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Shaolin Girl
A Shaolin-trainer young woman returns to Japan to resuscitate her grandfather's defunct martial arts school.
Release : | 2008 |
Rating : | 4.4 |
Studio : | TOHO, Fuji Television Network, Star Overseas, |
Crew : | Production Design, Cinematography, |
Cast : | Ko Shibasaki Toru Nakamura Kitty Zhang Tenky Tin Kai-Man Lam Tze-chung |
Genre : | Action Comedy |
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Reviews
The first must-see film of the year.
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.
what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
The start of this movie was very promising - girl get sent to the shaolin temple as a child to learn the shaolin style and to control her inner power which "if she cannot control can lead her down the dark path". She returns to Japan all grown up to see the family dojo abandoned and decrepit. The sensei working as a chef and is unwilling to do Shorin Ju (shaolin style). A bad guy who seems to be in control of a corporation that is developing the strongest and the best. Add a team of cute girls from the lacrosse team. Sounds like we have a winner here.Unfortunately after that intro...probably first 15mins of the film it goes downhill. There is no character development. I mean totally NONE. As to her inner power, don't see any of it nor any inclination she may be turned to the dark side. In fact she is all earnestness and sweetness throughout.The bad guys sole purpose is to fight her to see how good she is and to challenge himself. Thats it, no other purpose other then an ego boost. The fight scenes are not bad but some clever camera angles and editing made them passable. A lot of use of CG, some very bad. The last bit was horrible. The bad guy kept telling her to turn/give in to the dark side...when did he *bleeping* become Darth *bleeping* Vader plus at no point did she show any inclination of darkness or inner conflict. And the ending.... all I can say is what the *bleeping* *bleep* is that *bleep* This movie had a certain B movie feel to it, lol I kept expecting for the locker room/shower scene with the girls from the team. Unfortunately it never happened. lol.In summary this is a Kids movie. They will find it exciting. Not horribly bad but far from good.
This, I'm sure, is a great film... if it's purpose is to interest 12 year old girls in the martial arts genre, but personally speaking, I was sorely disappointed.First off, most of the characters are simply annoying, although in fairness I wouldn't necessarily include 'Rin' in that category, but the general level of acting acting in this movie was also poor. In fact some of the characters may have come across far less annoying if some of the actors had put in better performances.I quickly realised this was more of an odd kind of drama than an action film as it seemed to take forever before Rin's fighting abilities were even displayed. I kept waiting for a decent fight sequence. And waiting and waiting and waiting...And when the moment finally arrived (after a whole hour) the choreography was disappointing to say the least, one could almost say laughable.I realise this is not a movie that takes itself seriously but it would have been better if it had thrown itself fully into the Lacrosse aspect of the film which was more prevalant than anything else anyway, but it even failed to commit itself properly to that. It could have been to Lacrosse what Shaolin soccer is to... well, soccer. But in the end it was neither here or there.As for the final battle, well, what can I say except 'Kung-Fu Hustle'!!! The last scenes were almost identical. Shamefully so in fact. Having said that, maybe Shaolin Girl should have actually borrowed more from the brilliant Kung-Fu Hustle and at least may have injected some fun into the whole affair.Overall a real shame. I truly expected to enjoy it. It had potential and it did have it's rare moments, but sadly it was - as the saying goes - a damp squib.
Overall this was a pretty good movie, though Japanese actors tend to over-act their parts too much making me want to punch the character Minmin on many occasions!The title of my review pretty much sums up what this movie is about and how I took it. There was some fun action scenes that really keep you involved, but they are more over-the-top than the much better movie "Shaolin Soccer." A lot isn't explained in this film; i.e., they'll show you something, leave it alone for a long time (sometimes never addressing what it was all about) or just show you some arbitrary scene just to fill time.I liked the film and think that anyone who wants to see a fun film in the similar vein of Shaolin Soccer or The Last Dragon should check it out. Don't expect anything too serious and try to ignore the cheesy acting you get from some characters. Oh yeah, a more apt name would have been "Shaolin Lacrosse" instead of Shaolin Girl, because that's pretty much what it is, like mentioned in the trivia facts on this site.
The current comment on the front page for shaolin girl is, I think, overly negative and sceptical. Granted I haven't seen Shaolin Soccer so maybe it seems a lot more original to me - but nevertheless this is a really good movie; the slapstick comedy is great, if you take it in the spirit it's presented (laugh at the cheapness of the jokes, not the jokes themselves). I loved the unnecessary references to Star Wars, The Matrix, Bruce Lee and probably some others i missed - as well as the usual trademark stuff from Stephen Chow (nobody stepped on an eagle though, which would have been epic).Basically the film's got comedy, cute Japanese girls (with lesbian overtones) and martial arts. How is it not rated higher?