High Kick Girl was a film I watched once 10 years ago and sadly didn’t think too much about it until I realized it was the 10 year anniversary (May 30th) this month. I remember thinking I’ve never seen a martial arts film from Japan before and that the first time actress, Rina Takeda seemed promising from the trailer. So after rewatching it with a more detailed eye (I do this a lot now since I deconstruct fight scenes) does the film hold any sort of merit or will it just fade in obscurity until its next anniversary?

This is an odd one to talk about without really knowing the details behind the production but I’m going to just make lots of speculations until someone tells me I’m wrong. Right off the bat, you can see that there isn’t too much of a budget with this film, especially considering that the final showdown takes place in what looks like a high school gym. That does make some of the aspects of the movie a little more forgivable…

The story is pretty simple too and one I actually wished they fleshed out a bit more. Rina Takeda is the titular High Kick Girl named Tsuchiya Kie. She is an extremely skilled brown belt in karate and goes around fighting other students from schools in order to defeat them and take their black belts. Her sensei, Matsumura is a traditional karate instructor who wants her to learn by the old ways, which obviously includes spending more time on katas and training. She doesn’t believe there’s any real world use for these things so she accepts a challenge to join a local gang called the Destroyers. It turns out this was just a trap however, as one as the gang members has an old grudge with Matsumura and is now using Tsuchiya and her friend as bait.  The odd thing about this movie is that I described the plot in 4 sentences and there are maybe a little more than 4 scenes devoted to explaining it. The film is extremely simple in giving us story which is kind of nice because the rest of the film is all fighting. So you’d think this would be a good thing?

Unfortunately, despite the fact that there are a decent amount of fights in High Kick Girl, the editing is non-existent so we get multiple takes of the same sequence shown twice: once in normal speed and then again in slow motion. On “special” occasions we get a third take showing a different angle… Wait what? This wouldn’t be so bad as it’s used nicely in the first fight scene but then they do it in EVERY fight scene in the film and it just ends up padding the run time and ruining the scene’s momentum. Here’s where one of my speculations is going to come into play. The movie is only 81 minutes long and I have a feeling there’s actually a solid hour here that they decided to bloat in order to make the proper movie length. This is a shame because there are actually some pretty decent choreography in some of these fights and the entire flow gets thrown off when they show you the same moves but at a different angle and different speed. I think another aspect where the budget is showing is the lack of ADR on what seems like most of the fights. I believe what we’re hearing is the actual recordings of people getting hit instead of a sound effect. There’s a strange realism to it as the moves lack those stock impact hits we’re used to hearing and instead, we get these real slaps and thuds. Adding to the fact that many punches and kicks make direct contact to the face, it all seems like we’re watching amateur fight footage. It’s kind of surreal.

For martial arts enthusiasts, there’s some nice choreography sprinkled throughout but you really need to look past the lack of editing and take it by piecemeal. One of the standout fights is when Rina battles a bunch of school girls her size and it feel like the scene was influenced by Ong Bak as you have girls taking hits to the face, crashing through tables, and to top it all off a flaming pole that ignites the actress’ arm! It’s some pretty neat ideas that feel constrained by unknown influences. Immediately after that, Rina and another smaller girl start going kick for kick at eachother’s shoulders and you can really feel them going at it. Incredibly impressive that these 2 ladies are holding their ground and absorbing those blows. As messy as the final showdown is, there are also some really impactful takedowns by her sensei, Matsumura. The one that comes to mind involves one poor Destroyer jump kicking at him but then getting kicked in the thigh midair and dropping like a rock. So good!

High Kick Girl aims high but probably should have set the bar lower in order to fill out more story with this incredibly short run time. Unfortunately I haven’t seen Rina too much after this which is a shame because this movie is a pretty impressive demo real. The film itself is a tough watch as a whole but I can definitely say watch the fights online, just be prepared for the repetition that comes with the whole package.

On a side note, I feel like anyone who edits might see this movie and think “I can fix this!” which has been something that’s been running through my head since I’ve watched the film. Perhaps removing these 2nd or 3rd takes might speed everything up and make it seem less redundant despite shortening the entire experience.

Zero lends his thoughts on martial arts to the Fists of Fail podcast and also creates drink along reviews called Only Nice Things.

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