KG: Karate Girl (2011)

KG: Karate Girl (2011)
Japanese Title: KG: カラテガール
Translation: KG: Karate Girl

 

Starring: Rina Takeda, Hina Tobimatsu, Tatsuya Naka, Kazutoshi Yokoyama, Richard Heselton
Director: Yoshikatsu Kimura
Action Director: Fuyuhiko Nishi

 

In 2011, there was movie released in Hong Kong called Choy Lee Fut. The movie was, in my eyes, an attempt to cash in on the success of the Ip Man films in that it tried to glorify a Southern Chinese kung fu style, namely choy lee fut. The film was a colossal failure in doing so. For starters, there wasn’t a whole lot of action in the film, and what action there was consisted of very little authentic choy lee fut. Bad move. That meant that in order to glorify this particular kung fu style, the characters ended up saying “Choy lee fut” every few lines, as if doing so was the equivalent to Donnie Yen beating up a whole bunch of black belts in less than three minutes. The movie also set itself in that strange alternate universe where huge corporations have nothing better to do than to harass small kung fu schools and set up tournaments with the intent of forcing said schools to sell out to THE MAN. Other than a good non-choy lee fut fight involving Kane Kosugi and a guy calling himself “X-Man,” the film is largely a waste of time.

I bring that up because the Japanese production KG: Karate Girl is in many respects the spiritual sibling to Choy Lee Fut. Its budget is even lower than the change spent on Choy Lee Fut, but at least it spent it on people who really know karate. Like it’s Hong Kong counterpart, KG spends a lot of time glorifying karate by having the characters say “karate” every few lines, but at least it gives the actors ample opportunities to show that they know it. The movie also sets itself in some strange alternate universe where evil rich villain types have nothing better to do with their time than to harass small dojos and steal their black belts and kidnap the sensei’s children. But at least it has an ultra-cute Rina Takeda (High Kick Girl and Kunoichi: Ninja Girl…does anyone sense a pattern here?) in a schoolgirl outfit beating people up.

The plot is simplicity itself: An evil guy shows up at a dojo and sends his goons to beat up the sensei and take his daughters. Although the sensei is largely able to defend himself, he does take a few katana whacks to the back and ends up expiring there on the floor, while the villain makes off with the youngest daughter, Natsuki, and the black belt. Years later, the older daughter, Ayaka (Takeda), is a grown-up karate expert working a movie theater. One day she fights off a pair of purse snatchers and becomes an online sensation.

This gets the attention of the evil guy, who’s now in a wheelchair after the beating Ayaka’s dad gave him, who had recently discovered that the black belt he stole wasn’t the one he was looking for. Evil guy sends Ayaka’s brainwashed sister (Hina Tobimatsu) and another fighter to go to Ayaka’s dojo and challenge her. The two beat up all the students before Ayaka steps in and sends them packing with a few simple moves. Natsuki goes back and challenges Ayaka again. Ayaka notices a striking similarity in their fighting styles and comes to the conclusion that it’s her long lost sister.

By this time, evil guy’s gang is beginning to tire of Natsuki, so they have one of their number challenge her. He loses, but the little girl is still taken hostage. Ayaka is forced to don her fan service schoolgirl outfit, waltz into the villain’s hideout, and beat everybody to a pulp in order to rescue her sister and restore honor to the family karate style.

So yeah, there’s not a whole lot of plot here. The script, as I mentioned before, is pretty dumb. The film was obviously made on the cheap, with sets and locations used quite sparingly (abandoned warehouse, gym, movie theater, top of building). There aren’t many special FX, save the opening animation that talks about Ayaka’s family karate style. There apparently wasn’t any money available for stunts, so nobody gets kicked through furniture like they would be in a Hong Kong film of a similar budget. The direction is bland overall; Yoshikatsu Kimura really should have told his editor to shorten a number of talking scenes, which go on far too long—I’m thinking of the first scene with the bad guys set in the present day. The movie is less than 90 minutes, but it could’ve come closer to 80 and not lost a lot.

A movie like this lives or dies on its fighting and thankfully the action is good enough to warrant a rental. The karate here is portrayed in a similar manner to most chambara films, in that one or two hits are generally enough to incapacitate an enemy for good. That’s keeping with the spirit of karate, although the fact that it’s two girls, one of whom is barely a teenager, delivering such hits to men with a lot more muscle mass, may make it a little hard to swallow. The action lacks the rhythmic exchange of punches and kicks that defines Hong Kong kickboxing choreography, and its one-at-a-time approach to group fighting is more conspicuous than many other martial arts films. My brother-in-law, who routinely watches fight scenes from diverse films at my request, thought the scenes were good, but noticeably slower than your typical Hong Kong film. It’s not that the techniques themselves were slow, but the rhythm of the fight scenes themselves was a notch down on the velocity scale. On the upside, there are few (if any) camera tricks on display, as there is no wire-work and less replays than this film’s predecessor, High Kick Girl, apparently had.

The movie really belongs to leads Rina Takeda and Hina Tobimatsu, who are a pair of extremely talented female martial artists. Hina Tobimatsu is the young Japanese Hwang Jang Lee of the new generation, which is a truly empowering compliment. Her first big fight, where she beats up almost everybody in Ayaka’s dojo, is one of the most fantastic displays of non-wire kicking I’ve seen since Dan Chupong dished it out in Born to Fight. Rina’s kicking isn’t quite so flashy, but she’s more powerful and (I suspect) used more authentic karate—some of the flashier kicks that Tobimatsu uses look more like tae kwon do than karate. Rina’s fights channel the spirit of karate a lot better than Hina’s do, since she uses basic ridge hand, reverse punches, and elbows to great effect, even blocking a hit with a hit and taking down her opponent thus. Rina’s fight against the goons at the end as some great flying kicks, plus Takeda going buck on the nunchaku, which is always fun.

This makes a good party movie for fans of action and martial arts. Whenever somebody isn’t beating the tar out of their neighbor, you and your fans can chat up a storm. But when the action starts, you can all join each other in fawning over the greatness that is the female cast.