The Princess

 I have a couple of friends who are, shall we say, not best pleased about more or less current pop culture developments (to varying degrees). You probably know the type: the ones that complain because all films these days are virtual feminist manifestos, trying to turn our children into transexuals, or part of whatever liberal agenda they want to rail against. People who use woke* as an insult.

 I'm not saying that they don't have any grounds to stand on, obviously. Things have undoubtedly changed; Stuff that just wasn't shown before is being shown now, and some long-running tendencies are being corrected, somewhat. Sometimes gracefully, sometimes not. And yes, some times it's being done for what seem like mercenary reasons. But that's just the way it goes. Are you really complaining about people bringing ideology into their art? The nerve! Art is obviously best when it doesn't try to say anything! Also, the irony of bringing ideology into their criticism will probably forever elude them.

 Anyhow here comes The Princess, strutting into the fight like a #girlboss, proudly and very bluntly wearing its progressive feminist creds on its sleeve. So what happens when it's a bit shite just because, well, it's a bit shite? For reasons that far outstrip its ideological takes? Oh man, it's a Widows/Black Panther situation all over agains, isn't it?

 I like the premise: Once Upon A Time, there was a The Princess (Joey King) who didn't want to marry a conceited, chauvinistic, evil prince from a neighboring realm (Dominic Cooper) in an arranged marriage. Arranged marriages, right? Scourge of our times, cause celebre among progressives. We're against it, you know.
 Anyhow. Because she spurned him, the prince invaded her castle and is holding her family hostage.

 Now, unbeknownst to her father (Ed Stoppard), who is a staunch traditionalist, The Princess is a badass fighter who's been training in martial arts since she was a wee The Princess.
 So The Princess needs to go out and fight a whole army in her own castle, The Raid Style, to set things right.

 And yes- from the beginning the whole feminist angle is a bit of a problem, because it's never subtle or in the background. All men underestimate women, They all leer and objectify them. They all suffer for it. It gets old pretty quick, and it caused several eye rolls not because I have a problem with the concept, but because it's so on-the-nose. But as usual this 'wokeness' - or rather, its cack-handed integration into the movie - is a minor issue at best. There are several, much more pressing problems...

 ...the main one being The Princess.

 She's just not either an engaging character or any sort of credible physical menace, and despite clearly having had loads of training and a lot of enthusiasm, I just didn't find her a convincing martial arts fighter. This is specially clear once she's paired with her mentor, played by the great Veronica Ngo, who effortlessly outclasses her in each and every one of the aforementioned categories but perversely remains little more than a sidekick.
 Dominic West is reliable as always, happy to chew on scenery as the asshole prince. Olga Kurylenko plays the main heavy and adds a lot to the movie- another actor who seems like she could have The Princess for breakfast.

  The script is another big problem. It's smugly self-congratulatory on how feminist it is whilst not saying anything interesting on the subject, sure. But it's also not afraid to engage in some fat-shaming humor, or code all the evil brutes working for the evil king as working-class people. It makes sure to show that the good, besieged king has a multi-cultural, inclusive kingdom (the evil prince specifically calls him out on it!). But... all the royals are white; the foreign people are advisers, servants, part of the entourage. Oh, and monarchy does work, it's just a few bad apples that give it a bad name. 
 Do  I actually care about any of these 'lapses' in the 'progressive agenda'? Nah, not really -they kind of go hand in hand with the faery tale setting, after all- but they do drive home just how half-baked this movie is.
 It's just a piss-poor script that doesn't otherwise distinguish itself at any point with any clever moments or interesting twists, and doesn't really have anything interesting to say about feminism or anything else; a b-movie action script with feminist-targeted marketing and no real ideas of its own.

 And the continuity is unconvincing, too. The size and level of threats accosting The Princess keep varying; wasn't there a dozen soldiers chasing her from the top of the tower? Where'd they all go? Oh, look, a single guy came down but now there's a lot of soldiers coming from downstairs. Very sloppy.

 The action should be what carries the film, but it's merely OK; pretty tame by eastern action movie standards, and many newer western ones. Some of the choreographies are elaborate, and a couple of fights are fun, but not having a good martial artist actor drags most of them down. There's a whole lot of posing, a whole lot of skipped frames to make things seem more brutal and exciting, and quite a few fairly boring, filler-like fight scenes.
 It's bloody, too, but with curiously little impact, and next to no gore. Very unremarkable in a post-Game of Thrones world. Weird that they'd make that stylistic choice but leave it so neutered.

 This is something that's completely forgivable in a B-movie, but the special effects do need a separate mention, because they are flat-out terrible. The distant landscapes composited onto the background look like they were rendered on last-gen consoles, and the less said about the couple of fire effects the better. But far better movies have stumbled with this sort of thing, I guess.

 So yeah. I didn't hate it, but it was pretty much a waste of time - a mediocre B-movie without weirdness or laughs; At least it moves quickly and despite some bloat, it's gone without causing much offense. Unless you're offended by all the (pretty superficial) feminism, of course.
 
 Director Le-Van Kiet and deuteragonist Veronica Ngo had previously teamed up for slow-burn martial arts movie Furie, which is available on Netflix here in the UK and really fucking good; given the choice, just go watch that instead. There's nothing to see here.

*To be fair, I do think woke is a fugly neologism.