Shaolin Girl

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.

Now, a lot can be said about "Shaolin Girl" (aka "Shôrin shôjo"), but comparing it to "Shaolin Soccer" is hardly appropriate, because they are two very different movies. And yes Stephen Chow did produce this movie, but this is not a sequel. The story is about Rin, a Japanese woman who has studied the art of Shaolin Kung Fu in China and now has returned to Japan to honor her grandfather, but Things are very changed from before when she went to China. "Shaolin Girl" is a fairly average movie, which never really managed to strike a lasting impression. The movie just lacked finesse, an interesting storyline, characters to captivate the audience and any outstanding acting performances. So it was a very mediocre movie experience. Several times throughout the movie did I find my focus and concentration to drift away from the movie. There just wasn't anything to thrill or excite me enough to keep me entertained. It was the production level that kept the movie afloat. But a production level can only go so far. A movie is supposed to be entertaining, and that is where "Shaolin Girl" failed. There were surprisingly little Kung Fu in this movie, and it was mostly just about lacrosse and drama. So the movie was somewhat misleading in terms of what you would expect from it given its title and synopsis. If you enjoy Asian movies, then there are far better, much, much better movies available. I can't really come up with a valid reason to recommend "Shaolin Girl" to others.

This is one of those rather strange movies that brings to mind a trendy (hope still is) term of "genre-defying". I don't know how the project got started (nor do I care), but it seems like someone, seeing the success of "Shaolin Soccer", decided to do a "Shaolin lacrosse". In the process, they threw into the pot whatever is their fancy at the moment, and didn't even bother with stirring. Never mind how a Japanese Shaolin Japan teacher in a small town in Japan gave up martial art altogether to become the operator of a small restaurant and double up as a lacrosse coach in a local girls' school. And if you try to figure out what kind of a traumatic experience this guy had that made him send his most talented student, a little girl called Rin (Kou Shibasaki), to China to master the martial art of Shaolin kung fu, you're in for big trouble because as the story unfolds, there'll be a long line of unexplained or unexplainable event and things as long and confusing as this sentence. The first half of the movie looks loosely like a coming-of-age story, with a bit of team spirit, conforming, getting accepted, that kind of stuff. On the other hand, parallel alternating scenes lurking in the background suggest an ominous side, a painfully clear reminder of Anakin Skywalker. As the action intensified towards the end, the movie jumps awkwardly between seriousness and farce, bringing you more things familiar. Painfully obvious is Bruce Lee's "Game of death" (1978), minus the brilliant action sequences. As a matter of fact, there's really nothing to say about the action sequences in this entire movie of "Shaolin girl". What is a little more watchable is the CGI-fu, particularly the use of water, although it is not quite as brilliant as what you see in Hong Kong's "A man called hero" or "Zhong hua ying xiong" (1999) or Korea's "Volcanic high" (2001). Then the whims of the movie makers keep coming and at the climatic duel, they even throw in a bit of Sigmund Fraud for good measure. I like watching Kou Shibasaki and I am happy to see her moving from tragic to comic roles. She is heartbreaking in "Crying out love, in the centre of the world" (2004) and "The sinking of Japan" (2006) (the actress, not necessarily the movies). Then it was delightful to see that she can be so much fun in Dororo (2007). "Shaolin girl" is sort of a filler and a reminder to watch out for the sequel for Dororo, which hopefully will be made.

I really enjoyed this film. It's rare that I come across films that effectively explore spiritual concepts in a way that is accurate, humorous and ambient. This is a hard film to explain, but I will try. The film is a light hearted analysis of vedic dharma. In this film, the seemly unlikely application of dharma, is martial arts. This dramatic irony, sets the basis for some at times slapstick humour. Without this, the spiritual message of the film would would have been bleached out by intense and heavy vibes. The heroine spends the majority of the film battling her subtly understated self doubts. These manifest themselves in her actions as bizaar clumsiness. Eventually, she is cornered into a situation and she bas no choice but to reluctantly act. Stripped of choice, her self doubts disappear, by serendipity all of her dharmic clumsiness focuses into an apex of enlightenment. Now, armed with good intention, integrity, action and her prior training, there is no weapon in the world that can prevent her obtaining her goals! I would definitely recommend this film.

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.

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?

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.