Sonny Chiba's Dragon Princess (1976) User Reviews

Vengeance, She Wrought!

[mwidunn · 6/10 · 6 December 2005]

I saw this for sale at my local grocery store as one of the movies on a two-movie DVD sold for $1. Couldn't beat that! As I have found with some Kung Fu films, the movie begins with absolutely no explanation: just two guys in a church (?) arguing over who will be chosen as the next leader of the local Karate school. Of course, Evil Guy brings along some thugs to settle the question and solidify his position. Good Guy, for some reason, brings along his little girl.

Anyways, Good Guy is irreparably crippled, and slinks off to New York City . . . or, to Los Angeles. (The film shows New York; but, later someone says he went to L.A. Gotta love these films!) Father beats his hatred and desire for vengeance into Little Girl, who turns into a stunningly beautiful Etsuko Shihomi, who is credited here as SUE SHIOMI. IMDb doesn't show this listing for her, though. SONNY CHIBA shows up as a member of Evil Guy's academy, who might have his own reasons for revenge against Evil Guy. Do you think nice-looking Chiba and pretty Shiomi will pull together and fight Evil Guy? Do you "wax off" after waxing on? (R.I.P. Mr. Miagi) I agree that the camera work is quite shaky, and certainly detracts from the fight scenes. Also, there are no "foosh-foosh; fuh-pish, fuh-pish" arm and leg movements like one finds in traditional Chinese Kung Fu. So, that is a difference. However, there are some camera angles and shots that are interesting and nuanced. The editing stinks, thus making some parts incomprehensible.

The story is a carbon copy of so many other martial arts films: Girl sets out to avenge her father's disgrace, meets a guy with "a past" who allies with her, and all the Goodies and Baddies meet up for a final battle. If only they had kept it simple: There's something about a Karate tournament at Evil Guy's academy . . . a storyline which is set up in detail and, then, mysteriously goes nowhere, even though Evil Guy goes to great lengths (like, the island Cuba) in order to assassinate his competition. It's almost as if the directors decided, "Let's be done with this!," and threw out the more involved story about the tournament, opting instead to throw in the easier solution of a final "duel" between Chiba/Shiomi and Evil Guy and his thugs.

Not the greatest Karate film ever made; but, higher marks for promise.

A familiar tale

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 19 February 2021]

DRAGON PRINCESS was made at the same time Etsuko Shihomi was making her SISTER STREET FIGHTER series of movies and it shares a cast with those films too, including Sonny Chiba and the great Yasuaki Kurata. Chiba plays a karate champion early on who ends up getting beaten thanks to a treacherous rival. Shihomi plays his daughter who trains and then heads off to Japan to get revenge. It's as simple as that, simplistic storytelling accompanied by plentiful action, shot through with a stylish eye. The tale never quite reaches the high of the Chiba fight at the beginning and it's not as good as his STREET FIGHTER movies either, but it's still a decent watch for karate lovers.

not so bad

[Ratnose · 7/10 · 7 January 2003]

If you see this one for Chiba - don't!! If you wanna see an action/martial arts flick like a Sonny Chiba movie - then see it!! It has eye gouging and blood enough to please a Chiba fan. And Etsuko Shihomi is a tough chick and kicks ass very well!!!! It is rare to see female action stars in Japan - so indulge yourself to a treat! The fights are good and the story almost nonexistent, but it is great entertainment for a no-brainer evening - and she is actually quite good-looking, so an extra bonus there!!

Don't be fooled by top-billed, Chiba is only in it for 10 minutes.

[Serpent-5 · 31 December 1999]

Sonny chiba is only in this film for the first 7 minutes. Intresting actioner showcase Sue Shiomi's talent as a action star casting her opposite to Japanese action star (who also does Hong Kong films) Yasuaki Kurata (of G-men 75 fame). Good soundtrack and some good action scene helps this poorly put together film. This film actually still played in Cameo, a Los Angeles grindhouse theatre in 1992!

Good movie.

[jacobjohntaylor1 · 7/10 · 17 September 2020]

This is not a 6.2. That is underrating it. I give it 7 out of 10. This a good movie. It has good acting. It also also has great story line. It movie has a lot of action. See this movie it is awesome.

Pretty fun, with swell martial arts action, if imperfect

[I_Ailurophile · 7/10 · 19 February 2023]

It's nice, sometimes, to watch a movie that doesn't even bother with exposition. As soon as 'Dragon princess' ('Hissatsu onna kenshi') begins we're launched into the plot with a scant few words of dialogue preceding a big fight scene; even the subsequent opening credits flash on-screen over further plot development, including leaps in geography and time. Wherever it's necessary to insert a scene of more dialogue than action, it tends to feel like the filmmakers tried to keep it minimal. Though not without its issues, by and large this is a martial arts action flick for folks who like their martial arts action flicks without much filler; provided that's a tack one can get on board with, this is generally pretty fun!

