User Reviews

Fuyuhiko Nishi's "High Kick Girl!" is a sometimes interesting throwback to 70's martial arts films like "Gekitotsu! Satsujin Ken AKA The Street Fighter" and "Onna Hissatsu Ken AKA Sister Streetfighter" but ultimately fails to provide enough thrills or drama to keep viewers entertained. What we are left with is a plot-less and somewhat boring film whose only trump card is watching cute new comer Takeda Rina kick-ass quite impressively.

Takeda Rina is the latest in a wave of cute, martial artists breaking into the movie scene. In the last couple of years we saw the debut of two similarly lithe and deadly cuties in Luxia Jiang (star of "Coweb" and winner of Jackie Chan's "The Disciple" HK reality show) and Jeeja Yanin (Thai martial arts phenome and star of "Chocolate" and "Raging Phoenix"). Takeda certainly has the skills of an up-and-coming martial arts star being a 1st degree (Ichi Dan) Black Belt in Karate with the Ryukyu/Okinawan Shorin-Ryu Karate-Do Genshin Kai. With her tall lanky frame and long legs, Takeda's specialty seems to be high kicks to the heads of opponents, earning her the movie's title.

Takeda's impressive high kicks and cute face however can't save this "one trick pony" of a movie which suffers under the weight of a weak story and some terrible acting.

The story is lethargic at best and revolves around Takeda's character Tsuchiya Kei, a skilled albeit brash Karate student who spends her time challenging other Karate school students to test her prowess. She is a student of famed Karate instructor, Matsumoto Yoshiaki (portrayed by real life Japan Karate Association lead instructor and former All Japan Karate champion Taka Tatsuya) who is unimpressed by her abilities and who chides her for exploiting her training.

The rebellious Tsuchiya is soon contacted by a mysterious caller who offers her a chance to use her skills and earn money as a "kowashiya" ("breaker" i.e. enforcer). Intrigued Tsuchiya takes up the caller's proposal but before she can start, the caller has her take an initiation to test her Karate. Tsuchiya soon finds herself facing off a number of high school punks in an abandoned building including a group of Sukeban with similar Karate skills. Tsuchiya easily bests the bunch and is soon introduced to the caller who turns out to be Ryuzoku (Sudo Masahiro) a former associate of Matsumoto with a grudge. Ryuzoku is part of a larger mob of other Kowashiya led under the sinister Genga (Amano Koji) who all want revenge on Matsumoto for some unrevealed wrong(it is hinted that Matsumoto was once a part of their organization but left).

Tsuchiya learns that this was all part of a trap to find Matsumoto and get revenge on him. Tsuchiya and her classmate are overpowered by Genga and his minions and it is up to Matsumoto to save them but can he fight through waves of Genga's best fighters in time?

Even though Takeda is supposed to be the heroine of the story, it is surprisingly Taka who dominates much of the last act of the movie and does the lion share of the fighting. The movie seems like one part action film and the other part a Karate instructional video. There are several odd moments when Taka expounds on how to be a virtuous martial artist and use Karate in a responsible way. The films takes a preachy attitude about Karate and patronizes the audience with its message.

While Takeda may be a good martial artist she unfortunately lacks the acting experience to carry a film and while she does an admirable job for a beginner, she is charmless as Tsuchiya and is rather bland as a the Tsuchiya character.

Unlike some of her Japanese predecessors like Oshima Yukari, Nishiwaki Michiko, Morinaga Naomi and recent female action star Mizuno Miki she doesn't quite have the fighting versatility or ferocity to really make an impact. Takeda may be on par with 70s Toei action icon Shiomi Etsuko in fighting skills but lacks her acting skills and on screen charisma.

Taka is stoic and exudes authority as Matsumoto but is also very boring as the Taka character.

The villains suffer the most from character under-development as they merely act as cannon fodder for Takeda and Taka's kicks and punches. It is almost like a video game where one waits for the next opponent to get their face bashed in. Neither Ryuzoku and Genga are interesting as villains save for their stereotypical bad-guy appearances and despite being touted as the badass leaders of this criminal organization are dispatched in shockingly anticlimactic fashion. They don't even put up a decent fight.

Some of the earlier fight scenes are pretty decent and the stunt men and women involved definitely should get some credit for allowing themselves to be on the receiving end of some very painful kicks and hits for the camera. Unfortunately the thrill of the fights is undermined by director Nishi's insistence on replaying and rewinding every fight scene in nauseating slow motion. The first couple of times may have been novel but when it is done for every single fight scene it becomes just plain irritating. It takes away from the action in very dumb way.

