Karate Girl
Year: 2011
Director: Yoshikatsu Kimura
Rating: 6/10
I was expecting this Japanese offering
to be a total low budget cheesy action film with choreography that was amateurish
and bumbling at best - but with a title like Karate Girl I had to give it
a shot. And it is in fact quite low budget with no sets to speak of and it
has a plot so predictable that a child could figure out what was going to
happen five minutes into the film. But that wasn't really an issue with me
because it has two women - well girls really - who kick a lot of ass and
they look good doing it.
The choreography is well done without the
usual rapid speed editing and wires that we are generally given today. They
are the real deal and the moves they display are very impressive with three-kick
to the head moves and off the wall into a kick and hitting multiple people
with one sweep that are all legit as far as I can tell - and the practices
shown during the end credits validate that.
The actress Rina Takeda who plays Ayaka
was 20-years old at the time the film was made had been training in karate
since she was ten. The other actress who is about 15 is Hina Tobimatsu and
I can't find out anything about her background but she is amazing. From IMDB
she only has one other credit in the same year while Rina has a number of
film and TV credits up to the present day. Between the two of them they leave
a long trail of beaten and dead men in their path. At a time when Hong Kong's
Girls with Guns has long passed peacefully away, this brings back memories
of it - though there are no insane stunts - just karate - but Rina is sort
of Moon Lee like, small and cute, while Hina could have a great career as
a bad-ass female killer with a stone and surly face that could give shivers.
It is a shame if she is entirely out of film. During those same end credits
she finally gets to smile.
There is a plot here and a nice smidgeon
of melodrama. The Kurenai style of Karate has been passed down in the family
for generations and a hostile takeover from another karate school kills the
Master, leaves his young daughter for dead and takes away the even younger
sister. But they don't get the black belt - sort of like McDonalds taking
over Carl's but not getting the special sauce. We jump a number of years
into the future - the fellow who did all the evil deeds has created a killer
elite that he contracts all over the world and is training a "killer doll"
young girl. They are looking for the black belt that Ayaka (the left for
dead daughter) still has - and you should be able to take it from there.
Nothing fancy here - a very obvious story with some nice basic action. But
watching Rina (in her short school skirt) and Hina (dressed in black) is
a fair amount of fun.
