Women have been wielding swords in Japanese period actioners for decades now, from the days when Junko Fuji and Meiko Kaji were slicing up bad guys, Fuji with stoic grace, Kaji with icy rage.
But as good as Fuji, Kaji and other sword-wielding actresses have been, their films usually fall on the fantastic end of the genre's spectrum. The more serious or realistic samurai films typically give the ladies little more weaponry than the switch Misa Uehara (Princess Yuki) brandishes in Akira Kurosawa's "Kakushi Toride no San-akunin" (The Hidden Fortress, 1958).
Based on a story by Shuhei Fujisawa, Kenji Nakanishi's "Hana no Ato" (After the Flowers) begins like the latter sort of period film. Ito (Keiko Kitagawa), the exquisitely kimonoed daughter of a clan official, is enjoying the cherry blossoms when she meets Magoshiro (Shuntaro Miyao), a handsome low-ranking samurai. They speak to each other with excruciating politeness, but sparks are obviously flying when Ito, out of the blue, asks Magoshiro to fight her in a match with bamboo swords — and he agrees.