"High Kick Girl" is a disappointing action film made on the cheap and which features martial artists trying to act but whose inexperience shows. "High Kick Girl" had the potential to be a Japanese equivalent to the HK "girls with guns" films but failed to live up to those expectations. Perhaps Takeda's next film will be a better showcase for her and allow her more opportunity to act. Maybe she can get her fame through Tokusatsu TV (Live Action Science Fiction TV) although I think she deserves better.

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.

If you want 100% realistic fighting, then "High-Kick Girl!" is the movie for you. This is not a perfect film - what martial arts movie is? - but what gets it by is the fact that all the fights in the film, as I said before, are 100% realistic and used no wire-work or CGI (and if they did, they did a damn good job of concealing it in post-production, but I don't think that's the case here).

"High-Kick Girl!" is a 100% total Karate kick-fest. It's been awhile since there have been any significant showcases for this beautiful Japanese art stateside, but this flick delivers the goods. Kei Tsuchiya (newcomer Rina Takeda) is a teenage Karate brown belt who displays some incredible fighting skills, yet her master Matsumura (Tatsuya Naka) won't promote her to the coveted black belt rank because he feels she isn't ready for it.

To get her "kicks," Kei has earned a reputation on the streets as the notorious "black belt hunter," challenging the highest-ranking students at Karate dojos all over town and taking their black belts as trophies. Through a friend, Kei manages to get an audition for the Kowashiya ("Destroyer") group, a gang of martial arts-trained thugs who control much of the city's organized crime. Kei passes her test by drubbing a group of schoolgirls but is unaware that she is being used as bait to lure her master into a trap. But Kei learns too late when it turns out that the Destroyers have a grudge against Matsumura and are going to use her to draw him out of hiding.

"High-Kick Girl!" was co-written and directed by first-timer Fuyuhiko Nishi (from his own novel of the same name), and it's an impressive debut. He chooses to use wide-angle shots to capture all the action to give the impression to the viewer that all the fighting and acrobatic stunts are indeed real, and no CGI, wires, or camera trickery was used to enhance them. Also worth noting about the fights themselves is their authenticity: many times it looks as if Rina Takeda and company are really going at it by using full-contact fighting. When someone gets punched (or kicked) in the head, it looks and sounds like it really hurts. It definitely adds to the realism that the movie seems so desperately hard trying to achieve, especially in a genre where realism often takes a backseat to the fantastic (and damn-near impossible). (Most impressive about this particular aspect of the picture is the fact that there's no blood or outlandish gore whatsoever, despite the high-impact intensity and violence of the Karate fighting sequences. Additionally, there's no sex, nudity, or gratuitous shots up Takeda's skirt. And did I mention how strikingly attractive some of Takeda's female sparring partners are?)

All of this is a plus in a genre that for a while there, seemed to be on the CGI bandwagon in the wake of "The Matrix" (1999), its sequels, and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000). One last thing is that the fights take up pretty much the entire movie. There isn't a whole lot of time wasted on character development, phony theatrics or dramatics, or unnecessary plot devices. For martial arts movie fans wanting a not-stop fight-fest, this is the movie for you.

The problems arise with the uneven script and the director's choice of including slow-motion replays of all the coolest fighting sequences. This is something that hampered the enjoyment of the otherwise fantastic "Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior" (2003) and Tony Jaa was wise to abandon this trend for his next feature "The Protector" (2005). The reason it's so unnecessary is because it ruins the tone of the fighting sequences and draws them out, trying the patience of the viewer. The most significant low point of the picture, however, is that Kei starts out as such a high-kicking Karate bad-ass - she's arrogant, yes, and undisciplined and has earned her bragging rights, but she's still a bad-ass - but when she is taken hostage by the Destroyers, she suddenly becomes limp, secondary, and a damsel-in-distress to Matsumura's extremely humbled and disciplined one-man army who has come to try and rescue her.

I guess that even with these discrepancies, "High-Kick Girl!" still ends on a good note where Kei has learned a valuable lesson about her experiences and Karate's underlying philosophy about how real power rests in the art's katas ("forms") and not the fists (or legs, for that matter), and that patience and discipline are treasured above all else. Rina Takeda has a great future ahead of her, if she ever chooses that route. Despite her strong skills and being a strikingly attractive young woman (yeah, she's definitely a cutie, in the eyes of this poor male) - and perhaps being the first female martial arts star from Japan since Etsuko Shihomi of the "Sister Street Fighter" films in the mid-'70s - "High-Kick Girl!" is equally Tatsuya Naka's picture, since the stoic, disciplined Karate master becomes a major force in the film's second half, a sort of yin to Takeda's yang.

