Rating: 
Summary: Amazon's Princess Blade is a cut above
Review: (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.
Rating: 
Summary: ------A MUST SEE MOVIE A-LA ANIME MOVIE-------------------
Review: -----A MUST SEE FOR ALL MARTIAL ARTS FANS.THE FIGHTS WERE DONE BY IRON MONKEYS *****DONNIE YEN******IT HAS BRUTAL SWORD FIGHTS.
IT JUST A WELL DONE MOVIE..............----------IF YOU LIKE THIS MOVIE WATCH "AZUMI"---------------
Rating: 
Summary: This movie was a major let down
Review: Acouple years ago there was a Asian Film Festival in Philadelphia. One of the films playing at that festival was Princess Blade. However I missed the screening and was very upset. When I was finally able to purchase the DVD release of the film I was very excited. However after viewing the film I was very disapointed. The main problem I had was that the heroine is not a believeable asassin, during the action it seems like she can barely hold onto the sword. The film is not very well acted and this does take away from character development. There are a few fights in the film that were somewhat entertaining. That is why I gave the film 2 stars, overall I did not enjoy the movie at all.
Rating: 
Summary: Worthy, Yet Overhyped, Effort
Review: After checking out this movie from hearing so much about it, I definitely had to say that this movie was okay. The movie felt very professional and had a lot of potential, but in the end it seemed forcelly chopped up and incomplete. I really wished this movie went into a lot more detail and filled in some of its plot holes. If you're an Asian cinema fan, it's worth a look. I would highly recommend a very similar, yet more complete and superior, Japanese flick called "Azumi" by Kitamura, which came out around the same time.
Rating: 
Summary: Japanese movies are like Steven Segal movies
Review: All of Steven Segal's movies are very similar to each other. All of them have the same 3 ingredients: #1 kung-fu fighting, #2 gun shooting, #3 sword fighting. The same can be said of Japanese action movies. They're all exactly the same.
But I will admit that I would prefer to watch a Segal movie than to watch Princess Blade again. At least Segal's movies have better plots and better storylines.
I hate the way Princess Blade tricks the audience during the opening scene. In the opening, a man shoots bullets at her and she dodges the bullets by doing a slow motion, Martrix style, somersault flip. BUT THAT IS THE SINGLE ONLY TIME SHE DOES THAT TYPE OF MOVE ! In the rest of the movie, she does regular fighting without any special camera effects ! So don't be fooled by what you see in the beginning, this is just another very low budget kung-fu movie.
Another complaint of mine, is a scene where she had been injured and started to bleed (a lot). She lost about a gallon of her own blood, which she was laying in, after she passed out on the floor. But despite her enormous blood loss, she recuperates herself and she kills about 15 bad guys who were in much better health than she was.
Rating:
Summary: Unexpected Pleasure
Review: At first I was very critical while watching this film; the quality of the picture; the acting; the camera work during the action scenes. But then something happened, I started to care about the main character. Then, even when I felt the action scenes could've been shot better, I got involved in them. I ended up really liking this film. It is slow in parts, but just to develop a story. I was surprised over all. I think it is worth renting.
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: Royal Mess?
Review: Excellent photography and astounding action pieces aren't enough to lift THE PRINCESS BLADE to the status of royalty. Through the confession of an old friend, Yuki learns that she is a royal princess whose bloodline can restore peace to a future world on the brink of chaos. Since her mother's death, however, Yuki has come to serve a 'society of assassins,' so reclaiming her birthright will not only involve personal sacrifice but an awful lot of bloodshed by the individuals her put in her in present predicament. Fleeing for her life, Yuki is befriended by a young man and his shut-in sister. Together, the three of them discover the meaning of family ... before tragedy once again puts Yuki on a course of self-redemption. Despite some great performances and a mythic storyline, PRINCESS meanders weakly through most of the dramatic passages where Yuki attempts to recapture her lost humanity. However, once the blades are pulled, the film soars to terrific heights. Just don't expect much in-between ...
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Don't let anyone tell you this is a good movie...
Review: good reviews of this movie are another example of the kindheartedness of movie goers... after reading the hype surrounding this movie, i did a foolish thing... i bought it sight unseen. another harsh lesson learned. onto the movie: a transparent plot coupled with terrible acting and dialogue, one would think that at least the fight scenes would redeem this film. guess again. crappy SFX, silly posing and posturing stop any hope of the validity of this as a movie worth watching, let alone owning. the introduction of out-of-place random characters, no explanation of even the secondary characters roles and no evident trace of final resolution all add up to this being one movie to avoid even on penny night at the local vid-mart. in the words of the great urban poet Chucky D: don't believe the hype.
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