Gone are the days when princesses used to be in danger, locked up in high castles, waiting for their knight in shining armour to rescue them. Now, they are their knight in shining armour, they are the danger. Le-Van Kiet’s latest film The Princess brings us a girl who is not only her own saviour but becomes the hope of her family, her kingdom. The fantasy, action drama follows a princess (Joey King) who refuses to marry a sociopath, Julius, and leaves him at the alter causing him to attack her castle and take her people hostages.
The king having no son or an heir makes it all the more difficult as Julius believes the traditional way to gain power is by marrying the princess of the kingdom. But our princess isn’t the one to take it lying down. Hence begins her adventure to escape and rescue her parents.
The film pretty much has one thing going on- the nameless princess fighting her way out of imprisonment while her opponents keep changing. But she emerges victorious out of every situation, be it an armoured knight charging at her or an army. It aims at taking the concept of a princess stuck in a tower, but instead of waiting to be rescued, takes matters into her own hands. It is almost as if Rapunzel met Game of Thrones.
Her attempts at escaping are challenged by the tough soldiers of her cruel fiancee Julius. She first gets out of her room by stabbing a guard in his eyeballs with her hairpin. That’s when we know the film is unapologetic about the violence they have decided to show.
Next, she takes on a soldier in a horned helmet before fighting an army charging at her in the castle. Regardless of her opponent, the princess gets away with a few scratches here and there, and despite knowing how absurd it looks, we can’t deny that the action was fun to watch. But what is better than watching one woman fight against 100 men? Two women fighting side by side against hundred of men. The princess is joined by Linh, her maiden and sword-fighting mentor, who earlier found a way to escape when Julius took everyone hostage.
They are successful in rescuing the king and his family but the real challenge starts from there. Realising that the elder sister is a threat to him, Julius decides to marry the princess’ much younger sister. However, despite some high-end actions, we already know what is going to happen. The princess is beaten up and thrown outside the castle into the river but she obviously survives and comes back. After another fight sequence at the altar, she along with Linh is able to kill or injure all of Julius’ men. Our ambitious yet non-threatening villain Julius finally dies when the princess decapitated him and wins a lost fight.
The action scenes tend to get repetitive at times but it never falls into a pattern of monotony. The makers try their best to bring variations in the way one woman can fight so many people, multiple times. The director Le Van-Kiet is known for shelling out remarkable horror and crime thriller films such as Furie, House in the Alley and Gentle. While in this case, the strength is not in the script or the plot, but in how the entire thing plays out.
Despite having a predictable storyline and repetitive action scenes, the film never becomes boring or makes us look away from our screens. That’s where its strength lies.
The Princess starring Joey King, Dominic Cooper, Olga Kurylenko, Veronica Ngo, Martin Taskov and Ivo Arakov is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.
