Lady Snowblood (J-Movie) (1973)

In Meiji 7 (1864), a baby is born in a women’s prison.

A woman blocks the path of several men and a rickshaw, and kills them using a sword concealed in the handle of an umbrella. She tells the last man to die, Shirayama, that her name is “Shura Yuki Hime”. She appears in a poor village looking for a man called Matsuemon, the leader of an underground organization, and asks him to find four people for her, having killed Shirayama for him.

In Meiji 7 (1874), a teacher (Masaaki Daimon), his wife Sayo (Miyoko Akaza), and their son are attacked by four criminals. A woman named Kitahama Okono (Sanae Nakahara) holds Sayo while the three men, Takemura Banzō (Noboru Nakaya), Shokei Tokuichi (Takeo Chii), and Tsukamoto Gishirō (Eiji Okada) murder the teacher and his son and rape Sayo. Tokuichi secretly takes Sayo far away to work for him. Sayo kills him with a knife and goes to prison.