Princess Blade (Special Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Boring beyond belief
Review: Boredom...boredom..boredom. Some Japanese movies move to slow and are filled with nonsensical dialogue. This is one of those movies. The brief swordplay is interesting, yet the movie itself just couldn't keep my attention.

Rating:
Summary: Fresh take on martial arts movies
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Wasted potential thy name is Princess Blade.
Review: This modern remake of The Lady Snowblade is very thin. If you want an entertaining movie with quirky characters, lot's of jokes and a deep enthrauling storyline...well look at Versus or Samurai Fiction because I had been looking forward to PB for a while now and it really dissapointed. The movie has some amazing action set pieces for ten minutes in the begining and for ten minutes at the end. The action is thin and so are the characters, the love story was to weak for me and I'm a guy! I really wish it was better because it really could have been. I truly believe the japanese have the leg over the hong kong film industry in there ability to appease American audiences. But still, there are much more entertaining alternatives to this film. Now if you still want to see this despite my warnings, the film is not entirely without it's merits. It is beautifully shot, if not a little drab and depressing, and the action and the acting when it's put to work it works.