High Kick Girl

[TenTigers]

ok, so I was browsing through netflix instant plays, and out of curiosity and boredom, clicked on this flick.
If you are looking for cute Japanese girls in Sailor Moon schoolgirl dresses, hoping for "upskirt" scenes, you will be sorely dissapointed.(although there are definately some cute girls kicking some serious arse.)
What you will find is traditional Karate, traditional philosophy, and nicely choreographed fight scenes, repeated in slow-mo to show the incredibly controlled contact.
If I am not mistaken, I believe these are the same people who did "Kura Obi," or "Black Belt," another excellent flick worth the watch. They seem to be coming from the same place; showing traditional Japanese Karate technique and values.

[sanjuro_ronin]

ok, so I was browsing through netflix instant plays, and out of curiosity and boredom, clicked on this flick.
If you are looking for cute Japanese girls in Sailor Moon schoolgirl dresses, hoping for "upskirt" scenes, you will be sorely dissapointed.(although there are definately some cute girls kicking some serious arse.)
What you will find is traditional Karate, traditional philosophy, and nicely choreographed fight scenes, repeated in slow-mo to show the incredibly controlled contact.
If I am not mistaken, I believe these are the same people who did "Kura Obi," or "Black Belt," another excellent flick worth the watch. They seem to be coming from the same place; showing traditional Japanese Karate technique and values.

I really enjoyed Kuro Obi and though the lessons were quite good.
The choreography was OK, not great, but not bad either, but the lessons that BOTH fighters learned were quite interesting, very "yin-yangish".

[Jimbo]

I gave a little review of High Kick Girl some time back in the recent purchases thread. It's a pretty decent movie, though very different from Black Belt. The girl's teacher is played by Tatsuya Naka, who also played the aggressive, 'Yang' karate expert in black belt. He actually dominates more of the action towards the end than Rina Takeda.

I would classify High Kick Girl as a lesser-quality film than Black Belt. It looks more like a straight-to-DVD quality film. Also, the slow-mo replays can be annoying, esp. at the beginning. Sometimes the replays are shown more than once. But the basic message of the movie is much more 'traditional' Japanese karate than the title or the front cover would indicate. I saw Rina Takeda in a karate mag from Japan, and she looks like a Kyokushin or derivative style, and her kicking style mainly resembles that, and maybe with some TKD influence. But she is an actual martial artist, not just an actress or pop star only trained for the film.

[TenTigers]

I agree, watching the way they fight, block kicks, their fighting posture, all resembles Kyokushin.

[Scott R. Brown]

I didn't make it past the first fight scene. I usually like any MA movies as long as the fight scenes are fairly good, but this one started out so lame I couldn't take it. Does it get better? Should I give it a second look?

I really liked Thai movie Chocolate!

[TenTigers]

I didn't make it past the first fight scene. I usually like any MA movies as long as the fight scenes are fairly good, but this one started out so lame I couldn't take it. Does it get better? Should I give it a second look?

I really liked Thai movie Chocolate!

Chocolate was great.
No, the fight scenes aren't amazing, they're enjoyable, and show traditional technique.

[GeneChing]

I looked this up for Karate Girl. It needs a trailer.

HIGH KICK GIRL! TRAILER / ENGLISH SUBTITLE　VER

official site