Available on Blu-ray and Digital from Well Go USA on March 12th, 2024
An action star who butted heads with filmmakers over his fighting and filming style ends up making his own film with a sketchy producer. Once at the odd location, he and his crew encounter warring yakuza factions.
Written and directed by Yûdai Yamaguchi, One-Percent Warrior (aka One Percenter) is a film very much made for star Tak Sakaguchi, with a character who is a little bit meta, a little bit fictional, and definitely a skilled martial artist. The story here is rather simple at first, so it takes a while to get into it as it comes off too meta for its own good. Then the lead gets to make his own film and things get weird and hit the fan, leading into a more interesting part of the film. That being said, writing in excuses for Sakaguchi to get to fight on screen is not the worst thing there is out there. There are a few twists here and works in keeping the attention into the second and third acts. The film does suffer a bit from the start, being almost found footage, with interviews with characters before they go on their own to do their own thing and the filming style switches. The story takes a bit of time to find its footing, but once it does, it works well.
The cast is led by Tak Sakaguchi who is his usually awesome self most of the movie, but some of the scenes, particularly in the first third, are just not on point which could be due to writing and directing or acting or even a mix of it all. It feels like something is missing in his performance at the start of the film, but he thankfully finds himself and gets it working great by the middle of the film. Standing out and giving an interesting performance, Rumika Fukuda is fun to watch and steals a few scenes here and there. The cast here is a little bit uneven with some coming off great and others just not hitting it right for this viewer. Something is off with some of the performances.
The cinematography here is interesting in that some of the film looks like found footage and that is not something that fits the story, neither does the interview filming style at the start. This leads to the film not having a cohesive look throughout its runtime. However, once it finds its footing, the cinematography becomes more cohesive and a lot nicer to watch. The cinematography by Hiroyuki Ozawa follows that transition quite well, but at times, especially early on, it’s not ideal and doesn’t really pull the viewer in. The editing at times is fantastic and at times is not so great, not always allowing to see the fights and the work of action director Kensuke Sonomura.
Overall, One-Percent Warrior is an entertaining film and has some fantastic fight sequences. The story is uneven and so are the cinematography and editing. The film may have a better appeal to fans of Tak Sakaguchi (who seems to be really back with a few films in the last few years after years of disappearance). The general public may be less interested in the story and the proceedings here. It is a niche film, but the niche public should be fairly entertained and happy with it, much like this viewer.