As promised here’s my first review of many to come over the next week or so. I’m starting off today with a fairly recent film straight from Japan – land of the über cool and the downright weird!
Shurayuki-Hime aka “The Princess Blade” – 7/10
As you might have guessed from the title this film involves a ‘princess’ and a LOT of samurai swords. Basically its a story of revenge and disaffection about a girl who discovers things about her past which turn her against the people she lived and worked with – a band of assassins!
Turning her back on them isn’t as simple as it might seem and she is soon being hunted down. Whilst on the run she bumps into a man and his traumatised sister who have a complex background of their own. From here on in things get pretty messy and the story doesn’t turn out quite how you would imagine.
Set in an alternate future ‘The Princess Blade’ is a reasonably good film with plenty of action and fight sequences with splashes of emotional dis-abandonment to appeal to anyone. The cinematography is especially pleasing to the eye with some really unique camera angles and a bit of slow-mo matrix style wire-fu.
The girl herself (Yuki) is played especially well by Yumiko Shaku who comes across as a strong willed individual but with a troubled conscience. Her nemesis (Takashi) played by Hideaki Ito is plain evil with a relentless violent streak and a penchant for anoraks (!!).
If you are into Japanese cinema and fast-paced action then this should definitely be on your to-watch list (even if it is just for the cool sword fight sequences!).
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