The Movies That Moved Me: Shinsuke Sato’s THE PRINCESS BLADE
A modernized revamp loosely based on “Lady Snowblood” manga lore, The Princess Blade is set in future dystopia and centers on the Takemikazuchi, a band of rogue killswords who sell their skills to the highest bidder. Yuki (Yumiko Shaku) is one such mercenary, and more than a mere formidable member of the group that is now hunting her down upon learning of her birthright, and the truth of her mother’s death.
After barely escaping to safety, our would-be heroine soon finds herself on a journey of introspection whilst in the care of gas station attendee, Takashi (Hideaki Ito) who also happens to be the member of a faction rebelling against the government. As she heals and the story progresses, both Yuki and Takashi eventually warm up to another in a series of moments that glimmer some semblance of escape or peace within reach, although it’s not long before that respite reprieve is cut short.
The rest of The Princess Blade doesn’t toil away much at Takashi’s story with respect to his group’s cause. There’s an air of intrigue and betrayal the movie touches upon while largely focusing on making sure Yuki’s tale is brought full circle, eventually confronting the Takemikazuchi and its nefarious leader, Byakurai (Kyusaku Shimada) once and for all.
The Princess Blade was my first dip into the then-growing filmography of Shinsuke Sato. While I haven’t immediately been able to access or otherwise check out a lot of his other work, the praise he receives in the mix of reviews and reactions he gets from critics and fans alike is enough to supplement the positive messaging. It makes me glad that he’s the one who got to direct a live-action take on Bleach and eventually the Kingdom movies – to which I absolutely must see more – and even more excited about what’s next from the director.
In the meantime, it’s safe to say that Sato delivers the goods in this otherwise low budget affair, with stimulating action sequences by Donnie Yen who, at this juncture, finally got a few spells in Hollywood and other areas of film and TV around the world. Doubles notwithstanding, he and Sato pull out as many stops as they can to make the stunning Shaku and the cast look as apt as they do on screen from top to bottom. My only wish from that point on is that this film got a sequel considering how exigent and dark most of the final moments of the film are before cutting to the final shot of Yuki overlooking a lake with a sword in hand.
I gotta say though, the only thing that hits harder than Sato’s lean and cunning direction and Yen’s action design is Kenji Kawai’s score. That man knows how to scribble a tune together and it makes the most sense why it is Yen worked with him for as long as he did on multiple other projects from Tsui Hark’s Seven Swords and Wilson Yip’s Dragon Tiger Gate all the way up to the current four Ip Man films.
I’m gonna leave a sample of that here while I instead queue up United Jazzy, the J-Pop girl group behind the film’s end credits song, “The First Night”. I can’t remember if I bought this movie at the once-existing Suncoast branch at the Manhattan Mall here in NYC or through the now defunct HKFlix (I do remember splurging some extra cash for the film’s two-disc version at Suncoast though), but I would play my DVD right through the credits just to hear it…
Alas, I’ve only recently discovered the music video for this gem. You’re welcome.
