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The Princess Blade Actors: Hideaki Ito, Yumiko Shaku, Yoichi Numata Director: Shinsuke Sato Number of Items: 1 Format: Color, Widescreen, Dolby Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Running Time: 95 minutes Studio: A.D. Vision Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2003-11-18 Buy from Amazon |
 "An overhyped waste of time and money"I ordered this based on the hype about great action and swordfights. Boy was that a crock. The film is mostly - that is, about 98% - boring, slow-moving, and tedious, trying to get some "drama" into it. The plot is ridiculous and filmed and acted in such a way as to make it even more unrealistic, like a bad anime. It's utterly joyless and depressing. The characters you don't much care for. There are a couple of promising-looking swordfights - there seem to be maybe three swordfights in the whole movie - but they're badly filmed and in the end you feel cheated - you don't get to see just how the heroine survives those dozen or so opponents. The bad costumes make the fights look even more silly. The final showdown ends weakly and cheaply. Very cheaply. So what was all the hype about? I see some of you don't believe me. Fine. Buy it. Or, even worse, watch it. And don't come crying to me when you find that, as usual, I was right. What a piece of junk. Unbelievable. Almost worse than Star Wars Episode One.  "PRINCESS BLADE IS NOT KING!"Tough this movie was pretty good, alongside such awesome epics such as HERO,(with Jet Li), Azumi, and Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon, this movie paled by comparison. But in and of itself, it is much better then a lot of the more cheesier Asian films being pumped out. The action sequences were very dynamic and exciting to watch, and the set and tone of the futuristic Samurai was different. And different is good! But the storyline was lacking, and sometimes plodded along way too slow for this American. But overall, I can see what people see and like in this film. But the storyline could have been so much stronger and better. A good basic idea, with good action, but seemingly nothing else. If you want to see a much faster-paced movie, with bigger budget and better acted, and awesome action sequences - then MUSA, THE WARRIOR is the best!  "Don't know why it's being dissed"I've read mostly bad reveiws. Why? Then again, most of them also said that is was too slow and that it was entirely boring... just not true, if you're able to sit still, you hyperactive weirdos. Sure, it moved a little slowly at times... but it was to show you, yeah, maybe Yuki is moving on a little... settling from that fast paced, meaningless life. It's the little quirks in these parts of the movie that flesh it out. I've also read a review that said Takashi's silent sister, Aya, was useless... not true at all. Didn't you pay any attention to his dialouge at all? The action scenes were stylish and gory at times, but never excessively so... if blood makes you queasy, stay away, but no guts... I just cringed when her hand was injured >_< I find that this reminds me of the Rurouni Kenshin OAVs (also known as Samurai X...), so if you liked those, you're certain to like this. The drama is very present but certainly not overplayed, as the characters manage to keep pretty cool thru a large portion of the movie. The actors were great. The humor is scarce, but it's there if you can catch it, and it's sure to leave you feeling pretty good about the characters. If you look close enough, you'll find a very cute and somewhat lost side to the heroine, Yuki. Very sad, but entirely worth seeing. "Terrific action film with sublime fight choreography..."In a dark future where Japan is once again under the rule of an emperor who often seeks the help of the Takemikazuchi clan as hired assassins to help control probable resistance. Yuki, a devoted assassin, has been raised by the clan from early childhood and she finds out that the clan leader, Byakurai, killed her mother when she was just a child. Angry and motivated Yuki seeks out Byakurai in order to carry out her revenge, but he is too powerful for her and she must escape. In Yuki's getaway she crosses paths with Takashi who works for the rebel forces. Takashi is suspicious of Yuki's motives, but it soon appears to Takashi that she is not sent to kill him. Princess Blade is an action packed love story that attacks the audience's attention with sublime fight choreography as it offers a good cinematic experience. "Pretty good."First the technical info: The music was good, not intrusive or annoying, but nothing amazing. The sound was pretty clear in all the fight scenes, lots of squishing, swishing, and bone crunching. The picture was crystal clear and absolutely lovely. The cinematography was a bit confusing, as characters appeared to move from mine to forest to lake to desert to urban industrial region all within the space of one camera-fade, running no less. Some of the forest scenes could have been filmed in the exact same place, even though they were supposed to be different. It was disorienting, and led to this spacial disconnection while watching. The first scene of this movie mesmerized me. The first strike of this assasin clan was violent, but the violence was slick and stylized. The use of blades rather than guns was really sexy. The rest of the fight scenes, about four, were also really well done, exciting and tense, and much less stylized. They ranged from just violent to flat out gory. Extremely impressive coreography! After that moment, however, The Princess Blade lost momentum. So many plot points remained cloudy and confusing, as did the character relationships. Who was Takashi, and what was he doing in this movie besides providing a gratioutous appearance by Hideaki Ito (not that I didn't appreciate his appearance). Ito did a good job, but Takashi's character seemed superflous to me, as did his whole subplot. Terrorism? Cause? What did that have to do with anything else in this movie? Yumiko Shaku did a fabulous job as the wary, highly trained Yuri. She was dangerous and vulnerable at the same time, without sacrificing either at any point, which is a very difficult image to create. |
