High Kick Girl!

My quick rating - 3,6/10. I honestly have no idea if this was an infomercial for a local Karate studio or a home movie. The way the movie focuses on the young girl who is the star is so obsessive it has to be the daughter of someone. But the annoying camera work that consists of more replays of moves than even the WWE packs into their programming makes you wonder what the point really is. And this isn't just a replay from earlier in the flick, this is the exact same move or moves shown a frame or two earlier throughout the WHOLE movie. I have to say that if all the replays were left out, instead of 85 minutes, the flick would've clocked in around 70 minutes. I would go into the plot, but there wasn't one. Basically high school girl kicks butt. Yep, that is it. Back to the infomercial possibility, I suppose this movie could be recruiting for someone and spreading the message of how disciplined martial arts are and great for kids (which is true, btw) but this film does a poor job conveying it. With all the great martial arts flicks out there this is a definite pass up on film.

Don't expect complex plot in this one. It's about a high school brown belt karate student who's unusually strong, and goes about beating up black belts in college, and delinquents in other high schools.

The movie is one continuous stream of karate action from one scene to another. It's not even worth mentioning what the plot of the story is. The karate action is also pretty fake looking as you can see that the actors are not actually hitting the opponent.

A good movie to watch if you have nothing to do on a rainy evening, which is exactly what I did. It's in the genre of mindless entertainment, and as for that it's worth a watch.

First off the movie "Chocolate" absolutely demolishes this movie in the amount of action and REAL martial arts skills displayed. As soon as I saw the length of the previous review, (overly long and just too-detailed)and the fact that the review disses an obviously superior film like Chocolate. I suspected that the review was planted...Oops I meant biased as is most times the case.

High Kick Girl is another in the long line of overall slightly disappointing girl karate movies, all with great promise, all ending in mediocre results.

Part of the issue is that JeeJa Yanin star of Chocolate is a real martial artist of amazing skill, and when it comes down to it, lesser skilled "actresses" just cannot cut the mustard when the action starts, even if fast camera edits/cuts attempt to simulate a fast paced frenzy. Sorry but this is no substitute for REAL talent, although I am sure there will be plenty more pretty Japanese school girls to see fighting in the future, (if poorly).

As for High Kick Girl itself...do you like slow motion? you better because every scene with some martial arts kick is repeated over and over again, there are also scenes that have little to do with the plot added as well as other scenes where the action just stops. you'd think the DVD has a glitch in it. I think the director realized there just isn't much plot and tried to stretch the film out to a still short 85 minutes. High Kick Girl not terrible, but a poor choice.

Tsuchiya is a karate student that gets entangled with some bad people in "High-Kick Girl!". Cue lots of kicks followed by lots of kicks. Afterwards... more kicks.

The story is non-existent. Tsuchiya likes to pick up fights with random karate students till she gets in problems with a group whose leader has some history with her teacher. All of this is just an excuse to throw one fight after another in front of the viewer.

So far, so good. Martial arts movies can be lots of fun with a flimsy plot as this one ("Ong-Bak", I am looking at you). The acting is wooden (especially one-expression Tatsuya Naka, but we are not here to see characters have feelings but kick and punch). But "High- Kick Girl!" also fails in the aspect a martial arts movie should shine: the fights. Yes, we have lots of fights and fighters of all sizes and colors. Sadly, the direction is really really poor and the set pieces totally wasted. On top of that, our friend Fuyuhiko Nishi, the director, has a penchant for slow motion fights where he shows us not once, not twice, but three times the same kick or punch, till our eyes starts rolling. Because it is a constant, not once or twice to highlight a specific move.

Too bad, because Rina Takeda's Tsuchiya is fun to be with.

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of High Kick Girl; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 0.25 Direction: 1.00 Pace: 1.00 Acting: 0.75 Enjoyment: 1.25

TOTAL: 4.25 out of 10.00

I know most Martial Art Movie fans don't watch the films for their stunningly complex and engaging storylines, but at least a smidgen of a story is requisite to tie in the kick-ass action sequences.

Regrettably, it appears the writers were out to lunch and knocked this garbage out in their lunch hour, with time left to put away a seven-course dinner. It's a basic story of an impatient know-it-all girl who is too selfish to train for her Karate black belt. Her petulance leads her to join a gang - The Destroyers - whose ulterior motive is to defeat her master by using her as bait. Had the writers only chosen to scoff a burger and fries, they would have found time to strengthen the plot and the characters. And it's this that is the major letdown.

Another is the direction. Now here's the thing, the director had the marvellous notion to reshow the fights in slow-motion. It would have worked wonderfully had he employed it sparingly for all the "Ouch" hits like the laughing insane fighter who takes a blow to the head, and we watch it snap back and bounce off the wooden wall behind him. It looks realistic and painful, and it appears worse in slow-motion. Lamentably, the director uses this gimmick with every fight sequence, which results in the transformation from engaging into tedious. And that is a shame because, other than this, he's a good director. He has a fine sense of style and composition; there are some handsomely framed scenes. I especially liked the stand off's and the panoramic fights.

But we head back into terribleness when we get to the cast. Most of whom don't need to speak; just stand still and look tough and malicious. Sadly most look bored and more bored. And the ones who do speak are hit and miss. These gals and guys were chosen for their skills in the Martial Arts arena and not for being thespians, even amateur ones. The worst of these is Master Matsumara. Granted, Tatsuya Naka can fight, but he is stoic to the point of extremity. No emotion ever passes across his face - even when he gets punched in his mug, nothing changes.

If it weren't for the fights and their choreography, High Kick Girl would be 1-2-Miss. However, the fight sequences are pretty great, and most look realistic. The battle between High Kick Girl and the Strong School Girl is superb. Both have excellent styles and skills, which they demonstrate superbly in the fight.

Therefore I recommend this to the die-hard Martial Arts fans, but only for the fight scenes - you can fast-forward through the rest.

Please feel free to visit my The Game Is Afoot and Holding Out For A Hero lists to see where I ranked High Kick Girl.

Take Care & Stay Well.