The Princess Blade (2002)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: The action is fast and tightly choreographed, but The Princess Blade never draws its disparate elements into a compelling movie.
Movie Info
Cast
as Princess Yuki
as Takashi
as Kidokoro
as Kuka
as Kuka
as Byakurai
as Byakurai
as Aya
Critic Reviews for The Princess Blade
All Critics (28) | Top Critics (11) | Fresh (16) | Rotten (12) | DVD (2)
Delicately rendered, if full of pretty banal sentiments, the film's softer central section is a necessary counterweight to the other two acts, which are largely shot in an oppressive blue filter.
[Yumiko Shaku] doesn't project the confidence or menace that the role requires. Trying to pass her off as a stone-cold assassin is like casting Britney Spears as Marie Curie -- it just doesn't jibe.
Its corny streak brings the movie too close to cut-rate Chinese Opera epics than should be allowed.
Great movie, mediocre script.
The cast, in its quiet, iconic way, is superb.
The Princess Blade would have been better off forgetting the love story and concentrating on the kick-ass action.
Audience Reviews for The Princess Blade
A cliched revenge story but enjoyable none the less. Pretty decent fight scenes and a good soundrack to boot. Enjoyable enough but not one I would strongly recommend. If you need to watch Japanese girls swinging swords watch 'Azumi' instead of this, after that watch 'Azumi 2' and if you're still not satisfied 'The Princess Blade' may help.
Super Reviewer
Japanese slash-'em-up based on comic book material. Disappointingly lacking in action during the middle parts where it gets a little slow, but when the action gets going it's pretty cool and stylishly choreographed, all masterminded by action star Donnie Yen. Would have been nice to have a little more fight sequences and blood spurting to go with it too. Overall nothing memorable here unfortunately, but it's not a bad film.
Super Reviewer
The heiress to the leadership of a clan of wandering assassins finds out that they were responsible for the death of her mother and cliches ensue. Based on a comic book, The Princess Blade is yet another in a long line of modern day samurai movies involving a bunch of MTV style sword waving, slow motion high kicks and pirouetting stuntmen, punctuated by deathly dull melodrama as two hard asses "learn to love". The fight scenes are adequately handled and the pretty cast nice to look at, but the hackneyed plot consisting of a constant trickle of dreary dialogue spouted by one dimensional characters means it's extremely difficult to give a crap what happens to any of them. Safe to say that the girl gets her revenge, the villain gets a good stabbing in the end and I wish I'd spent the previous hour and a half watching Azumi instead. Yawn.
Super Reviewer
The Princess Blade Quotes
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