January 13, 2014 | Features | Comments

Lab Rat James tries to determine the events of the alleged Japanese "film" Samurai Princess... without any subtitles. Do its themes transcend all languages and cultures? Let's hope not.

OBJECTIVE: Give Bill twenty bucks every month. Watch the foreign film he brings back without any subtitles. Figure out what the hell is going on.

SAMURAI PRINCESS (2009, Definitely Japan)

I call it Samurai Princ-Ass.

REMAINING CHANGE: It was a “gift.”

THE PLOT AS I UNDERSTAND IT:

For my first viewing, Bill graciously gifted me a revenge thriller Japanese torture porn. Our heroine, Samurai Princess, narrowly survives a harrowing encounter with a marauding pack of gang rapists (the Rape Boys), then swears an oath of vengeance against them. In a sense, this movie is the Japanese equivalent of Kill Bill, because I want to kill Bill for making me watch it.

No, Bill, fuck you.

Roughly the first half of the movie is framed through two characters: a voodoo magic oracle and a wandering rock ‘n’ roll legend with a comically large bandaged hand and a furry guitar. Guitar Hero patronizes the oracle and she responds by telling him the tale of the Samurai Princess, which is the worst punishment imaginable.

Samurai Princess is left for dead at the bottom of a pile of oddly Caucasian body parts, but she is rescued by the village oracle, a young woman made to look old by shitty white make-up and a veil. At the same time, an insufferable douche in a white kimono, flanked by two women who can only speak in unison, sifts through the pile of white men’s feet. Apparently, people congregate around meat mountains because there isn’t a single object in any scene with which the characters can interact. The movie has more empty sets than a middle school play because 200% of its budget was spent at a Halloween shop on fake intestines and bloody bandages.

The Activities Room.

Luckily for our heroine, this asshole is also a doctor who specializes in creating monstrosities from recycled body parts. Imagine Dr. Frankenstein, subtract any message about humanity because this guy does it for the fuck of it, then add stupid hair accents.



Dr. Jack Sparrow.

Samurai Princess is revived in a bloody cocoon, fitted with detachable murder boobs and a sawblade chest. She swears an oath of vengeance and heads out searching for the gang leader, Albert Rapenstein, and his unsettlingly attached girlfriend.

Our titular character.

Guitar Hero and Samurai Princess team up after Guitar Hero unknowingly pisses off a ledge onto the sleeping princess. In terms of male-female interactions, this is the most respectful and least offensive part of the movie. As a bonus, it feels like tangy justice is served warm because Samurai Princess has been pissing on the viewer the entire time. After a brief run-in with Guitar Hero’s bitter ex-lover, our two protagonists steal away inside an empty building, get patched up, and make sweet, sweet consensual love inside Samurai Princess’s dreams. Although having two consenting adults was a nice change of pace, the scene lasted about six positions too long.

The much, much anticipated– so sorely anticipated– showdown between Samurai Princess and Rapenstein ends with a three-person body count: bitter ex-lover’s friend, Rapenstein, and his sadistic Bonnie. HOORAY! The movie is ove–how the fuck is there 25 more minutes?!

Here’s how: Dr. Jack Sparrow was behind this bullshit all along. Somehow. Guitar Hero starts roughing up that sonofabitch for answers, until Dr. Jack Sparrow unleashes his greatest creation.

Of course.

Guitar Hero proves his worth (none) almost immediately, loses his monster hand, and leaves the fight. Samurai Princess employs her trusty ol’ arsenal of anatomical aberrations, but fails pathetically. She even summons the power of a cutely knit bag of pixie dust that her friend entrusted to her right before she became the Rape Boys’ last victim, to no avail. Dr. Jack Sparrow’s Cock Monster repels her every move and bites off her hand with its monster cock.

What happens next might be described as a deus ex machina, but this movie is definitive proof that if there were a God, He abandoned us long ago; however, the Devil is still around to extend this piece of shit movie for another ten minutes. Lo and behold, right there on the ground next to the princess is Guitar Hero’s severed hand. She just snaps that shit right into place on her own bloody stump, contemplates how lucky she is that they both lost their right hand, and kills the Cock Monster to avenge all of her raped-to-death friends by ripping its goddamn heart out.

