The Princess Blade

Yet another offering from Japanese cinema in which we are treated to briefly exhilarating action sequences punctuating a vague and convoluted plot. Yet even the action never quite delivers. It opens with an impressive assassination, combining clever camera-work with well choreographed well edited moves. Unfortunately, with the exception of a couple of beautiful individual shots, it is a steady decline in quality from this point. The fights become briefer, duller and increasingly difficult to work out what exactly is going on. The plot is generic and the characters utterly two dimensional, while the subplot of the rebel organisation is half hearted. If you want a mindlessly fun, violent flick with big swords, bigger guns, gallons of blood and an absurd plot, rent 'Versus.'

This film piles on the visual style and avoids in-depth character development. Now, some may think that this is bad, and can result in a terrible movie. Well, it doesn't. It produces the closet thing I've seen to a filmed comic book, quite literally. Okay, Batman and Spiderman are fantastic film versions of comics, but this is like watching a comic book onscreen, with live action. With some excellent stunts, more human based than those of Crouching Tiger or Matrix, filmed in such a fantastic way, you can't help but be excited by them. The story, however, is a bit weak, and wouldn't warrant another viewing for some time, albeit leaping to the excellent fight scenes and death scenes. However, there is the most realistic death scene I have ever seen before, and also the most emotionally real anguish from an actor I have seen to date. If you are a fan of visually strong movies, with some good fighting action (the assassins use samurai swords, even against guns!) then this is a cracker for you.

I am quite surprised that this hasn't drawn more attention being one of the better asian films I have seen lately. The advert shows the film to be a mere action film while the fight scenes are certainly not every five minutes through out the film however the story is merely a way of taking you from one fight scene to another. The story is about two characters one of which consists of revenge so nothing new there and the other is about a rebel fighter which if more developed could have been a better main story than that of the simple vengance motive. Although the story does not have much to offer I found that I liked the characters all the same as the standard of acting was pretty high and the settings were always impressive including forest and industrial backgrounds. The fight scenes themselves I found to be very creative compared to alot of films with swords much more creative than kill bill with probably quater of the budget. Most films come down to expectations, if you expect some imaginative fight scenes and a slight story inbetween and some lovely back drops then you shouldn't be dissapointed.

once we accept that the world we're looking at is in an alternative universe that developed along the same lines as our own, the fantasy element of this film is a little easier to bear.

unfortunately, even allowing that, the plotting is just way too heavy-handed and convoluted to be very much fun.

there are a lot of action scenes in this film - choreographed by the great Donnie yen - and for the most part they are well-done and very violent, which suits me fine; but they do have one big problem - Shaku Yumiko as Yuki - she doesn't know how to fight.

being a long sword best used held with both hands, the katana, or samurai sword, requires the body's complete and focused energy. in some styles, you swing it from the hips, in others from the back-bone; but if you have to swing it from the shoulder, you better have strong legs, because that's where the energy is really going to come from. if you swing from the shoulder alone, with no chi flowing from other parts of the body, you might as well be swinging a broom - definitely not the single lethal stroke the katana is designed to accomplish.

well, but that's what she does - she swings her katana from the shoulders. no wonder she gets banged around so much in this movie.

this can't be yen's fault, he's too well versed in traditional fighting techniques; and the other performers do fines. i think we're just stuck here with a young actress who lacks confidence. to some extent, that wouldn't even be her fault. no, it's the casting director, the producer, and the director who must take the blame for this one.

from the synopsis, i was expecting much more; instead, i got much less.

by the way, she doesn't act all that convincingly either.

Based on "Lady Snowblood". Sort of a prequel, sequel, and remake at once. It is a good film in the end. Hoowever, some of th plots are just not explained and make us wonder why they were even thrown in. What was with that farmboy? Anyway, it takes place far in the future. We find Yuki (who was previously left somewhere in the Meji Restoration killing her smallpox-infected boyfriend with a short sword) in a group of samurai assassins, still a beautiful young woman. At twenty, she discovers that her employer was the one who led the brutal attack on her royal parents and made the purpose of her birth. She tries to kill him, but he is too powerful, and she runs out to a farm and meets a farmboy. He has a strange, mute sister and a past involving terrorism or something like that. Before long, the assassins start coming, so she must destroy them and finalize the revenge that she started in the previous two films. I recommend this. On first viewing, I hated it. On second, I loved it. Avoid the dubbed version, it is horrible. My complaints are the plot holes and her screams whenever she runs that really get quite irritating after a while. Still- 3 1/2 out of 5.