SAMURAI PRINCESS (Japan, 2009)
Directed by: Kengo Kaji
Starring: Yu Aiba, Takeshi Ayabe, Miki Hirase, Mihiro

Kengo Kaji, writer of last year’s TOKYO GORE POLICE, hops into the director’s chair for SAMURAI PRINCESS, a genre-bending sci-fi/fantasy splatterfest that pits android assassin against mutant madmen in an alternate universe version of feudal Japan. In this version of Samurai history trainyard duels, detachable chainsaw limbs, and breast grenades are seemingly commonplace occurrences, while mad scientists twist the laws of nature by creating sentient robots that can pass as human… and now crave souls.

Enter an android warrior with a penchant for bloodletting (JAV starlet Aino Kishi) and her human partner (Dai Mizuno), whose eardrum-crushing guitar riffs are so loud, they’re literally weapons of mass destruction.  When our heroine is infused with the souls of eleven of her fallen sisters, she uses their combined power to take down literally anyone who stands in the way of her quest for humanity. The result is a nearly nonstop geyser of gore, with skeletons popping out of torsos, every imaginable appendage removed from bodies, and one particularly angry man-eating phallus.

Produced by VAMPIRE GIRL VS FRANKENSTEIN GIRL’s Yoshihiro Nishimura, SAMURAI PRINCESS is a wonderfully ultraviolent assault on the senses, blending fantasy and reality into an all-out roller coaster ride that toys with the conventions of Japan’s newfound low budget gore scene while simultaneously wallowing in all of the madness that made films such as TOKYO GORE and MACHINE GIRL such great successes.

What sets SAMURAI PRINCESS aside, however, is its ability to transcend genres and appeal to gorehounds, sci-fi geeks, and fans of the erotic grotesque. As it moves from exploding heads to soft-focus lovemaking, it becomes painfully obvious that director Kaji has a passion for all things racy – and that in his universe, the best thing to do if you’ve got an oversized circular saw protruding from your chest is to start hugging everyone in bloody sight.