Karate Girl

Karate Girl is certainly better than the numerous overrated karate movies starring American or Chinese actresses and actors that have flooded the market throughout the past few decades. The story revolves around a young woman working at a cinema who has a troublesome past. Her father was assassinated and her little sister kidnapped by a group of thugs. The young woman secretly survived, changed her identity and got adopted by another family. When she is filmed fighting two thieves at the cinema and the clip goes viral, the thugs however realize that she is still alive and want to annihilate her.

This movie convinces on several levels. The atmospheric opening scene and multiple flashbacks are quite atmospheric, emotional and violent. The film's locations vary fluidly between beautiful settings and gloomy spaces. This tale of revenge doesn't offer any surprising twists but should appeal to fans of classic martial arts movies from the seventies and eighties in particular.

However, this release certainly isn't without its flaws. The acting performances are at times wooden, repetitive and predictable. The fight scenes lack authentic choreography and look at times unintentionally funny. The film suffers from rather slow pace and repetition and would have been much more efficient if it had been shortened by fifteen to twenty minutes.

At the end of the day, this film is only interesting for fans of female martial arts films and might especially appeal to teenagers. More seasoned genre fans however simply can't overlook the film's numerous significant flaws. Karate Girl is overall passable for some relaxed entertainment on a lazy afternoon but fails to leave a significant mark. Ironically, the footage from behind the scenes during the credits and the music video coming along with the film show better quality than the movie itself.

Karate Girl (2011) is a film that had all the visual promise-killer cover art, a high school girl ready to strike-but the execution pulls its punches. The story rushes past with little depth, the characters are barely sketched, and the fight scenes feel more like a karate instructional video than cinematic combat. Moves often lack impact or even contact. The villain? Forgettable. His right-hand man? Useless. Only the dubbed voice of the villain leaves a cool impression. Everyone else sounds like a bad audition tape. Watch it if you need background noise or a movie to kill time while you're waiting.

The quality of Japanese movies in this genre has always been so so at best, but it seems to be slipping downwards in recent years.

Story of this movie is pretty derivative. There's a family of outrageously potent karate masters who in the old age killed any opponent with one blow. The modern descendant of this clan gets attacked by another group of criminal martial artists. The father is killed, and two small daughters survive. About ten years later, the grown up daughter is found by the martial artist gang, and is being targeted again. It's revenge for the girl, and finishing the unfinished business for the bad guys.

The movie has pretty bad action scenes. There's not a hint of moves that shows that any of the characters are who they are supposed to be. The moves don't look real, and this is probably not the fault of the actors, but due to bad choreography. Also, they could have put little more attention to staging the each act. It's reminiscent of cheaply made adult videos in many areas.

The level of Japanese action movies are about where Hong Kong movies were in the early '70s. Compared to the action scenes of say like the "Ip Man 2" there's really no contest.

There are period action pieces coming out of Japan that still holds quality, but ones that are positioned in the modern era has been going down hill.

There are better made movies in martial arts genre, and you'd probably better served watching those.

With the compulsory dramatic intro scene you immediately get to know the villain of the movie and the younger versions of the Karate Girls. Come again two Karate girls. Yes,two of them. And both who actually know Karate. The story is very simple. Yet the director thought it necessary to explain what Karate should be about in almost every talking scene. Even in some of the action scenes there seems to be too much talking. The action scenes are adequate but do look very choreographed. Sometimes far too slow and too much breaks during fights. Since the pace of the movie is quite slow it only makes the movie even seem slower. It surely doesn't help that the movie takes itself far too seriously. Especially when the acting is real bad.It is a shame really that the director failed to put in some real excitement. The trailer for this movie looks promising. But like most trailers they put in the best scenes from the movie in there. So in this case you are better off watching the trailer.

When Rina is fighting, the movie is exciting. The rest is dull, talky and mostly wooden. I recommend fast-forward for everything between the sisters' action sequences, to avoid boredom that can dilute the impact of her artistry. Rina deserves better vehicles.