Karate is a strikingly (no pun intended) beautiful art, which I think was perhaps the point of this movie and why the director went to such extreme lengths to showcase the fighters' abilities when duking it out on-screen. Of course, if his script had been better and the film's protagonist wasn't relegated to a secondary role in the third act, this film would have been perfect viewing for any martial arts movie fan.

7/10

HIGH KICK GIRL! starts off promisingly enough, as Rina Takeda "hunts black belts." Her "hunting" attracts the attention of a local gang, The Destroyers, who promptly try to recruit her (shades of THE PROFESSIONAL). Throughout the movie, characters are introduced by name usually mere moments before they're killed off. I've seen this kind of thing in kung fu movies and have come to believe it's because the movies in question (like THE WATER MARGIN or THE BRAVE ARCHER, for instance) are based on books. HIGH KICK GIRL! is so linear, however, that it's hard to believe it's based on a book (a manga, maybe). Like Kathy Long's character in KNIGHTS, Takeda wades through the opposition like a freight train- and then abruptly steps aside to allow her sensei (Tatsuya Naka) to take over a little more than halfway through the movie (which he does without missing a beat). The action is tight throughout and there appear to be more than a few instances where some solid contact was made. I had no problem with the slo-mo replays, myself. If you like full contact filmmaking, you'll like HIGH KICK GIRL!

Rina Takada plays a girl who is relentlessly pursuing her 'Black Belt' by beating up every top fighter around her neighbourhood. Unfortunately, her challenges draw the attention of an elite group of fighters who have an old score to settle with her Sensei.

As the film goes on it becomes quite boring and dull, it is the age old story of a student who goes off the rails, and then her teacher arrives to save the day...However, the film is not focused on drama, it's aim is to create a amazing fight scenes. And it succeeds to an extent.

The fight scenes are very realistic and brilliantly devised as 'High Kick Girl' takes out her opponents with spinning kicks and head kicks, but the one thing that ruins a perfectly good fight scene is a 'Replay'...and this film has a lot of 'Replays'....An awful lot. Sometimes it nice to see a close up of a kick...But honestly, you'll hate it after Thirty minutes.

All in all, a satisfying Karate movie.

HIGH-KICK GIRL! Is less a movie and more a collection of demonstration fight scenes. It's a very low budget martial arts flick from Japan, notable for launching the career of B-movie queen Rina Takeda, and very good at fighting she is too. But that's all you get - one fight after another. The choreography is very good and the fights are nicely staged and very hard-hitting, but there's no plot, character or development to go with them other than a very bare kind of minimum. Takeda would go on to better things with the likes of the entertaining DEAD SUSHI.

Just a few remarks.

The main character is a girl, ill-tempered, vile, strong, and cute. The story is non-existent. Well, if you ask me, the trifle plots in numerous kung-fu flicks are irritating. Why not make a movie where the main hero is arrogant and beats everybody just for fun? Here you are. Brilliant. The Japanese have made something the others did not dare.

The fights are realistic. When Bruce Lee jumps 2 metres high in one of his movies, the reaction from my side is obvious: cut the crap. Here nobody makes anything "on the strings". Just pure karate moves. Simple and to the point. No big talks are present. Usually we have a lot of empty talking in action Hong Kong flicks. Here it's different. Every face-off is very psychological. A cruel glance, a wicked smile, an optimistic nod of the head, an artistic flick of the wrist... It's a ballet of emotions, quite cruel to boot.

Impressive fighting scenes are present which are often quite unexpected. For instance to me it was simply clear as day that the fight between the girl's teacher and the bad guy in the coat with the knife would be a lasting one: 5 minutes at least. But in reality it was a couple of seconds. Like in reality. Applause from my side.

Marvellous replays are here. Very often you want to re-watch certain kicks and punches - here you don't have to use your sticky RC - the filmmakers are doing it for you. Groovy. Every cool move can be witnessed twice and at a different speed.

It has mystery, if everything mentioned is not enough. Who are those "Destroyers"? Why are they this tough and youngsters are eager to work for them, not sparing their own lives? No answer to that.

Is there any moral lesson? Yes. The karate girl was too snobbish and as a result she is humiliated with her pretty face to the floor in front of the bad guys and her own teacher.

Finally, it's something absolutely different from the run-of-the-mill Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee flicks. The unknown to me little girl from Japan did something any Tony Jaa cannot achieve, however hard he tries.

Somebody mentions "Chocolate" in one of the reviews. No, "Chocolate" is much inferior on my scale, because it presents the unoriginal plot development, is absolutely unrealistic action-wise, and has that pointless clown-character-boy who distracts quite often. Besides, it has no mystery.

So, as a result, it's my favourite MA movie right now. Pure gold. Can't wait to re-watch this film again one of these days.

A 10 out of 10. Thank you for attention.