this action thriller is an entertaining yet staid retread of familiar assassin film cliches; Masumi makes a solid debut in her first leading role; while Masumi's rawness helps her characterize Akemi, there's still a lack of character depth
filled with gun-toting yakuza and sword-wielding warriors, the film is both overstuffed and undernourished, a grimly self-serious tale of violent destiny that's consistently drowned out by Vicente Amorim's overreaching visual style
bloodshed and mysticism are mixed together, and in that heady concoction "Yakuza Princess" is often violently brilliant; What's less fun is how its mysteries are set up and resolved: with trips to see one enigmatic exposition source after another
as an intellectually empty piece of genre cinema, “Yakuza Princess” can't even sit alongside movies that offer similarly obtuse ideas but that gain some favor through impressive spectacle
adapted from Danilo Beyruth's graphic novel by Brazilian filmmaker Vicente Amorim, "Yakuza" delivers stylish shootouts and eye-catching swordplay but lacks the dynamic characters and story-telling panache required to lift it into the top grade
by Monique Jones [Common Sense Media ]
by Keith Watson [Slant Magazine ]
