cjk_35 Usually I start reviews with a plot summary, but it is not necessary. The title says it all. It's Japanese, but don't worry about having to keep up with the subtitles. None of the dialogue is worth reading. All of this movie is, is lousy fight scenes and training in between.Now I could write about the acting, the directing or the production design etc. but I'm not, they are all lousy. Instead I'm going to write about the fighting, because when it comes to a movie like this, that is what is important. The fights are mildly entertaining. They are obviously fake. Very few of the attacks look painful. In a few shots it visible that the punch or kick doesn't make contact, yet the actor still acts like he is in intense pain. All of the fights are rather one sided and feature basic fighting moves. There is nothing amazing in this movie. No dangerous stunts or amazing attacks. Sure there are high kicks, but they are all replayed and disrupt the flow of the scenes.Now I would like to touch on the camera work. I usual don't notice the camera work in movies, but it was terrible. There are jump cuts, shakiness and odd angle that make the fight scenes even more unpleasing. There also long pause to create drama, but only create yawns.There is one good thing I can say and that is that the movie is inspirational for teenage girls interested in karate. The main character is someone that girls can relate to. She is also a good role model. At the beginning of the movie she is disobedient. Then over the course of the movie she learns to respect her teacher. It does teach some morals for teenage girls. It also show the amount of discipline need to learn karate.Over all I give the movie a four out of ten and that is generous.

kingofalldomains-919-751049 First off the movie "Chocolate" absolutely demolishes this movie in the amount of action and REAL martial arts skills displayed. As soon as I saw the length of the previous review, (overly long and just too-detailed)and the fact that the review disses an obviously superior film like Chocolate. I suspected that the review was planted...Oops I meant biased as is most times the case.High Kick Girl is another in the long line of overall slightly disappointing girl karate movies, all with great promise, all ending in mediocre results.Part of the issue is that JeeJa Yanin star of Chocolate is a real martial artist of amazing skill, and when it comes down to it, lesser skilled "actresses" just cannot cut the mustard when the action starts, even if fast camera edits/cuts attempt to simulate a fast paced frenzy. Sorry but this is no substitute for REAL talent, although I am sure there will be plenty more pretty Japanese school girls to see fighting in the future, (if poorly).As for High Kick Girl itself...do you like slow motion? you better because every scene with some martial arts kick is repeated over and over again, there are also scenes that have little to do with the plot added as well as other scenes where the action just stops. you'd think the DVD has a glitch in it. I think the director realized there just isn't much plot and tried to stretch the film out to a still short 85 minutes. High Kick Girl not terrible, but a poor choice.

zetes After Prachya Pinkaew's awesome Chocolate, I've been hungering for more female-starring martial arts movies. This one supposedly stars a teenage girl named Rina Takeda. Takeda isn't that bad in the martial arts department. In fact, all the martial artists seem pretty good at karate. But whoever choreographed the fight scenes was extraordinarily unimaginative, and the director is downright awful. The titular girl starts some trouble and gets her friend and herself kidnapped. They are being used as bait by a local karate gang to lure in her karate teacher (Tatsuya Naka). Much of the movie is actually Naka fighting, so the High Kick Girl is regulated to second banana status for at least half the movie (honestly, I guess I'm not too bothered about that since she's not that attractive anyway). The sound effects are even worse than those old-fashioned chop socky movies from the '70s. The film moves at a sluggish pace, with characters standing around staring at each other or their defeated victims for minutes at a time. To make it worse, the film hasn't even a hint of a sense of humor after the opening sequence (the only part of the film that's even remotely watchable). Each challenger from the evil gang is named for us via subtitles, yet only one of them can take more than two kicks before falling down, presumably dead since the final sequence takes place in a high school gym (did I mention the horribly unimaginative shooting locations?) and Naka beats up like 50 people (way less fun than that sounds). The first guy had to have been lying their for 20 minutes, and still he shows no signs of life. And, saving the worst offense for last, whenever there's a karate move that's even remotely cool, which, in the director's mind, is approximately 90% of every move the characters do, we get to watch it again. Sometimes it's in slow motion, sometimes not, sometimes from a different angle, sometimes not. Once in a while, the shot will literally play at normal speed twice in a row. I estimate that the editor padded this POS out another 30 minutes, bringing its grand total up to 81. To add insult to injury, the credits sequence ostensibly is meant to show us bloopers, in the grand tradition of Jackie Chan. But only in one of the shots can you even tell there's a screw-up. Most of the time you're watching the same fairly unimaginative karate moves for the third time!

ebossert The greatest cinematic invention is this: A cute schoolgirl in a short skirt kicking butt. Yep, I'm a sucker for movies like this. All I ask is that there be plentiful exhibitions of well-choreographed buttkicking by cute schoolgirls. "High Kick Girl" provides a lot of this for the opening 50 minutes or so, but then takes a turn for the worse.There are a number of positives to this film. First of all, there is a ton of fighting here. I didn't actually time the length of the action sequences, but it felt like they occupied more than half of the total running time. This is a good thing. Secondly, the martial arts choreography is 100% realistic. Not one move required the use of wires, and most of the actors gave an impressive exhibition. Thirdly, the lead actress has an intimidating, arrogant persona and it's fun watching her taunt and humiliate her opponents. Fourthly, there are a handful of cute schoolgirl baddies that the protagonist battles with. Fifthly, the camera-work uses a lot of wide shots so that the viewer can see everything clearly. There are also some fairly long sequences without cuts or editing gimmicks.Unfortunately, there are a number of negatives to this film as well. The biggest problem is the rampant, undisciplined use of slow motion replays. The viewer is shown a strike at regular speed, followed by a replay of that same strike in slow motion. At first this was useful because some karate strikes are somewhat deceptive and fast, but as the film went on the slow motion just killed the fluidity of the action all together for two reasons. First, slow motion replays were shown for very basic strikes (e.g., a straight kick to the gut), which is worthless. Second, the final confrontation uses sequences that are first shown in slow motion, then replayed in SUPER slow motion. This was a major miscalculation on the part of the filmmakers because the scene just drags and drags into mind-numbing boredom. It felt like they were just padding the running time to break 80 minutes. Not good.Another problem is Rina Takeda's inexplicable turn from intimidating buttkicker to worthless wimp during the middle section. She pummels a whole school of big dudes at the beginning of the film, then goes into a shell and plays victim/hostage for most of the second half. In addition, she was fairly inactive during the finale and only took down one baddie in a not-so-awesome fight. (Tatsuya Naka takes over from there and looks impressive though.) One other thing that bothered me was that this film introduces a really cool, acrobatic schoolgirl villain near the midpoint, only to then completely forget about her for the rest of the movie. This was another terrible decision by the filmmakers that made the final fight even more disappointing because the viewer will automatically expect a throwdown between Takeda and the antagonist schoolgirl. It never happens.I disagree with anyone who claims that "High Kick Girl" is better than either one of JeeJa Yanin's films ("Chocolate" and "Raging Phoenix"). Yes, Takeda was very impressive and is a talent to look out for if she decides to do more movies, but I suspect that martial arts "purity" will be the only true reason for someone to prefer "High Kick Girl." There's more to action movies than "purity" though, and JeeJa Yanin's flicks have finale's that blow "High Kick Girl" out of the water irregardless of whether or not wires are used. In addition, the storyline to "High Kick Girl" is just as limp (if not more so) than JeeJa's movies, so there's no advantage there either. I guess the reader will just have to watch them all and make up their own mind.I would still recommend "High Kick Girl" despite its flaws. There's more than enough fun to make it worthwhile.