Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Donald Eric (fesgeppt) This actress can act and kick rear end. It is almost scary how good such a slender and little girl can be. She sure has the chops. The story itself is good and entertaining, but mostly cliche. The other actors around the main actress are weak. The Western persons especially are weak and cannot match the Japanese actors. I suppose the limited pool of available foreigners in Japan contributed to the issue. Otherwise, a great buy!

suite92 When very young, Ayaka's karate instructor father was killed and her sister kidnapped.As an adult, Ayaka determines to find out what happened. She has her father's black belt, and the bad folks in the film want to take it in some ritualized way. Ayaka decides to fight back.Will Ayaka survive all the hostile attention? Will the two sisters reunite? Will the director get a better adviser about fight sequences? ------Scores-------Cinematography: 10/10 Excellent, beautiful, professional.Sound: 10/10 Excellent.Acting: 2/10 Rina Takeda was one of the centres of the film, and her performance was not believable: too light, too small, too thin, too unprepared, too little trained, too slow, too inaccurate. Takeda's opponents were too passive and often unmoving; they seldom press their advantage when a decisive blow was available. This sort of PC nonsense is completely the opposite of convincing. The fist, barely moving, of a 100 pound woman stops and repels the flying kick of a 180 pound man? Never has happened, never will happen--outside of a film where the director holds the viewer in utter contempt.Screenplay: 0/10 Should have been billed as fantasy. There is enough material for a 15 minute short; 91 minutes is way too long, especially when the filler consists of insultingly bogus fight sequences.

dee.reid To start things off in "Karate Girl" (2011), there's a murder and a kidnapping. Tatsuya Kurenai (Tatsuya Naka) is a descendant of the legendary Sojiro Kurenai, an Okinawan Karate master of almost mythical stature/status who was also the founder of the Kurenai-style of Karate - which is so deadly it can easily kill a person with only a single blow. Tatsuya has trained his two daughters Ayaka and Natsuki in this style. At the beginning of the film, Tatsuya is murdered by henchmen belonging to Shu Tagawa (Keisuke Horibe), a vile gangster who wants Sojiro Kurenai's black belt for himself. He not only succeeds in killing Tatsuya, but he also succeeds in slaying eldest daughter Ayaka and kidnapping younger daughter Natsuki.We later learn, 10 years down the road, that Ayaka (now played by Rina Takeda, star of the similarly-themed 2009 kick-'em-up "High-Kick Girl!"), now 18, not only survived Tagawa's attempted assassination, but is now a Karate master in her own right and is now the only known living Kurenai descendant around. She has been adopted by another family, and is forced to use her deadly skills to stop a pair of purse snatchers at the movie theater where she works part-time. As expected, the footage of her drubbing the thugs is caught on camera and soon goes viral on the Internet.The news of this catches Tagawa's attention and he soon sends his Karate-trained thugs to deal with her and finally retrieve the coveted Sojiro Kurenai black belt once and for all. Let the martial arts fighting sequences begin!One thing that really caught my attention about this movie was the amount of detail paid to the underlying philosophy of Karate as simply more than a form of self-defense. Much attention is focused on how Karate practitioners are trained never to strike first, only to react to a threat accordingly – because, as we are later told in the movie, a well-trained Karate expert could very easily kill a person with a single well-aimed punch or kick. It is also clearly explained how Karate could also be used for protection, whether it be a person or an object or an ideal. This is why I feel that this film's director, Yoshikatsu Kimura, made a better movie than "High-Kick Girl!," which I also enjoyed but was ultimately disappointed by its third act.I did not feel that way with this movie, directed by Yoshimatsu Kimura. Many will complain about the slow pace, but I find that great care was taken in showing that although Karate is mostly about self-defense (OK, that is its primary purpose, overall), there is a lot more to it than simply fighting. I have not seen this much attention paid to the underlying philosophy of a martial art in the movies since, incredibly enough, the American-made martial arts film "The Karate Kid" (1984). I find that when a martial arts movie gives us something more than just fighting sequences and actually tries to show the audience more about the art itself (italicized), it makes the overall experience a lot more enjoyable.And in terms of fighting, this movie has many. Rina Takeda is a young and highly skilled martial arts actress. It is clear that she is developing into a real dramatic performer, in addition to a young female a**-kicker. She is also an extraordinarily beautiful young woman. She performs many of her own stunts (which do appear to be based on real-life Karate forms), which is about the most authentic thing about her various choreographed action sequences. They are quite extraordinary and beautiful to watch. The action scenes are actually a lot more brutal, too, than they were in "High-Kick Girl!". The only problem is that it suffers from the same predilection (as in "High-Kick Girl!") for slow-motion replays of the fighting sequences, hurting the pace of the on-screen action. Thankfully, this is done only minimally here."Karate Girl," I feel, is a better movie than its predecessor "High-Kick Girl!" and is just as ambitious in showcasing both the dynamic fighting and underlying philosophies of Karate. I honestly hope that Rina Takeda is on her way to America soon!8/10

chrichtonsworld With the compulsory dramatic intro scene you immediately get to know the villain of the movie and the younger versions of the Karate Girls. Come again two Karate girls. Yes,two of them. And both who actually know Karate. The story is very simple. Yet the director thought it necessary to explain what Karate should be about in almost every talking scene. Even in some of the action scenes there seems to be too much talking. The action scenes are adequate but do look very choreographed. Sometimes far too slow and too much breaks during fights. Since the pace of the movie is quite slow it only makes the movie even seem slower. It surely doesn't help that the movie takes itself far too seriously. Especially when the acting is real bad.It is a shame really that the director failed to put in some real excitement. The trailer for this movie looks promising. But like most trailers they put in the best scenes from the movie in there. So in this case you are better off watching the trailer.