Samurai Princess (2009)

As habitual readers of Toxic Graveyard know, I love the new wave of Japanese gore flicks. From The Machine Girl to the mighty Tokyo Gore Police to the lesser known Meatball Machine, the Japanese are doing splatter right.

Samurai Princess is set in the future past where people are able to become “mecha” or people with weapons built into their bodies. One evil doctor is responsible for the murder of several people to fulfill his “art” of creating new beings from several humans. Our hero is one such piece of “art,” assembled from 11 of her friends into one hot mecha. Now she must find the evil doctor and get her revenge.

Quality wise this follows the trend of shot on video with lots of practical gore. The story is silly and meanders far to much and I felt we were just watching filler between fights. The action and vibe of the whole film is that of a live action old school anime which brings a certain type of cheese that I rarely find palatable. I had high hopes here as the film was written and directed by Kengo Kaji, the writer of Uzumaki (film) and Tokyo Gore Police, my favorite J-gore film. Those hopes were not realized. Sure, it had wacky weapons like boob grenades and a chainsaw leg but the action was far to cartoony and poorly done for my taste. CG blood sneaks its way into the film and hampers the film to this old-school practical fan.

Samurai Princess finds itself far below Tokyo Gore Police but above Sukeban Boy in the heirarchy of the new wave of J-gore. If you love the genre as much as I do, you’ll check it out anyway and honestly you could do a lot worse. If you’re knew to the scene check out Tokyo Gore Police first to see the true potential of the genre.

Gore: High

Nudity: mild

Overall: 6/10