Samurai Princess

I made it about halfway through this movie before I quit. The story was stupid and the action was incoherent. Sure there was gore in the movie, which was alright, but overall this movie is not worth the effort. You would be much better off with Tokyo Gore Police or Machine Girl. As an enthusiast for gore and horror movies, I was sorely disappointed with this movie.

There are lots of nice movies coming out of Japan, and recently a wave of gore flicks. Tokyo Gore Police, Machine Girl and Meatball Machine are movies to check out for gore fans - Samurai Princess is not!

It was not all bad. The good parts of the movie was the colorful costumes and some of the cast. But it far from makes up for its overall lousiness.

This movie actually surprised me by not being too bad. In fact I found it rather enjoyable. I admit that I usually stay away from the Japanese gore movies. I find them to be too much verging on being ridiculous, disgusting and simply going for gross outs. I picked this up simply because of the title. Unlike the others of the gore genre this one isn't too over the top it its gross outs. There is actually a story, there are funny parts, no overwhelming gore and the lead is pretty. There isn't the "this is just sick and disgusting" feeling. Don't expect award winning acting. But if you don't mind watching a B movie with gore and bad special effects. This one is not bad.

In case you didn't know, Japanese Horror has changed since the earlier parts of the last decade. Sure, there were films like "Ichi The Killer" and the ongoing wave of Japanese Zombie flicks, but in much of the last decade, the country was largely known for it's supernatural creepfests with long haired ghost girls and mounting dread. While that was fun for a while, it eventually went the way of many fads/sub-genres of horror-yesterday's news. You can only see a pale supernatural force so much until you get bored.

So what's the new-wave of Japanese Horror at the moment? Splatter Comedy flicks. Movies that owe largely to the likes of old Troma movies, Paul Verhoeven's "Starship Troopers" and the like than they do old Japanese Urban Legends and haunted TV's or whatever. Flicks such as "The Machine Girl", "Tokyo Gore Police" and the upcoming "Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl" have defined this new era, and Kengo Kaji's "Samurai Princess" is one of the latest in this new trend.

The plot takes place in an alternate universe Japan, in which a our titular heroine (adult film actress Aino Kishi) was one a normal girl. That is, until a group of rapists had their way with her friends and left her for dead. Oh, and a mad scientist has fused the souls of her dead friends, implanted them into her, and turned her into a vengeful cyborg. Wackiness and arterial spray ensues.

From the get go, "Samurai Princess" is utterly bug-f#@k insane. It has chainsaw legs, wacky villainous sidekicks (the mad scientist has a gaggle of fan girl types following him wherever he goes-it's actually a lot funnier than it sounds), evil monsters, a pair of breasts that double as grenades (yes, you read that right), a man wielding a guitar that doubles as a sword and a chainsaw, and so much more. It's also shockingly funny as times, with some amusing gags thrown in, as well as the non-stop insanity making sure that you never grow bored. It also helps that the gore never wears out it's welcome-quite the contrary in fact, as each set piece is bonkers and all around entertaining.

Yet, the whole thing ends up feeling kind of like the sum of it's parts. One major flaw is the production values. While I normally don't complain about poor production values in genre fair, the Shot on Video style left me feeling a little let down, as it would have benefited from better editing, camera work and whatnot. Also, the performances are really hit and miss, with Aino Kishi being a bit bland as our heroine (though the fact that she's willing to disrobe doesn't hurt the least). The biggest flaw though, is the poor fight choreography. Films like this need fight scenes that can hold up with the movie, and here they just can't.

In the end, it's a flawed movie, but for rainy weekend fair, "Samurai Princess" makes for a fun time. If Troma made a "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" episode, it would probably resemble this.

The video-shot feature was remarkably like Tokyo Gore Police. Both relied heavily upon gore-related effects and bionic horrors. Both look like they were shot in vacant areas and not studios. Both had coherent plots and sincere acting...

This movie, however, had more of a nightmare feel to it. Although the madness of the two villains was horribly over-emoted, the madness of one of the minor characters had a morbid feel to it. The collection of body parts for resurrection was almost like watching Alice in Wonderland. They were definitely trying to make a movie out of this.

Unfortunately, as with many Japanese movies, the writers felt the need to give their audience a healthy dose of rape and gore. Although the gore does explain where all of the body parts come from, eventually it lost its impact from overuse.

The female lead, who apparently has fourteen souls residing in her, is a decent actress. Her martial arts ability seems a bit suspect when she cannot even make a silhouette training sequence look convincing.

This wasn't a bad movie.

But, it didn't seem to have much respect for itself...

Kengo Kaji, who wrote Tokyo Gore Police, both wrote the story for and directed this new gore-fest from Japan. Yoshihiro Nishimura handled the make-up effects, as he did for Tokyo Gore Police. So if you loved Tokyo Gore Police - which I really did - you'll probably like Samurai Princess. It's a sci-fi kind of thing that's set in an alternative Japan. The Samurai Princess is the sole survivor of a group of young women who are raped and murdered. She becomes an android to avenge their deaths. There's also a white haired Buddhist nun, with lovely white eyelashes and white fingernail polish(?!), who shows up from time to time. The story may not make much sense, but who really cares? It's a fun and hilarious splatter-fest of gore. Not quite up to the level of Tokyo Gore Police, which had a much better story-line, but still quite enjoyable. Some upper frontal female nudity, but not a lot.