In the early 1970s the actress Kaji Meiko dominated Japanese action cinema with a string of violent exploitation features including Lady Snowblood (1973), Stray Cat Rock (1970), and Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion (1972). She played a variety of wronged or murderous women within Japan’s criminal underworld, and became quite the cult figure among film afficionados.

Not to disappoint, but she does not appear in Yamashita Kosaku’s 1968 revenge film Red Peony Gambler. The reason I mention her at all is because this film seems to anticipate the exact sorts of film Kaji would star in just a few years later. In this case the wronged woman is ably played by Fuji Junko, but the formula feels very familiar.

Yano Ryuko (Fuji) is the daughter of a regional yakuza boss in Meiji-era Japan. When her father is randomly murdered on the street, Ryuko dissolves the clan and sets out alone on a mission of revenge. As a travelling dealer of hanafuda (a Japanese card game), she operates under the pseudonym Red Peony Oryu while seeking clues about the killer’s whereabouts. Fuji dominates the film with an easy authority and charm that consistently wins over the criminal underworld. She has a strong handle on both drama and humour, and is exceptional when pushed into a fight.

This is an energetic action film, packed with sword and knife fights and tense exchanges between rival criminal gangs. While it does not entirely descend into the more violent and horrific imagery that would come to dominate the genre, it is still often quite hard-hitting stuff. Fights with blades mean people getting cut: the wounds can be bloody, and gangsters slashed in the face make a lot of noise while they are dying. The violence comes paired with both intrigue and humour: intrigue as the various rival yakuza groups jostle for power, and humour as the peculiarities of Meiji-era culture is exploited to good effect. One local leader has grown a ridiculously unimpressive European moustache. Another wears a straw boater hat. In one striking scene, Oryu holds off an entire wave of sword-wielding henchmen with a revolver. She does not even need to fire a shot: everybody in the altercation knows that the first person to make a move is getting a bullet in the chest.

Fuji is paired throughout the film with Takakura Ken, who would only become more popular in the years following its release. Takakura’s career even extended to Hollywood, where he played prominent roles in The Yakuza (1974), Black Rain (1989), and Mr Baseball (1992). He always had a strong, masculine presence on-screen, and he expresses it palpably here as the ronin (masterless samurai) Katagiri.

Red Peony Oryu clearly captured the affections of action fans in Japan, because the character appeared in another seven sequels between 1968 and 1972. Yamashita Kosaku only returned to direct the fifth film – Biography of a Gambling Hall – but other instalments were helmed by a number of decent action filmmakers including Kato Tai and Saito Buichi. The first three films have been collected by the UK’s Eureka Entertainment on blu-ray: for fans of Japanese historical crime films, it strikes me as an essential purchase.