''Samurai Girl'' is a six-hour mini-series loosely based on the popular young-adult

novel series A book series is a sequence of books having certain characteristics in common that are formally identified together as a group. Book series can be organized in different ways, such as written by the same author, or marketed as a group by their pub ...

by Carrie Asai. The event stars

Jamie Chung Jamie Jilynn Chung (born April 10, 1983) is an American actress and former reality television personality. She began her career in 2004 as a cast member on the MTV reality series '' The Real World: San Diego'' and subsequently through her appe ...

Brendan Fehr Brendan Jacob Joel Fehr (born October 29, 1977) is a Canadian film and television actor, perhaps best known for portraying Michael Guerin in the WB television series '' Roswell'', and for portraying lab tech Dan Cooper in ''CSI: Miami''. In 20 ...

, and

Stacy Keibler Stacy Ann-Marie Keibler (born October 14, 1979) is an American retired Professional wrestling, professional wrestler and actress, former Cheerleading, cheerleader, dancer, and Model (person), model. She is specifically known for her work with Wor ...

. The series began its three-day premiere on

ABC Family The American cable television, cable and satellite television network that is now known as Freeform (TV channel), Freeform was originally launched as the CBN Satellite Service on April 29, 1977, and has gone through several different owners (and s ...

on September 5, 2008.

Premise

This story follows Heaven, who at six months old was the sole survivor of a deadly plane crash. The press named her Heaven, because it seemed that she fell from the sky. Soon after, she was adopted by the powerful Kogo Family and lived a very privileged life. But 19 years later, things take an unexpected turn, when her wedding is attacked and her brother, Ohiko, is killed trying to save her, not before warning her that the

Yakuza , also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ...

have infiltrated her family. She breaks free from her family and begins training to be a samurai and fight back against the Yakuza."Real World’s Party Girl is a Martial Arts Master"

AsianWeek ''AsianWeek'' was America's first and largest English language print and on-line publication serving Asian Americans. The news organization played an important role nationally and in the San Francisco Bay Area as the “Voice of Asian America”. ...

. Accessed 2008-09-10.

Plot

Part 1

Heaven sneaks maple glazed donuts into the compound and is startled by Hiko. Hiko tells Heaven that he is leaving to go to stay with his friend Jake in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

and gives Heaven a necklace as a birthday present. One year later, we find that Heaven's about to be wed to Teddy Yukimura. But as the wedding takes place, Yakuza ninjas attack her wedding. Her brother is killed trying to protect her, and her father is shot. Later, she goes to a party where she sees the hostess dumping her boyfriend. The next morning, the hostess Cheryl finds Heaven hiding in her closet. With Cheryl's friend Otto's help, Heaven finds Jake and find that Hiko left her a bag containing a fake passport to a Zen monastery in Indonesia. But, against Hiko's wishes, she returns to the Kogo Towers Hotel. As she is trying to access her fathers files, she is discovered by the maid and takes off running with the laptop and is rescued by Jake. Later on, Heaven calls Otto to help access the laptop without a password and is able to access surveillance videos to find that her limo driver, Noriyuki, is being beaten up. As they are trying to find the source, the files are deleted but not before discovering that it came from a nightclub. Heaven and Jake head to the nightclub to rescue Noriyuki but are ambushed. After the ambush, they find Noriyuki as he was about to perform

Seppuku , sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people ...

. When they return to Jake’s loft, Heaven gives Noriyuki a package containing money to escape. Then he tells Heaven about a legend that involves her.

Part 2

Heaven begins training with Jake. Soon after, she discovers that Jake was a former Yakuza ninja and asks Jake to find the ninja that killed Hiko. When Heaven goes to the supermarket, she encounters a man named Severin, who tells her that he was building a case against her father and the Yakuza and asks her to return home. While at Cheryl's house to check her e-mail, two Yakuza ninjas attack. Cheryl, Otto and Heaven flee to Jake's loft. During a battle with the master assassin, Heaven discovers that her father organized the attack at the wedding. Severin again meets up with Heaven to tell that her necklace was also a tracking device and that he needs her help to take down her father's empire. After which Heaven agrees to return home.

Part 3

As Heaven is set to return home, Severin warns her that her father is a dangerous man. But she is still convinced that her father is innocent. Then Severin tells her that her father had murdered Teddy's father, Yuji Yukimura. She returns home and discovers that she is a part of an ancient prophecy. With the help of Severin, Cheryl, and Otto, Heaven sneaks into her father's office and steals the documents about the prophecy. After a meeting with Heaven's father, Teddy tells Heaven about the prophecy while he is preparing to leave.

