Yep, you guessed it: another cheapo martial arts movie. Those of you who've been patiently waiting since January for me to put a new article up are probably apt to find this less than thrilling, but don't worry, I should have some more interesting stuff on the way soon. Mr. Boogedy, anyone?

Anyway. The film begins at a run-down church. Two ominous-looking dudes, clearly pissed off about something, watch as a third man (Sonny Chiba) enters the building, accompanied by a little girl (whose name, we eventually learn, is Yumi). Some stilted dialogue ensues: one of the ominous-looking dudes wants to fight (and presumably kill) Sonny Chiba's character in order to remove him as a candidate for a "karate instructor's job" that he's really keen on getting (good dental plan, probably). Chiba's character insists that there's no reason to fight over something so trivial, since they're both "good karate men" and equally deserving of the job, but the ominous dude manages to call him out anyway, and they start fighting. Chiba's character (his name is never mentioned, at least in the dub, but IMDB calls him Kazuma) immediately gets the upper hand, but ominous dude has a bunch of henchmen hidden in the church, and they go to town on him with swords and sais and knives and stuff. The fight goes on a while, but after an evil old guy (incongruously dressed in a sort of tasseled cowboy jacket similar to the one David Carradine always used to wear in Kung Fu) throws a knife in his eye he's pretty much down for the count. Rather than kill him, however, ominous dude tells him that he's willing to spare him if he gets out of town. Kazuma accedes, has Yumi pull the knife out of his eye, and staggers out of the church. When next we meet the two, they're living in New York, and Kazuma is busily inculcating within Yumi a burning desire for revenge (and, naturally, teaching her karate). Yumi grows up during a training montage as the credits roll (adult Yumi is played by Etsuko Shihomi).





Some sparring sessions between Kazuma (now sporting an eye patch and a mustache) and Yumi ensue. (The fight sequences, I should mention, are generally pretty good, but the action is filmed so close it's difficult to really make sense of what's going on -- an issue that wasn't helped by the framing problems on the DVD I had). Finally, we get on with the plot: Chiba's character dies and sends Yumi off to Tokyo to get revenge for him (he claims that Nikaido, the finally-revealed name of the ominous dude, is now "lording it over the karate world" over there and killing people and stuff). So Yumi goes to Tokyo.

Shortly after her arrival, while walking down the street, she bumps into a comedy-relief chucklehead named Kitaro who steals her wallet. She follows the poofy-haired doofus and gets it back, then somehow makes friends with him (I suspect the dub skipped over some details, as dubs are often wont to do). Next, we cut to Nikaido at his karate dojo, taking on like ten students at the same time. He makes quick work of most of them, but one promising student, Masahiko, actually manages to get a few knocks in, which serves to establish him as a character we should be keeping our eye on. Later that same day, Yumi appears at the dojo to challenge Nikaido. Unfortunately, he's gone home for the day, and so have his top students (the Big Four), so she has to settle for smacking around a random crazy misogynistic spaz. Masahiko duly takes note of her skillz.

Next we're shown Nikaido yukking it up with a politician. Turns out he's arranging some kind of big martial arts tournament to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the opening of his evil Cobra Kai-like dojo, and he wants the politician to fund it (in exchange, he promises to make all the millions of students who will inevitably flock to his dojo vote for the politician). The politician agrees to this specious Machiavellian scheme, but appears to be more interested in the pleasantly plump geisha girls surrounding him than anything else. Meanwhile, Yumi meets with her grandfather, at whose home she'll be staying.





Some time later, Nikaido's goons (I guess he's running an extortion racket, too, in addition to his lording over the karate world) show up to harass Kitaro. He spots Yumi as he's being beaten up, and appeals to her for help; she naturally proceeds to kick the crap out of the goons. They later retaliate by siccing some dogs on her while she's wandering around in the woods for some reason, but she manages to repel them with her karate (specifically, she jams her fingers in their eyes, after punching them around a bit). Nice.

Anyway, to ensure that his students win the big martial arts tournament he's putting on (he won't attract as many students if his school loses), Nikaido conspires to kill all of the especially skilled entrants. He sends his assassins (the ones who attacked Yumi's father at the beginning of the film) to Cuba and South America and apparently some other places to eliminate them; this leads to several long fights between the assassins and the martial artists that eat up probably about ten minutes. The Big Four, meanwhile, are called upon to kill Yumi, but Masahiko, overhearing, volunteers to do it himself. He and Yumi get into a long fight (to the tune of some slick waka-chika disco music). In the end, Masahiko loses (deliberately, we're led to suspect) and is harangued by Nikaido and his men. Fed up, the villain sends his assassins to kill her.

The assassins (old guy with cowboy jacket, sword-wielding guy, and sai-wielding guy) duly show up at Yumi's grandfather's place. Amusingly, she accuses them of killing her father, despite the fact that he died in New York years after they attacked him back at that church. Anyway, before they can begin killing her, Masahiko appears, explains that Nikaido killed his father (the karate instructor whose job Nikaido and Kazuma were vying for, I think) and starts smacking 'em around. Together, he and Yumi (whose arm is broken by one of the baddies) manage to drive them off. Yumi then sends a letter to Nikaido, challenging him to a duel to the death, which leads to the film's final big action sequence: Masahiko taking on a bunch of Nikaido's students (and the Big Four) while Yumi fights the remaining assassins and Nikaido himself, one-handed. They both win, needless to say.





For what it is -- a low-budget karate movie made in 1976 and inelegantly dubbed into English -- the film isn't bad. The fights are decent, it's got a modicum of star power (Sonny Chiba is cool and Etsuko Shihomi -- also known as Sue Shiomi -- is well respected within the genre), and the plot, though boringly straightforward, is at least easy to follow. Ultimately, though, I don't think I can really recommend this one, for two reasons: 1) The sloppy, shaky, amateurish camerawork (full of zooms and ridiculously close close-up's), which really hurts the action sequences, and 2) the sheer stunning predictability of the plot. The fact that Yumi will grow up to avenge her father is blatantly obvious from the very beginning (why else would she even be present at the scene of his fight against Nikaido?), and the roles Masahiko's and Kitaro's characters will come to play in the story can be seen coming a mile away.

I can't say I wasn't occasionally entertained here, but on the whole, Dragon Princess isn't anything to get excited about. There are better 70's karate flicks out there.

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