31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beware of the Princess Assasin!, November 27, 2003
The Princess Blade is a decent film, and packs a fair punch into the modern Samurai style film genre.
The film centers around a young woman, Yuki, who starts off as an assasin for the House of Takemikazuchi.(a clan of X royal guards turned assasins for money) She turns on her house however, when she discovers that her mother was killed by the House years earlier. Yuki's mother had been a royal figure in a disbanded kingdom, which leaves Yuki as the only remaining aire and the title of Princess. (Thus the reason for the flims name) Yuki soon finds herself hunted by her former comrades, and she must battle them to save herself, as well as get revenge for her mother.
At one point Yuki is wounded in one of the skimishes, and is befriended by Takashi, a young man who is in an insurrectional movement to overthrow the goverment that funds the Takemikazuchi. Takashi shares Yuki's peril of having a tragic history, which is revealed during the film. He also has a sister who is in a post tramatic state which causes her to be detached somewhat from reality. Yuki hides out with the two for awhile and begins to discover that she can again find happiness in her life. Eventually however, she is tracked down by the Takemikazuchi, and must fight them in one final showdown.
The Princess blade was a good film both in story and in character development. The sword fights are well choregraphed, and the actors performances bring a genuine concern for the characters in the story. Also, there are a lot of similarities to Kill Bill, which was based in part on modern Japanese Smaurai style cinema.
The film does have a tragic ending however, and leads me to believe that a sequal was in mind when this film was made.(it may not be the ending the viewer is rooting for) Also, like in many Japanese films, the stroy slows down quite a bit during the middle, which left me begging for a few more sword fights. That being the main reason for a 4 instead of a 5 star rating. The film is not as action packed as Versuses, but it's less gorey, and takes itself much more seriously.
The tech aspects include both a Japanese and English dubbed language track,(ADV does a nice job on the dub) trailers of other films and that's about it.
Overall I enjoyed THe Princess Blade, and would watch it again. But I doubt it's a movie that I would want to watch frequently. My advice is that renting it will suffice for most people, but hard core fans of Japanese cinema and modern Samurai style films might consider purchasing it. It does have it's moments.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
64 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Amazon's Princess Blade is a cut above, September 27, 2004
(Sorry for the pun...I couldn't help myself.)
This review is more to describe the quality of this DVD from Amazon.com, than it is of the film content--although, I think some reviewers here have been way too harsh on this film (great bushido action and SFX, good story).
I purchased "The Princess Blade" on ebay and saved a few bucks. What I got was a DVD with no menus in English and absoulutely HORRENDOUS sub-titles. It's like they chose to translate every 10th Japanese sentence and even then, only into English sentence fragments. Despite this, I liked the film enough to order it from Amazon.com.
The new copy (from Amazon) has menus in English, an English soundtrack and subtitles so good you can follow the story and even follow nuances of the story.
The lesson I learned is that not all DVD distributions are created equal.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fresh take on martial arts movies, November 30, 2003
By A Customer
I bought Princess Blade as a blind buy, and overall I really liked it. I think what really made it feel original to me was the way they showed the futuristic setting. There weren't a lot of dumb costumes or cheesy touches to overemphasize the fact that the characters are in "the future". There was one amazing shot of a super high-speed train speeding by the construction of a huge Orwellian statue of some kind of "supreme leader", and there were a couple of radio broadcasts giving us similar hints of a dystopian future setting, but it was all very subtle. Also, I liked the fact that although it was a futuristic setting, most of the fight scenes took place out in the forest. The action choreography (almost completely consisting of swordfights) is quite well done and not as fantastical as a lot of 90's Hong Kong wire-fu movies---there's very little use of wires or undercranking. The story, casting and acting are quite good, although the film suffers somewhat from an obviously limited budget. Also, although there is some blood, the movie is not excessively gory. Unfortunately, the ADV DVD picture quality is not very good for such a recent movie---it's non-anamorphic, and there are some compression artifacts evident.
Overall though, I thought the swordfight scenes were very good, the performances and story were touching, and the setting was unique and subtle. A very enjoyable, fresh and stylized take on martial arts movies.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