It's dependably well made, of course, with robust production design and art direction, costume design, effects, props, and weapons. The fight choreography is terrific; the skills of those involved in the action sequences are no joke. Acting is the least important aspect of such a feature - and some moments are decidedly over the top as one rather expects of such fare - but still the performances are quite fine. In particular, Etsuko Shihomi handles the lead role well, demonstrating earnest acting ability as the feature allows. I also very much appreciate the varied original music of Shunsuke Kikuchi, which to my delight seems at times to take inspiration from spaghetti westerns for this tale of vengeance while also giving us the upbeat 70s themes we'd hope for. While some of Hanjiro Nakazawa's choices of cinematography are overly embellished, in this case I believe most of the emphatic stylization works in the picture's favor, adding to the ridiculous fun; the same goes for Osamu Tanaka's editing and sequencing, not least during the prolonged climax.

Yutaka Kohira's direction is quite capable; though mostly declining it, there's some splendid, unexpected subtlety at some points in Hiroo Matsuda's screenplay. Of course, maybe all such assessment is beside the point: 'Dragon princess' arranges for just enough story to provide context for the violence (a hair's width above merely being a "vehicle" thereof), and by and large it's intended simply as an entertaining romp. And so it is, most assuredly. Mind you, I'm not saying this is perfect. It still has some problems; not all the editing is so solid, for example, or the sound design; more meaningfully, the title doesn't maintain the same tone or level of action bombast, so it's perhaps a tad uneven. Maybe worst of all, as Matsuda tries to broaden the plot in the second half, he kind of loses sight of it for a small time. A scene of a man and a woman dancing in a club is meaningless; a chunk of plot involving a supporting character is introduced from out of nowhere. Still, if these are the worst offenses a film might claim, then I'd say it's broadly done well for itself; bigger movies have gone far more wrong.

There are no real surprises here. We get exactly what we would expect just from glancing at the premise, the poster, or even the name - the details hardly matter. For the record, those details include substantial violence, some light humor, marginal tinges of cartoonishness, and perhaps a little more variety in the storytelling than one might suppose sights unseen. Be forewarned, however, there is also a scene of animal cruelty. 'Dragon princess' is duly well done, however, and highly enjoyable such as it is. I could have done with a tighter screenplay, either dispensing with some of the storytelling or mindfully rounding it out, but I suppose we can't always get what we want. Whatever faults one might read into it, though, a lot more than not this is a good time with excellent martial arts action, and ultimately that's all it needed or wanted to be. A fairly strong if curt finish helps to wash over the weaker elements, and the lasting impression we have is a good one. There's maybe no need to go out of your way for 'Dragon princess,' but if you like this genre and happen to come across it, it's a fine way to spend 80 minutes.

not that great

[wandering-star · 5/10 · 11 May 2006]

To sum this movie up as briefly as possible (it does not need elaboration)... karate master (Sonny Chiba) is crippled by evil assailants, then trains daughter (Sue Shiomi) in the art of karate, mindless vengeance and coldhearted blood-letting. (I don't know, I would have encouraged her into dentistry or some other respectable profession, but that's just me) There are some good choreographed moves, and Shiomi, like Chiba, displays a penchant for not only kicking an opponent's ass but making a point of crushing her opponent's bones and internal organs afterwards.

In a lot of the fights though, the techniques are obscured by bad and changing camera angles.

Overall, not that great. You are only going to want to see this if you are a Sonny Chiba fan.

A solid and satisfying martial arts revenge item

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 26 August 2007]

Karate master Kazuma (the almighty Sonny Chiba) gets severely beaten up and crippled by a vicious gang of thugs lead by evil rival Nikaido. Kazuma trains his loyal daughter Yumi (a fine and moving performance by beautiful brunette Etsuko Shihomi) in the martial arts so she can exact a harsh revenge on the pernicious bastards. Directors Yataka Kodaira and Yutaka Kohira maintain a steady snappy pace throughout and stage the copious brutal, blood-spilling and bone-breaking fight scenes with plenty of violent aplomb (one especially thrilling set piece has Yumi single handedly taking out a pack of ferocious Doberman Pinchers). Hanjiro Nakada's snazzy cinematography makes nice use of shaky hand-held camera, funky freeze frames and strenuous slow motion. Shunsuke Kikuchi's groovy, rousing "wacka wacka" score likewise does the trick. The villains are a truly mean, nasty and hateful bunch, with the best one being a blind, white-haired swordsman. Shihomi makes for a strong and sympathetic tragic heroine whose sole reason for existing is to avenge her father. A bang-up little winner.

Decent

[AwesomeWolf · 5/10 · 22 December 2004]

Version: English dub.

