill Bill: Volume 1,\u201d he lifts a climactic fight scene almost move-for-move and shot-for-shot.<\/p>\n<p>Tarantino also used two hit songs sung by Kaji herself \u2014 \u201cThe Flower of Carnage\u201d (\u201cShura no Hana\u201d) and \u201cMy Grudge Blues\u201d (\u201cUrami Bushi\u201d) \u2014 on the \u201cKill Bill\u201d soundtrack, boosting her overseas profile even higher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A breakout star of hyperviolent action movies in the early 1970s, Meiko Kaji is best known for Toei\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[18,117,19,17,104636,228833,327,53844,228834],"class_list":["post-531189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kill-bill","tag-meiko-kaji","tag-movies","tag-quentin-tarantino","tag-sasori"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116735882184255858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}