Thursday, February 10, 2011

Samurai Princess


There is a new-ish style of Japanese movie that is all the rage. Well, some of the rage. The style is like classic "splatter" mixed with cyberpunk. Blood sprays, body parts fly and the absurd is perfectly acceptable. Films like MACHINE GIRL and TOKYO GORE POLICE do it really well. The action is nutty and the violence is SO over the top it become comical. Samurai Princess just misses the mark, starting out strong and grinding out to a crawl. It does wrap up well with a "Boss Battle", but it's all too late and too far between to make it as enjoyable as the two films listed above.


The film came out in 2009 and it's base plot is revenge. People are creating "MECHA" - a cyborg blend of flesh and machine. This is against the law and the cyborgs are hunted down and exterminated. Two crazy mecha's and their gang rape and kill a group of girls (randomly playing and frolicking by a stream...) and, with the help of a Buddhist nun (huh?) one of them comes back as a mecha with the souls of all the women in her to seek...revenge.
Sounds cool...a little.

But, this blood spraying, tongue wiggling and violence against women is just awkward and upsetting. For some reason, the things in this film never reach the level of "comic violence", so it just remains low brow violence with nothing much to add.

The dub is horrid, so unless you want to listen to the comically ridiculous NETFLIX dub, find this film online or on DVD.

There was a foot tossed at the nun at one point when she starts preaching and I had to laugh out loud, but that was it, really. I could not tell what time period is was supposed to be. When the hell is this supposed to be happening? They are like strange, harajuku people in some strange, alternate universe. The clothing is bizarre.

The film's star is Yû Aiba - Japanese porn star. But, don't get your nekkid meters revving - there's very little nekkidness in here.

I think you are better off sticking with MACHINE GIRL (Reviewed here) or TOKYO GORE POLICE over this movie. I LOVED MACHINE GIRL.

You can watch Samurai Princess here...until they yank it down! :) Just watch the first and last 10 or fifteen minutes and I think you're good.

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