I found 'Dragon Princess' on a DVD titled 'Masters of Martial Arts volume 4': four movies, on two discs, for $10. Essentially, I bought 'Dragon Princess' for $2.50.

'Dragon Princess' is pretty much 'Sister Street Fighter' with a different name. Etsuko Shihomi is brought up by her father, a karate master, to seek vengeance on those who disabled him. Etsuko then spends the rest of the movie beating up bad guys, with some (but minimal) assistance from Sonny Chiba.

That's about it. Pretty standard revenge plot, decent fighting scenes, but the camera is shaky and its sometimes hard to make out whats happening on screen. Despite the standard plot, there is an interesting sub-plot regarding Etsuko's character 'only knowing vengeance' and having no real life, however, it was done better in 'Lady Snowblood'.

5/10 - An OK karate movie.

This movie rocks!

[tenshin-3 · 8/10 · 31 March 2007]

OK. If you are around my age and went to high school back in the late '70s in Florida, then you probably remember a little Saturday afternoon show called "Black Belt Theatre". Every week they showed another badly dubbed, low budget martial arts flick.

And I LOVED it! It was here that I first remember seeing Etsuko "Sue" Shiomi. I can't remember the actual movie but it might have been Sister Streetfighter. In any case, I was a die-hard fan from then on. So when I first saw a copy of Dragon Princess on VHS a few years later at the local Blockbuster, I scarfed it up. Yeah, Sonny Chiba has only a small part in it and the budget is typically minuscule, but if you can get past that then you are in for one fun ride! Sue Shiomi does an excellent job as the revenge seeking daughter of Sonny Chiba's character. The villains though, especially the blind swordsman, in my opinion steal the show. Each fight is unique and entertaining with the violence being, of course, over the top.

A few years ago I found this gem on DVD. If you get the chance, grab it up. Trust me; you'll have a blast!

13.9% have given THIS movie a 10?! What were they thinking?!

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 13 February 2007]

Regardless of whether or not you love this genre, purely from a technical standpoint, I cannot understand those people who gave this movie ratings of 9 or 10. What were they thinking?! There are many "guilty pleasure" films I love to watch and are fun, but I could never score them that highly because of these technical problems. Oh, well.

If you are a die-hard lover of kung-fu films, then all the problems I mention about this film are pretty irrelevant--you will like the film. It's got all the action you are looking for and all the usual clichés you love and expect. However, for the average viewer, this is a very problematic movie to watch. The biggest problem is the horrendous quality of the DVD. I found it as part of a 9 movie set entitled "Samurai Collection" by St. Clair Video. ALL the movies in the set were grainy and washed-out and most appeared to come from old 1980 era videotapes that had degraded significantly. Of the ones I have so far watched from the set, this is by far the worst quality. It really looks as if someone sat in the theater with a video camera and recorded the film and then they put it in the set. This actually could be the case and since it appears to be a public domain video, there's nothing that can be done about this. In addition, almost none of the movies had anything to due with the samurai (i.e., a Japanese knight) but were kung-fu movies (or some other martial art film).

The beginning of the film is pretty cool, as an evil guy who wants to be named the sensei of a dojo decides to kill his rival to guarantee he gets the job. He enlists the help of some amazing karate experts to kick the innocent man's butt. This is a tad gross, though, so be prepared--you get some pretty amazing eye gouging out scenes so beware!! Oddly, at the end of the fight, instead of killing the man, they let him leave to live in America with his young daughter. There, he trains his daughter as a killing machine so she can return to Japan and seek revenge (duh--you NEVER let them or their kids escape--what was this villain thinking?!). Oddly, although the subtitles say they were living in New York, later they refer to it as Los Angeles.

Once the father dies, the daughter returns and seeks justice. It's interesting to see a lady karate expert but it's also weird to see the film is named after Sonny Chiba in the Western release of the movie. He was a major player in the second half of the film, but I really think they were just trying to capitalize on his name--the movie really does star the young female karate master. Originally, there MIGHT have been more scenes with Chiba, but on the DVD, many of the earlier scenes appear to have been edited out with a Ginsu knife! Although the killing machine lady's back story is clear, Chiba's is a choppy mess! Much of the ineptness of this film may not be the fault of the Japanese crew that made the film but the stupid Westerners who dubbed and edited the film. It's really bad and I wish Chiba would kick their butts for doing this!

The end of the film is about what you'd expect--with all the usual clichés and intense sound effects. The problem for me was that the movie wasn't particularly good. If it were campier (like MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE) I would have loved it more. Or, if the action had been better (like most Jackie Chan films), I would have enjoyed myself. Instead, there were few surprises and nothing to distinguish this dull film within the genre. My advice is see one of the films I just mentioned or a Bruce Lee film--they are simply better.

