Yakuza Princess: Ersatz Japanese-Via-Brazil Actioner is Anastasia Put Through a Meat Grinder

By Thom Ernst

Rating: C

It might seem incongruous to accuse director Vicente Amorim - a Brazilian born in Vienna and educated in the U.S. - of cultural appropriation. But what he’s not is Japanese.

His film Yakuza Princess comes from a graphic novel written by Danilo Beyruth, who is also a Brazilian. But the continuous thread of non-Japanese influences heaped upon Yakuza Princess does weigh heavily on the film. And it’s a thread that begins to unravel from the opening scene.  

Japanese popstar MASUMI seeks revenge (and sings karaoke) in Yakuza Princess.

Perhaps there is a degree of acceptable cultural appropriation of which I’m unaware. If so, Yakuza Princess exceeds it with careless neglect. Not that the film misrepresents Japanese culture or its people enough to offend, but it does breach a perspective protocol. 

Amorim whittles the source material, Beyruth’s Samurai Shiro, down to a gang war-style Anastasia. But it’s Anastasia told through a meat-grinder. Yakuza Princess is a mess of violence where limbs are severed with efficiency and skulls pried open like coconut shells. The violence is in keeping with the film’s dedicated nod towards Samurai movies and Japanese police procedurals. But Amorim’s influences seem to lean more towards a Tarantino style of excess rather than alluding to artists like Takashi Miike or Kinji Fukasaku. 

The film begins in Osaka, Japan, in the 80s. A picture-perfect family gathering turns into a Punisher-style massacre that leaves a young Akemi, the infant child of a Yakuza Lord, orphaned.  

Years later, Akemi (played now by Japanese popstar MASUMI) struggles to hone her skills with a sword as a way of honouring her now-deceased grandfather, who plucked her from the massacre that killed her family.  She is a formidable warrior but falls frustratingly short of her birthright.  

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

When not disappointing her sensei, Akemi works the counter in an open-air market of a busy street.  We’d assume we’re still in Osaka were it not for an on-screen chyron indicating that we are in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which has the largest Japanese community outside of Japan. 
Although the information the chyron offers is helpful, it feels defensive, as if the Brazilian landmark authorizes Amorim (and Beyruth, for that matter) to tell this story any way they want.

The story continues beyond its cultural realm by introducing Shiro (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an amnesiac patient with unflinching hostility. One can hardly miss the weight of his emotional despair when he stares into a mirror and asks, “Who are you?”

Answer: You are Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The bigger question is, “How did you end up in this film, and why agree to a full-frontal nude scene?” 

Then again, some queries are best left unanswered. 

Rounding out the film’s four central characters is Takeshi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), a Yakuza soldier determined to protect Akemi, and the treacherous Kojiro (Eijiro Ozaki), determine to see Takeshi fail.  

Yakuza Princess is a passable actioner with a few memorable scenes, the highlight of which is a fight in a karaoke bar (yes, MASUMI gets the chance to sing). But it’s unable to get beyond a level of mediocrity, and MASUMI’s performance fails to resonate with the sufficient conviction required of her role.  

Yakuza Princess is directed by Vicente Amorim and stars MASUMI, Johnathon Rhys Meyers, Tsuyoshi Ihara, and Eijiro Ozaki.  Yakuza Princess is available on VOD and digital beginning September 3, 2021.