Hai kikku gâru! (2009)

Young girl Kei Tsuchiya(played by Rina Takeda)is a very talented karate pupil, trained by her sensei Yoshiaki Matsumura(played by Tatsuya Naka). But Kei Tsuchiya is very arrogant and spends... See full summary »

Director:

Fuyuhiko Nishi

Writers:

Yoshikatsu Kimura, Fuyuhiko Nishi

Stars:

Rina Takeda, Tatsuya Naka, Ryûki Takahashi

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Rina Takeda	...	Kei Tsuchiya
Tatsuya Naka	...	Yoshiaki Matsumura
Ryûki Takahashi	...	Ryôsuke Nakama
Kyôji Amano	...	Kenga
Masahiro Sudô	...	Ryûsoku
Akihito Yagi	...	Kûken
Kazuma Yamane	...	Tentô
Shinji Suzuki	...	Tenha
Mayu Gamou	...	Hien (as Mayu Gamô)
Kazutoshi Yokoyama	...	Kototsu
Ichirô Sugisawa	...	Tenshô
Hisae Watanabe	...	Shûrei
Misako Nagashima	...	Hishô
Fuyuhiko Nishi	...	Akagi-ken
Aya Sugiyama	...	Chôka

Storyline

Young girl Kei Tsuchiya(played by Rina Takeda)is a very talented karate pupil, trained by her sensei Yoshiaki Matsumura(played by Tatsuya Naka). But Kei Tsuchiya is very arrogant and spends her time degrading various other karate students in different karate challenges. One day she is approached by a mysterious organisation called The Destroyers, that wants to recruit her. But too late she realizes that it's not her,rather her sensei Matsumura, they are interested in.

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Plot Keywords:

short skirt | mini skirt | japanese high school girl | eye candy | sexy legs | 

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Taglines:

More than just a cute high school girl. She is a master of Karate!

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Genres:

Action

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official blog [Japan]

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

30 May 2009 (Japan)

Also Known As:

High-Kick Girl!

Filming Locations:

Japan

Company Credits

Production Co:

Hexagon Pictures,Nagoya Broadcasting Network (NBN),Digital Hollywood Entertainment K.K.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

81 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Soundtracks

Future
Performed by Stephanie featuring Roma Tanaka
Written by Joe Rinoie
SME Records

User Reviews

Kicking it high school...

Truth be told, then I wasn't really expecting much from this movie, and with good cause, because this movie failed to deliver anything mentionable.

There aren't all that many Japanese martial arts movies about, and probably with good reason, I assume, as this movie doesn't really do the Japanese martial arts scene much justice.

The story in "High Kick Girl!" ("Hai Kikku Gâru!") is almost not existing. The storyline was so weak that even a blind man could see what was failing to going on here. This was so stereotypical that is was just painful to behold. A classic tale of good having to stand up against evil in overwhelming numbers, and of course emerge triumphant. Kei Tsuchiya (played by Rina Takeda) is learning Karate, but falls in with a wrong crowd, and it is up to her sensei Yoshiaki Matsumura (played by Tatsuya Naka) to save her and bring her back on the path of virtue and righteousness.

Yeah, fairly standard story here, except that there is basically no acting involved in this movie, and what little there was turned out to be stunted and rigid. And to make matters worse, then the dialogue wasn't overly impressive either. This movie is basically just fighting from start to end, and mind you, not overly great fighting or well-choreographed fighting for that matter.

The good parts about the movie was that you could see the kicking actually impacted with people and it was proper kicking, but the punching was half-hearted and weak at best.

Now, one thing that really irritated me in this movie, was the constant desire to show the same scene two times, with either a slightly different angle or in slow motion. What were they thinking? "Yeah, we better show the exact same scene again, in case someone just missed it?" It was frustrating and annoying, and it didn't help further the enjoyment (or lack thereof) of the movie one bit.

And the final showdown scene was just straight out of the generic end of the movie workbook. Here you had one guy against a whole group of people. And of course, the good guy was dressed in white, while the bad guys were dressed in black. In stead of just rushing and surrounding the good guy, and thus taking him down by sheer force in numbers, the bad guys did the classic, stereotypical thing to do. They filed up in line and came at him one at a time in a single-file straight line; and getting beaten up one at a time, of course. And most impressively, was that once the camera panned out, these defeated people littered the entire floor all around, despite them all coming in at him in a single-filed line. Tch, tch... It was just so brilliantly stupid, that you just can't help laughing at it.

It wasn't all bad though. Aside from having to watch the same scene two times in just about every single fight there was, then there were the occasional impressive fight scene or martial arts move here and there. But in overall, the movie was just a shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the head.

Having seen this, I have readied myself for what's to come when I put on the "Karate Girl" ("K.G.") movie from 2011 next. Will that be just as bad as this 2009 "High Kick Girl!" movie?

"High Kick Girl!" is perhaps best enjoyed as a movie you put on the day after a serious drinking binge when you are nurturing a really bad hang-over and just lay flat on the couch, putting on a movie that requires absolutely nothing from your brain to keep up with.

The DVD cover said "more than just a cute high school girl... she's a master of Karate!" - yeah, I will just let that one simmer for a bit as you watch the movie and judge for yourself.