Pictured: Not a single victim of the Cock Monster.

Dr. Jack Sparrow tries to escape, Guitar Hero heads him off in a sewer and kills him with a classic rock ‘n’ roll/gaping chest wound combination, Guitar Hero bleeds out and dies, and my DVD mercifully skipped over the final scene because it was damaged. There is a God!

THE “OKAY, YOU LOST ME” MOMENT:

There’s a flashback that depicts how Guitar Hero lost his hand that makes absolutely no sense. In the scene, he approaches a bloody woman wielding a sickle who’s been caged inside a barn, and she seems possessed. I think the woman is the same actress who plays the girl who dies in the fight against Rapenstein, but that might just be a racist guess. Guitar Hero approaches her tenderly and puts his hand on the fence keeping her inside the barn and breaks the curse. Just kidding! She bites him, he goes inside the barn, she chops off his hand, and he kills her. But he really didn’t want to, guys. Who was she? Why was she possessed? Why couldn’t she just kill him and save us from this?

HOW MUCH I ENJOYED WHAT I THOUGHT WAS HAPPENING:

Not one bit. There are some universal interactions that don’t require any spoken language, and rape is one of them. In a way, Samurai Princess transcends language barriers with its rape and murder, but that notion somehow doesn’t make my insides feel warm and fuzzy; although, that might have something to do with staring at eviscerated corpses for the past hour-and-a-half. If you really feel like getting the kind of satisfaction Samurai Princess has to offer, I would recommend trying to become Kim Jong-un.

And now, Cinemanaut Bill ranks James on his ability to comprehend the film.

Nailed it: It’s true, Samurai Princess isn’t exactly drowning in subtlety. Or taste. James successfully figured out which characters hate which other characters and who killed whom with chainsaw rockets and spinning titty grenades. Nice work piecing that puzzle together.

It’s true, Samurai Princess isn’t exactly drowning in subtlety. Or taste. James successfully figured out which characters hate which other characters and who killed whom with chainsaw rockets and spinning titty grenades. Nice work piecing that puzzle together. Failed it: There are a few contextual items that went right over James’s head. First of all, the lady in the barn cage is actually Guitar Hero’s sister, and she went insane from Dr. Jack Sparrow trying to cure her crippling illness… with robotics. Rapenstein and his girlfriend are self-proclaimed “artists” that create robots from the people they kill. Oh, and speaking of robots, Samurai Princess is not “revived” so much as “made from the parts of eleven different women,” including their souls, hence the screenshot with all the faces. And finally… I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this, James… the scene where Guitar Hero accidentally pees on Samurai Princess is a painfully long dialogue exchange where she keeps informing him that his tiny little dick is nowhere near as big as the thick meaty penises of her rapists. It’s the worst piece of comedy I’ve ever experienced, and I once sat through an entire Jeff Dunham special against my will on Thanksgiving.

There are a few contextual items that went right over James’s head. First of all, the lady in the barn cage is actually Guitar Hero’s sister, and she went insane from Dr. Jack Sparrow trying to cure her crippling illness… with robotics. Rapenstein and his girlfriend are self-proclaimed “artists” that create robots from the people they kill. Oh, and speaking of robots, Samurai Princess is not “revived” so much as “made from the parts of eleven different women,” including their souls, hence the screenshot with all the faces. And finally… I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this, James… the scene where Guitar Hero accidentally pees on Samurai Princess is a painfully long dialogue exchange where she keeps informing him that his tiny little dick is nowhere near as big as the thick meaty penises of her rapists. It’s the worst piece of comedy I’ve ever experienced, and I once sat through an entire Jeff Dunham special against my will on Thanksgiving. Improved it: James, the only way you could have made this movie better is if you threw it in a wood chipper and punched me in the face. I promise never to screen your assignments two hours before I drop them off again. Lesson learned.

FINAL GRADE: A-

James S. is a member of the Portland Comedy Co-op and doesn’t really use Twitter.