Samurai Princess

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.

If you liked Tokyo Gore Police, which was written by Kengo Kaji, the writer and director of this film, then you will probably enjoy this blend of sci-fi and horror.

There is more gore in the opening than most movies have in their entirety. It doesn't quit, but keeps getting stronger. Stacks of bloody body parts appear throughout.

You just have to give up trying to make sense of this movie, and enjoy the ride. It will amaze you with special effects, weird weapons, and buckets of gore.

Don;t know about that ending.

There's something about this new, ultra-violent, insanity laced, splatter genre from Asia. I've seen a few of these types of flicks now, and with each passing one, I keep asking myself why I'm not going ga-ga over them. I like them, sure. They're the most creatively violent flicks coming out these days. But movies as a whole, they're just bloody messes. I feel like I should be persuaded to just scream joy from the roof-tops because of the ridiculousness of the ideas and blood, but I guess I've seen enough films, enough bloody weird films, to form this opinion.

Based on this lil blurb, I don't think I have to explain myself for the reason why I'm not telling you about the intricacies of the story. But just to help a tad, it revolves around "mecha's" (sp?), revenge, and absurdity. Which are all cool aspects to a film in my book. But again, when intertwined in such a bizarre way, any type of emotional aspect to the film is lost. And that's where these films go awry. There are slow parts where it seems you're supposed to give a flying sh!t about the story. But the thing is after that scene where the dude is literally turned into a 'fountain of blood', my mind is totally checked out, and I'm only looking for more grue and of course, nudity.

Which brings me to another aspect to this crazy genre; the lack of sleaze and nudity is disappointing. Fortunately for Samurai Princess, the lead actress is/was (?) an A/V actress, so lucky for us, there's a sex scene with nudity. But besides one other nip scene, and of course the boob-weapon, there's nothing. You would think with all the amputated limbs, geysers of blood, brains, alligator legs etc. etc. the sub-genre would exploit other areas than just the red stuff. But again, good job to this flick for delivering a nice 'n cutesy sex scene.

I feel like I have to repeat myself when I say, I like these films. But not really as films, but as a kind of gore highlight reel, with hot Asian babes prancing around doing high-kicks. I'd love to see a film with this type of gore done in a more traditional way. Maybe a werewolf flick, that just showers the viewers with blood during scenes of attack. Something more simple that's still enormously violent, could be something that really works. I feel that's just useless wishing, as it seems these films are slowly beginning to reach a wider audience, so we'll probably continue to watch this sub-genre of film for a wee bit longer. Not that I really have a problem with that. It's just feeling a tad played out already. Also, moar bewbs, plz.

No one wears a 2-piece bathing type suit mainly because the film was shot in freezing cold weather. The breath coming from the actor mouths was distracting. Hollywood and Hong Kong is so much better weather wise. There is no real samurai or any type of fighting. It's just a special effects gore fest, where a sword is swung and blood and body parts go flying. And it goes on and on. The story, whatever it was was, is background clutter and doesn't matter as the film makers only want to gross you out. A one trick pony. The specials efforts are gross, not clever. I guess if you are watching the film with a bunch of friends, then the film might work better, as you can laugh at and comment on the gory special effects. I am avoiding anything done by this Director in the future.

I have seen and love Machine Girl. A movie with a real story and clever special effects spaced properly throughout the film and it is just as gross.

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...