Sao Paulo, Brazil is the largest Japanese diasporic community in the world, home to over 1.6 million Japanese-Brazilians and many former Japanese residents. Among them is Akemi, a young Japanese woman raised in Brazil and trained since childhood in martial arts and sword fighting by the benevolent but strict Chiba. This is the set-up for Brazillian action thriller Yakuza Princess (2021), which has its world premiere this week at the Fantasia Film Festival.
Akemi knows nothing of her heritage or her family, and yearns to break free and find her own way in the world – but her family’s past will soon catch up to her. Elsewhere in a Sao Paulo hospital lies the mysterious Shiro, badly wounded and an amnesiac, with only an antique Japanese sword to provide any answers to the riddles of who he is and how he got there. The two mysteries will soon intersect and the criminal underworld will be rocked by the answers the pair uncover together. And it won’t be pretty.
Yakuza Princess (2021) is the new work by Vicente Amorim, an awards-winner filmmaker that has been behind numerous documentaries and thrillers including horror Motorrad (2017), war film Corações Sujos (2011), and crime action A Divisão (2020). He has been the co-writer of the screenplay together with his frequent collaborators Tubaldini Shelling and Fernando Toste. The movie is based on the graphic novel “Samurai Shiro” by Danilo Beyruth.
Japanese-American singer MASUMI debuts in a feature film as the star in Yakuza Princess (2021). Together with her, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Kenny Leu, Eijiro Ozaki, Mariko Takai, Toshiji Takeshima, Charles Paraventi, and Lucas Oranmian also star.
Yakuza Princess (2021) is Rated R for strong bloody violence, some language, and graphic nudity. XYZ Films has worldwide distribution rights while Magnet Releasing will distribute in the American market. The movie is having its world premiere on August 18, 2021, at the Fantasia International Film Festival, and will be out in the USA on September 3, 2021. Watch here its official trailer.
