And I thought I was just being silly!
I was joshing around online, and we were discussing various revamps of famous movies. I came up with Snow White and the Seven Samurai, merely hoping for cheap laughs. Rather to my surprise, as I turned it over in my mind, I found that I could make that into a workable chambara flick, as follows:
Lord Shiroyama has a daughter named Yukiko. Unfortunately, he has been widowered, and remarries a beautiful, evil schemer named Kitsune. Kitsune takes against her stepdaughter, and convinces her father to send her away---into an ambush she has arranged. But Yukiko survives. Dressed in a kimono taken from a maid's corpse, carrying a sword taken from a dead retainer, she finds a deserted farmhouse and holes up. During the night, seven ronin appear, and they're delighted at what seems like a gift from the gods. Yukiko sneers at them as cowards, and challenges them all to one-on-one duels. If she loses, she will be their slave; if she wins, they will swear to follow her. Seven duels later, she's now got retainers who will cheerfully die for their Lady.
For the next several years, Yukiko and her men travel on the Warrior's Pilgrimage, honing their skills to perfection as they work as bodyguards, enforcers, and freelance sword-slingers. Yukiko makes contact with people from her father's fief, and keeps up on news from there, awaiting the time to strike.
One night, Lord Shiroyama is relaxing with his wife, and she is pouring him out a nice cup of tea. Unbeknownst to him, she doses the tea with poison. Just as she's handing him the deadly cup, an arrow sticks out of the wall between them. Yukiko has returned home, and is ready to expose her scheming stepmother. She saw Kitsune poison the tea, and challenges her to drink it herself; if Kitsune is innocent, the tea is harmless, and Yukiko will commit jigai, otherwise, the tea will kill her. Forced into a corner, Kitsune swallows the tea, and collapses in foaming convulsions. Yukiko bows humbly to her father and begs his pardon for having deceived him about her survival, inviting him to banish her if he so desires. Lord Shiroyama welcomes his long-thought-dead daughter home, and takes her followers into his service.
And after that comes the sequel: Snow White and the Forty-Seven Ronin! Lord Shiroyama is living happily with his daughter, when a summons comes to come to the capital. Unfortunately, he has enemies at the Shogun's court, who manouver him into committing a faux pas and force him to commit seppuku. They think they've won. They forgot about his daughter. Taking command of her father's old retainers, Yukiko plans an all-out assault to destroy all of them, even at the cost of their own lives. Her byeword is "Let me be thrown into the Buddhist Hell, let me be tormented by the Shinto demons; my only thought is to serve my liege lord loyally!" After the vengeance is over, Yukiko leads her men to the flabbergasted Shogun, kneels and confesses to everything she did. The Shogun is now torn. Shall he punish her and her men for breaking the law, or commend them for her filial piety and their loyalty to their lord and lady?