Stylishly photographed but indifferently scripted, the would-be action movie Yakuza Princess fails to live up to its eye-catching name. Director Vicente Amorim manages the visual end of cinema just fine, but thanks to flat action and inconsistent performances, he can’t deliver a satisfying story to back up that great look.
The movie opens with a flashback from 20 years ago, when a Yakuza massacre wiped out much of the then-infant Akemi’s family, including her grandfather, a major underworld figure. Today, the adult Akemi (Japanese singer Masumi) is trying to learn about her mysterious grandfather. Meanwhile, her search is juxtaposed with that of the shady Shiro (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who after a severe beating has awakened with no memory of his identity or purpose; he does, however, have an exquisite sword that may be the key to his past.
Set mostly in São Paulo, Brazil, which a title card announces is home to the largest Japanese community in the world, Yakuza Princess has a terrific setting. Cinematographer Gustavo Hadba immerses us the city’s colorful seediness, vivid fluorescent colors splashing out of wet streets so gorgeous you’d almost be happy to watch somebody read the phonebook out loud in such a place.
But even though these characters do considerably more than read the phonebook, the movie takes forever to kick in. For the first half-hour, the heroine who’s apparently the reason for this production’s existence barely registers; brutal childhood memory aside, there’s nothing to distinguish her other than her need to avenge her family. Akemi’s personality isn’t given enough detail to flesh out a person we’re invested in, and Masumi, who has some presence in her pop gig, doesn’t do anything to fill in the blanks.
When Akemi finally kicks some ass and joins forces with Shiro, who may or may not really be an ally, the movie comes briefly alive, and Meyers, who turns in the most compelling performance here, helps carry things along. But the script, cowritten by Amorim and adapted from the graphic novel Samurai Shiro, never builds momentum, either dramatically or kinetically. There’s enough plot to go around, with the kind of shifting alliances that comes with any movie of this ilk, but despite the revenge set-up, you get little feel for what drives these figures. And you can populate an action movie with competent fighters all you want, but if those alliances aren’t backed up by tangible passions, who cares?
Yakuza Princess is a long 111 minutes, but it’s not a complete waste; a few impressive set-pieces help build on that fantastic franchise-worthy look. But for the most part it doesn’t make good on its time-worn premise of revenge. How hard can it be to make an audience feel for a young woman whose family was murdered when she was a toddler? The filmmakers beckon you with an inviting title and a fully-realized visual world, but they can’t figure out what to do with it.
Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing
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