The Princess review: a different, bloodier kind of princess wedding fantasy

Fairy tale conventions stipulate that a suffering princess is likely to be saved by a dashing man. Hit the guy she once wanted to get marriedHelped by a demon, start a fashion empire, or start one of many modern iterations that overturn the metaphor of a suffering maiden.

Live-action martial arts movie princess It could be another story about another smart princess who doesn’t want to wait to be rescued. The fairy tale metaphor can look like a Disney movie when viewed from a distance. The fact that Disney has acquired it and released it on Disney Plus outside the United States does not dispel that impression. But it’s actually the title of 20th Century Studios, an R-rated killer combat movie that can do serious blood damage to the unnamed princess at its heart. From action director Le-Van Kiet princess Play subversions of worn-out genres, but in reality you’ll get a satisfying effect by looking at those subversions.

[Ed. note: This review contains some slight setup spoilers for The Princess.]

princess When the renowned princess (Joey King) wakes up handcuffed at the top of a tall tower, she immediately takes out the guards. A series of flashbacks revealed that she was supposed to get married, but Julius, who will be her groom (Dominic Cooper, Tony Stark’s father, regular MCU player as Howard). Was left on the altar. In her revenge, Julius captured her royal family, trapped her princess in a tower, and forced her to marry him so that she could take over her throne. However, he is unaware that her princess has been trained in her hand-to-hand combat since childhood. As her family is detained at the tip of the sword, it is up to the princess to go down the tower and fight her way and save them.

Why does Julius want to make the throne so bad? He thinks the current king is weak. Why does he need a princess to marry him when he has the power to take the throne? Since the royal family has no sons, this is a kind of common fantasy kingdom that requires male heirs from a monarchical lineage and cannot even think of options that could give women more representation. In one of the flashbacks, the princess marches between her thrones, interrupting her father’s plans to marry her and begging her to be trained as a knight on her behalf. He is horrified and fed up with the idea that his daughter is fighting.The sequence feels like a more mature version BraveMerida Shoot her own hand..

Their flashbacks, and the motives they introduce to heroines and villains, are the weakest part of Princess- Simple and clumsy, it is inserted into the plot line of the main action. Thankfully, they are only part of the overall experience and are more extensively focused on the sequence of illness fights. The brutal violence that sometimes comes to prisoners of war is so widespread that Julius and his vacancies spend much of the film assuming there are guards in the middle of them. No, they are surprised to know that it has always been a princess! Their complete shock to the idea that women as well as men fight is a bit overkill, but the pure malice she brings to her fairy tale story makes it more compelling.

Image: 20th Century Studios

It’s essentially satisfying to see a fantasy princess in a torn bloody wedding dress stabbing the men trying to rule her. It’s not new to allow princesses and other wealthy women to take off their binding dresses and corsets for combat. Look at Merida’s dress bursting at her seams as Merida prepares her bow. Elizabeth is exchanging gowns for more practical combat uniforms from the Pirates of the Pirates.Caribbean, or more recently, Grace is fighting her predatory new-in-law ready or not..

However, princesses are usually pushed into the family-friendly movie category, so they don’t really look like action heroines. In this case, the princess does — and it rules. Kiet does not curb her atrocities as the princess hacks, beats and burns her enemies. She does not hesitate to thrust her sword into her perpetrator, and she does not ponder whether her killing makes her as bad as her prisoners. She is on a mission to save her family, and getting there is completely ruthless. And she’s certainly struggling, but unlike many other action titles centered around women, the movie doesn’t praise her pain strangely or show it in intolerable detail.

Supporting Characters — Especially Princess Mysterious Trainer Lynn (Veronica Go, Kiet’s Great 2019 Movie Star Pretend), And Julius’ right-handed woman, Moira (Olga Kurylenko) — much more interesting than the main player. Lynn is a formidable warrior, a foreigner whose trainer and his uncle are one of the king’s advisers. But this is not her story, so we have her past, how skilled she is, or her and her uncle only the King (Ed Stopperd) stands between them. Locals who hate xenophobia know nothing more about how they came to the land.

Photo: Simon Valsano / 20th Century Studios

Similarly, the whipping femme fatale, Moira, is a sharp and talented combatant who is romantically intertwined with Julius, but to be with him if he wants to promote his political ambitions. You can not. Both of these characters are a more subtle and interesting world than a smart princess who doesn’t want to get married, but is driven into a background role.

And again, a strong princess who does not want to get married is a staple of the genre. princess Finally, it allows for a complete catharsis of seeing the aforementioned princess stab an enemy and drive her out of the window. Perhaps because the filmmaker was aiming for a family-friendly rating, all other versions of the smart princess character feel suppressed by comparison. But all the iterations of this metaphor walked so that the princess could brutally rampage. ShrekFiona Split kick the entourage That’s why the star princess You may cut off someone’s head. The formula is simple and the characters are mostly stock architypes.This is a story that seems to have been done before, but not as brilliantly bloody as that. princess Indulge.

princess It’s currently streamed on Hulu and Disney Plus in some regions outside the United States.