IGNORE THE TECHNICAL INADEQUACIES. THIS IS A VERY INTERESTING PORTRAIT OF A RELUCTANT WOMAN-WARRIOR.

[EL BUNCHO · 13 March 2002]

Etsuko "Sue" Shiomi stars as the daughter of a karate master who trains her to be his instrument of revenge against those who permanently crippled him. From the time that she's about eight, her father mercilessly trains her in karate, night and day, excluding school and even friends from the young girl's life. She grows into a reluctant warrior with no life at all outside of her training.

Unlike a lot of films that have the same basic plot, DRAGON PRINCESS has at its heart a real sadness for the waste of this poor girl's life. Even if she succeeds at her mission, what then? All she knows is vengeance. The print and film-making quality is not great, but give it a chance for it's unique viewpoint.

Ok karate flick...

[dwpollar · 4/10 · 15 September 2002]

1st watched 9/15/2002 - 4 out of 10(Dir-Yataka Kodaira): Ok karate flick with long-winded final fight scene and shaky camera-work throughout. The camera-work that is done lessons the karate action because it's hard to tell what actual moves are being done and their impact on the intended victim. The plot has been used before(vengeance asked for by the father on his death bed) in films of this genre and there is a fitting ended for those who care enough to stay until the end. If you make it till then, you're a better man than most of us or your interest in the karate action genre is what keeps you close. What you can see of the karate scenes is well-choreographed and this is the reason that I gave this movie a higher rating than what I had originally expected it would receive.

Funky martial-arts period piece.Lowtech high fun.

[roko-7 · 8/10 · 7 December 2006]

Funky Nipponese martial arts period piece.Chiba stamps his trademark well & truly.Things progress along nicely with a standard plot line.Camera-work is a bit dodgy but who cares.The fight sequences are masterfully turned out.Definitely worth a look if you like this genre. This movie has enough blood and action to maintain the viewer's interest though because of its technical shortcomings can be hard to follow at times visually. Lots of dark sequences contributing to the general mayhem with a hokey soundtrack. The dubbed dialog is somewhat stilted,but who cares,this is ultimate fun to watch. Chiba has a long track record for making wickedly masterful fight films,one can only equate the fight sequences with high ballet. This is early fare but still serves up the usual dollop of action.

Etsuko Shiomi and Yasuaki Kurata deserve better

[gridoon2024 · 4/10 · 26 October 2008]

I saw "Dragon Princess" on a double-feature DVD; the other movie was "The Bodyguard", starring Sonny Chiba, who appears only in the opening 10 minutes of this one. It's an appropriate pairing, not only because of the Chiba connection, but because the two movies share the same basic problems: a story that feels stretched even at 90- minutes, lots of pointless filler, and fight scenes that generally don't deliver the goods due to a combination of poor filming and poor DVD transferring. "Dragon Princess" is a little better than "The Bodyguard", if only because there are more and longer fights. And there are some memorable scenes, like Etsuko Shiomi using kung fu against vicious dogs (years before Milla Jovovich did it in "Resident Evil"), a bad guy going crazy when he hears bell noises, and Shiomi & Yasuaki Kurata jumping from the top of a high cliff and landing safely on their two feet. But I can't stop feeling that both Shiomi (who looks really beautiful here) and Kurata deserved a better showcase than this. (*1/2)

Princess Dragaon/Sister Street Fighter

[kattcb · 10/10 · 17 September 2005]

Sonny was the next best thing out there besides Bruce. i've seen this movie back in the 80's, and i loved it. sonny is in the movie enough to make an impact. but the problem is when it came out, it was called Dragon Princess, but when you try to find it, it keeps coming up Dragon Princess but it is actually showing you Sister Street Fighter. this makes it very difficult to find to purchase. etsuko style is sooooo sonny's style. it's sad as her father trains her to take revenge on his life because he knows that he will be killed because of who he is. yes, he is very strick and hard on his daughter, but very protective of her also. a very brutal man you would think the way he is training her, but she loves him. everything that she do in her young life is in preparation for her ultimate challenge in life, her father's revenge.

Decent Martial Arts Flick

[dj_bassett · 6 March 2006]

Actually a pretty descriptive title – the "Princess" is Sue Shiomi, Sonny Chiba's daughter, who he trains to take revenge on the men who crippled him. (Chiba himself is in this movie for all of fifteen minutes or so.) A bit choppy here and there, with some continuity errors, but it's hard to tell if that's in the original print (I saw a dubbed American release). Very loose plot turns into a variation of "your school is better than my school" and the inevitable martial arts tournament, although that's eventually dropped for just a big battle. Shiomi is attractive and seemingly a good actress, the fight choreography is mostly pretty good although there's a tendency to indulge in weirdo camera angles, and there's one great bad guy, a white-haired gentleman who's blind and goes nuts when loud noises hit. Fine of its kind.