FEMALE empowerment is the name of the game in The Princess, the new period-drama action film that made its debut on Disney+ Hotstar late last week.
Featuring Joey King as the titular Princess – the character’s actual name is never spoken – the film has some well-choreographed action scenes and thankfully decent performances, but suffers from clunky dialogue and cinematography that takes too much ‘inspiration’ from the works of Guy Ritchie and Matthew Vaughn.
We’re introduced to the Princess as she wakes up after being knocked out and imprisoned by some mercenaries. Within moments, we find out that she’s not your stereotypical damsel-in-distress as she singlehandedly kills them – in quite a brutal fashion – and escapes.
Eventually we learn that the palace has been invaded by a nobleman named Julius (Dominic Cooper), whom the Princess refused to marry. The rejected Julius, together with his army and paramour/second-in command Moira (Olga Kurylenko), decides to capture the royal family and force the Princess to marry him so that he can take over the kingdom.
Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the Princess has been taking swordfighting lessons on the side from one of her subjects, the warrior Linh (Veronica Ngo). It is now up to her to free everyone and get her revenge on Julius.
Despite starting out strong, the film’s flaws soon bog it down. For one thing, this is a film that knows it’s an ‘empowerment’ film, and it doesn’t let the audience forget it, which makes the entire effort come off as insincere and preachy.
In addition, the film feels as though it suffered from a limited budget. Most of the story takes place during a single day within the confines of the palace, and while that allowed for the focus to remain on the characters, it also made the film feel rather small and cheap.
