Babes with Blades

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Babes With Blades: Flower Of Sarnia; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 1.25 Direction: 1.50 Pace: 1.00 Acting: 1.00 Enjoyment: 1.25

TOTAL: 6 out of 10

Babes With Blades: Flower Of Sarnia came as a pleasant surprise as I scarfed my Sunday morning crumpets. This low budget martial arts fantasy sci-fi isn't the best I've seen, though it's enjoyable and entertaining.

It wasn't until I got to the end credits that I realised that the star of the picture, Cecily Fay (Azura), also wrote and directed the story. And that was another surprise, most writer/director projects tend to fail, and I incline toward an unhappy review. On the flip side. There are moments when projects gell and the end product works, which is the case for Babes With Blades.

The story isn't too complex, though it gets split into parts; 1 - The Backstory; 2 - The Capture; 3 - The Sentence; 4 - The Escape; 5- The Team Up; 6 - The Betrayal; 7 - The Resolution. Though the story is formulaic in form, the real trouble is the budget in relation to the story's scale. To make the tale of the flower stronger, more believable, and detailed would have required significant Hollywood backing. For example, the fights. These are to appease the violent nature of the planet's inhabitants and help keep them under control. The budget our filmmakers possessed allowed for what you see, a warehouse, a small crowd of people, some in their own Steampunk clobber, and the fighters' garb. I reckon the weapons they used were handmade or their own. And it works. However, what was required was a proper televised fighting arena, with spectators in the thousands, and a possible hidden signal in the transmission that helps subdue and satisfy the viewers around the globe. And that is the principal drawback with the story - it could be epic. The characters are fine, though a little more backstabbing between the baddies wouldn't have gone amiss. People like that very seldom trust anyone. On the whole, the dialogue is realistic and credible. It only suffers in the delivery from the cast.

As for the direction, well, I doff my cap to Fay here. After reading the reviews, I have to say that I disagree with most of them. Fay's style shows class and thoughtfulness. Her use of light, colour, and shade reminds me of the Italian horror masters - So you are in great company, my dear lady. It works to add atmosphere to the scene. And, it's so wonderful to have somebody bold enough to get vivid. There are no washed-out colours or grey filters used here, and the film is better for it. Thank you. I particularly liked Azura's training segment. Shot from the ground up is a delightful way to display the hand movements and the flow of the fighting style, which appears to be a form of Tai-Chi. Add a slight soft focus and a blue light haze, and you have a dreamlike relaxed atmosphere - very Zen. Then there's the escape fight sequence. Fay choreographed this against a red light wall. The silhouetted action looks incredible, except for a few of her moves. Some of them aren't as fluid or supple as they should be. I think this is down to her size difference; she should have swapped them out for other moves. That said, the end kill in this segment is spectacular. The only niggle I had was the shaky cam. I do hate this effect, and it gets shakier when the action starts. If you're a skilled martial artist, take a note from Jackie Chan and show it. Keep everyone in a steady full frame until a close-up is required. Doing so shows your skills off to the full.

The cast is a surprise too. These performers aren't seasoned actors, and in a martial arts film, we're not there for their acting ability. But most act as well as they can fight. They're not oscar quality performances, but they are above average; even the worst are enjoyable, though for the wrong reasons. Fay shows yet another string to her bow. She is one talented lady.

If you don't mind low budget martial arts films, then Babes With Blades could be for you. It certainly entertained me for the hour and a half run time, and my attention only wained a couple of times. It doesn't quite make my guilty pleasures list, though it was close, and I will probably watch it again...sometime.

Please feel free to visit my Holding Out For A Hero, Obsidian Dreams, and The Final Frontier lists to see where I ranked Babes With Blades: Flower Of Sarnia.

Take Care & Stay Well.

My quick rating - 3,9/10. For a really hockey b-budget flick, this one does have its moments. Mainly Azura (Cecilia Fay) who does have some pretty good martial arts skills it seems. The fight scenes do tend to show off her talent, unfortunately the story itself, or the acting doesn't lend to much more. Instead this movie turns into a woman being taken prisoner in a post-apocalyptic future world by the evil, and horribly acted....well, he doesn't have a name. There imprisoned, she must fight to the death for a bunch of rich types in an arena, which resembles the warehouse where one of the film makers must work to earn his daily pay. Still, a very valiant attempt using some creative special effects that were 80s quality. Kudos for the effort, just take Fay, and give her a real script and you might have something.

The title "Babes with Blades" is obviously movie "clickbait", but I hoped for at least some fun, but cheesy action scenes and some strong, beautiful women wielding swords. There were women, though I'd only count one of them as beautiful (The striking Yennis Cheung). And only one or two more as attractive. The lead actress, Cecily Fay, had a few good moves, but nothing particularly interesting. The fact that she is apparently a fight coordinator and stunt actor is pretty surprising considering how uninspired and dull the fight scenes are. The script was worse than I expected, but again not surprising once I realized that the Fay wrote it as well as directed. All in all it seems like a vanity project that she somehow managed to rope other people into with promises of beer money I assume. Only giving it a "2" because the absolutely outrageous overacting of the character "Sef" had me rolling. Even watching it "free" on Amazon Prime I felt robbed. Do yourself a favor and stay far away.

This film has decent simple fight and keeps you watching them. The score/sound is to loud during dialogue all throughout the movie. This apocalyptic movie is to clean for its genre and the actors are both good and bad. You make the call but you will see. The camera work is a lot of handheld, which makes the movie not enjoyable to watch. Especially during simple steady shots and the editting should of used longer shots etc. The main character is good at the her physical parts and the story is not original and no major feeling of caring about the characters. This would be great back in the 80s, but with todays technology and advances in independent films. It is a good effort. With a better backstory and plot the movie would have been better and longer.

I really loved the martial art choreography. Cecily, according to the birthdate was 41 when she made this movie, she directed, produced, and I guess wrote it. I found it mesmerizing although some of the lines were a bit corny. Cecily, Great job!