Samurai Princess (Samurai purinsesu: Gedô-hime) Review

Movie: Samurai Princess (Samurai purinsesu: Gedô-hime)
By: Maniac E
Date: May 25, 2012

No Samurai, No Princess, but Gore!

So the Japanese ultra-gory, Looney Toons, Manga in motion, blood soaked genre trundles along with yet another limb severing entry, 'Samurai Princess'. But for a genre that has only hit the mainstream in recent years, it already feels like the bottom of the barrel is being scraped. After the surreal and dizzyingly fun heights of 'Machine Girl' and 'Tokyo Gore Police', surely the genre hasn't peaked already?

The film's plot is essentially nonsense, with Aino Kishi playing neither a samurai nor a princess, but an android killing machine stitched together from the parts of eleven young girls who were raped and killed by a particularly nasty gang of miscreants. Brought back to life by a mad scientist, she sets off on the usual revenge spree, slicing and dicing her way through hordes of strangely clad enemies and bizarre villains.

Given its director and the involvement of Yoshihiro Mishimura, most viewers should know well in advance whether or not "Samurai Princess" is likely to be a film for them. For those who don't, or for the curious, the first 5 minutes of the film will make things abundantly clear one way or the other, featuring such delightful scenes as the heroine removing a man's brain to quite literally read his mind and her detaching her breasts to hurl at her enemies. Certainly, the film is bloody even by the standards of the genre, packing in an impressive amount of dismemberment, evisceration, mutilation and shots of characters being torn apart by freakish villains with weapons for body parts.

The violence is incredibly cartoonish, and hard to take seriously, and although the effects are imaginative and well-handled, if you're familiar with this directors work you should know what you are getting into. The acting is mostly poor and cinematographer sucks and the action can induce seizures. However, this film offers cheerfully sick entertainment for those with strong stomachs and is nothing but pure fun. If you come into this film with ANY other mindset you will be frustrated that you wasted 90 minutes of your life. The director can't even frame a shot properly, and the action, for all the lovingly realized gore it leads to, is not exciting.

The film does suffer from many of the pitfalls common to the genre, mainly in that it looks rather amateurish and cheap. Although Kaji has obviously put some effort into the film's mythology, it's crazy half defined future setting and the characters back stories, it all ends up being lost thanks to the low budget, which aside from the effects didn't seem cover more than people in outlandish costumes wandering around the woods. His direction is wild and unfocused rather than kinetic, though generally enthusiastic enough to inject a certain energy into the proceedings, especially during the insane fight scenes.

All of these are minor criticisms if you are familiar with these movies, with the gore factor and general insanity being the main draws, and for fans of the form "Samurai Princess" certainly more than delivers. Definitely one of the better and livelier examples of Japanese Gonzo madness movies, it offers cheerfully sick entertainment for those with strong stomachs and a fondness for low budget wackiness.