Yakuza Princess

There's not much to recommend about this film outside of bringing attention to the sizable ethnic Japanese population in Brazil.

But while there are sudden bursts of violence throughout, Amorim paces things so sluggishly it ends up being up to the performances to maintain the viewer's interest.

Like street-cart fusion cuisine, this film will fill a hole, if you have a particular hankering.

It's an irresistible guilty pleasure.

There's a lot of walking and talking, but Yakuza Princess never really moves fast enough, not even during its action scenes.

There's no real momentum or pacing to Yakuza Princess, merely a shaggy assemblage of scenes jumping between characters and continents with little distinction between meat and filler.

With such inert propulsion, unattractive designs, and terribly conceived dialogue, the weight of the film's deficiencies crushes any precious few positives.

Japanese women rarely get to star in an action flick, so it's a shame that Yakuza Princess is such mindless junk that isn't even a worthy showcase for the female protagonist. The men in this incoherent movie actually get most of the screen time.

If there was any sort of fight choreography, it is utterly annihilated by the film's poor editing. A cool concept and a strong supporting actor aren't enough to make a sloppy and amateurish action film with very few thrills worthwhile.

In trying to be too many things, Yakuza Princess never fully develops the emotional world of its characters, yet it expects the audience to care about their family history.