The film begins with Akemi (Meiko Kaji), the current heir to the Tachibana gang, delivering a slow motion, rain swept, night time beatown on a rival gang. She accidentally blinds a bystander (Hoki Tokuda). A black cat lapping up the blood of the titular blinded woman is seen by Akemi as a bad omen, a consequence of her violence now marking her, haunting her. After a three year stint in prison, Akemi emerges with a new attitude which is befitting since the gang has undergone a softening and no longer looks to war with rivals, engage in seedier criminal pursuits, and basically is content keeping a fragile hold on its territory.

Since the Tachibana's are weakened, their competition looks to take advantage. Mainly, gang leader Dobashi (Toru Abe), who has a turncoat Tachibana insider under his wing and a plan to force the Tachibana into war with yakuza Aosara (Ryuhei Uchida) in hopes that the two will destroy/cripple each other in the process and Dobashi can swoop in and take their turf. Despite help from a do-good scrapper, Tani (Makoto Sato), Akemi's feelings of guilt-ridden damnation make her unwilling to put her gang into the fight. This throws a kink in Dobashi's plan until a traveling carnival of the grotesque enters town and with it the vengeance-seeking woman Akemi blinded. Soon, Tachibana gang members begin to turn up dead, their tattooed skin flayed, their bodies pinned with notes warning that the slaughter will continue.

Blind Woman's Curse came out right on the cusp of Meiko Kaji's career defining, breakout run that included the Stray Cat Rock, Sasori/Female Convict Scorpion, and the Lady Snowblood films. Blind Woman's Curse isn't mentioned in the same breath as those films very often because in it her character is largely neutered, side-stepping any action or display of strength until the films finale where she finally blossoms into the confident, poised, badass heroine of cold and deadly intent that her fans came to love. Though this is a choice defined by the plot, one suspects that if the film had been produced a year or two later, after the Stray Cat Rock and Female Convict Scorpion films showed what she was capable of, the story would have been modified so that her character came across as a tad less dormant and gunshy and a lot more simmering.

When it came to b films (a term I use lovingly), Teruo Ishii helmed everything. Giant superheroes, sci fi, biker, yakuza, horror, torture, karate, prison, the surreal, and often all of the above were his playground. He had a nack for delivering pure, no nonsense entertainment, in the second half of his career often with inventive, exploitative dazzle, but Blind Woman's Curse is a film where the gears dont totally click. While it is a marriage of period yakuza, revenge, and horror genres, each of those elements is only executed in a so-so manner. Thankfully, holding the film together- just enough- are some Teruo Ishii trademarks, be it the grim action, sophomoric comedy, lurid, psychedelic horror, and a fine cast of great Japanese character actors who deliver their roles with aplomb.

Conclusion: A fun, entertaining film that doesn't quite live up to the wildness, seediness, or gore one imagines that a period gangster/horror hybrid from its era could deliver. While not the greatest film for either Teruo Ishii or Meiko Kaji, it has more than enough gang drama, revenge dynamics, and creepiness to hold any viewers interest...