Need Help: Women in Japanese action flicks

[fliggil]

I know that going back as far as the 1920's, Chinese/Hong Kong movies have in many cases presented female characters in martial arts movies as equals (as far as fighting ability is concerned) with men. I was curious about the history of female presentation in Japanese films. I haven't seen enough samurai movies, or know enough about samurai history to know whether or not there were ever women samurai, and if there were, whether or not they were in Japanese movies, and even then were they presented as equals? What about with gangster/yakuza films?

I bring this up because I have been giving thought to picking up the Pinky Violence box set. I've read synopses for these films and was thinking it would be interesting if the first real consistant portrayal of physical female power would come through this sort of s/exploitation movement in the early 70's.

Anyone care to shed some light on the subject? Recommend any movies, websites, books, etc. please

(I already got some recommendations on another board to check out movies like Lady Snowblood, but what I'm really looking for here are movies from pre-1970's, thanks)

[Michael Kerpan]

In two of Mizoguchi's war-time films, the heroines tread the edge of being action heroes, but then are pulled back from this -- Kinuyo Tanaka in ""Musashi Miyamoto" and Isuzu Yamada in "Famous Sword Bijomaru". The former is a pretty engaging film, the latter is pretty clunky -- despite a good cast and a few great scenes.