This movie start more or less with a premise similar to Fighter in the Wind, in a more teenage style. A young girl goes around from Dojo to Dojo to collect black belt out of karate expert, similar to FITW when Oyama travel to meet every master he can to prove he is the strongest. But the problem is, this is as far as it go... She fight ONE dojo only(the movie tell yes she has fight many before but thats it). So after that opening scene, lets say the story is very thin, but if you watch many martial arts movie, i saw that many times especially in Thai movies(this one is Japanese tough) so its not that much of a problem, as long as the fight scenes are solid right? Yet this movie fail on that point too... The fight could had been pretty good, but the movie is plagued by awful slow motion all the time, worst it even goes to show super slow-mo of an already slow motion scene.... I love a repeat of a killer blow to finish a bad guy once in a while in a movie, or a slow mo to show a super hit, but here every damn punch and kicks are turned into slow-mo... Which just artificially boost the movie lenght and make the fight slow paced and boring. Even the sound effects are terribles...
And what about adding some music to fights? Barely some poor Japanese pop music in a couple scenes and thats it. No really i am super easy to please when it comes to martial arts movie, i enjoy pretty much everything from Thais "no plot but superb fighting" movies, to the good old American "revenge kickboxing flicks". I loved many movies that people gave less than 5, from the cynthia rothrock flicks to don the dragon Wilson, but this one was a mess and i was bored all movie long. I don't mind cheesy Japanese style, when its what I'm looking for. Look at Oneechanbara, that was exactly what i tough it would be, cheesy, over the top, unrealistic stuff. But here i was expecting a serious martial art movie, even in the vein of a Japanese Karate Kid type, but i was wrong. Poor movie, score goes to the actors martial arts skill, cause with a good director, they could go make an awesome movie.
And what about adding some music to fights? Barely some poor Japanese pop music in a couple scenes and thats it. No really i am super easy to please when it comes to martial arts movie, i enjoy pretty much everything from Thais "no plot but superb fighting" movies, to the good old American "revenge kickboxing flicks". I loved many movies that people gave less than 5, from the cynthia rothrock flicks to don the dragon Wilson, but this one was a mess and i was bored all movie long. I don't mind cheesy Japanese style, when its what I'm looking for. Look at Oneechanbara, that was exactly what i tough it would be, cheesy, over the top, unrealistic stuff. But here i was expecting a serious martial art movie, even in the vein of a Japanese Karate Kid type, but i was wrong. Poor movie, score goes to the actors martial arts skill, cause with a good director, they could go make an awesome movie.