Part 4

On the way back from Hiko's funeral, Sato tells Tasuke that her daughter was a spy and were heading to an unknown location when Jake rescues her and takes her back to the hotel to retrieve the sword. To avoid being seen by her father, Heaven and Jake share a long fake kiss. When they finally get back to Jake's loft, they find that Karen, who is Jake's ex-fiancée, has returned to the house. Heaven feels furiously jealous that Jake has a fiancée after they just shared their "first kiss." After Severin reviews the text, he hands it to a former professor to have it translated: He tells her that a secret decoder written on a series of bones sits at the Japanese

consulate A consulate is the office of a consul. A type of diplomatic mission, it is usually subordinate to the state's main representation in the capital of that foreign country (host state), usually an embassy (or, only between two Commonwealth coun ...

. So Heaven, Severin, and Cheryl head over to retrieve the bones. After retrieving the bones, they discover that a piece of the prophecy is within the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

mountains. So Heaven and Severin set out to get that piece. Jake joins them but they discover that Sato and his men have started on the trail, so they climb up the face of Mount Kyra. While Dr. Fleming (who Cheryl has a crush on) examines the artifacts, Karen sneaks into his office and kills him. Meanwhile, two of the carabiners break free, pulling Jake and Severin down. Severin tells Heaven to cut one of them loose or lose both of them.

Part 5

Part 5 opens with Severin and Jake yelling at Heaven to cut either of their ropes. Heaven reluctantly cuts Jake's rope sending him falling backward down the mountain. Heaven stays frozen until Severin orders her to climbing so that Jake wouldn't have died in vain. However, Heaven and Severin are not successful in gaining the mirror and return home with nothing. Soon after, Jake, who survived the fall, returns with the mirror and a captured Sato. Otto and Cheryl tell Heaven of Karen's true identity, and Heaven becomes suspicious of her (without evidence) and refuses to confront Jake. After a botched sting operation to uncover Tasuke's money launderer, known only as Sonia, Karen stabs Sato and cuts herself to make it look like he escaped.

Part 6

After stabbing Jake, Karen beats up Heaven and kidnaps Cheryl. After seeing Jake at the hospital, she leaves for a location outside

Kyoto, Japan Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the city ...

. Meanwhile, Severin is interrogating Tasuke, who was arrested in a planned sting, during which he tells the history of the Morishi Protocol which included an underground bidding war. Heaven ends up killing Jake's ex and survives the Morishi Protocol even though her destiny was to die in the end for a person to survive. Heaven, Cheryl, and Severin return to the loft to find that Jake left. Five months later, we find Heaven working as a waitress. Otto brings Heaven a letter from Jake. At the end, on the way home, Heaven comes across Sato and is quickly surrounded by a gang of ninjas and she prepares to fight them.

Promotion

On the second day of the 2008

San Diego Comic-con San Diego Comic-Con International is a comic book convention and nonprofit multi-genre entertainment event held annually in San Diego, California since 1970. The name, as given on its website, is Comic-Con International: San Diego; but it is co ...

, the cast and crew promoted the movie by signing autographs and participated in a question and answer session with attendees.

Cast

as Heaven Kogo *

as Jake Stanton * Saige Thompson as Cheryl *

Kyle Labine Jonathan Kyle Labine (born April 7, 1983) is a Canadian actor. His brothers Tyler Labine Tyler Sean Labine (born April 29, 1978) is a Canadian-American actor and comedian. He is best known for starring in the television series ''Breaker High'', ...

as Otto * Anthony Wong as Tasuke Kogo *

Kenneth Choi Kenneth Choi (born October 20, 1971) is an American actor. He is known for playing Henry Lin on the television series ''Sons of Anarchy'' (2008–2014), Chester Ming in Martin Scorsese's '' The Wolf of Wall Street'' (2013), and Judge Lance It ...

as Sato *

Steven Brand Steven Brand (born 26 June 1969) is a Scottish actor. His feature debut was ''The Scorpion King'' (2002), where he portrayed Memnon. He has had many guest appearances on television series, and in 2015, Brand was nominated Best Guest Starring R ...

as Severin *

as Karen * Linda Ko as Mieko Kogo * Zen Shane Lim as Teddy *

Sab Shimono is a Japanese-American actor. He began his career on stage on Broadway and in regional theaters, starring in musicals like ''Mame'', ''Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen'', and ''Pacific Overtures''. He has appeared in dozens of movies and television ...

as Noriyuki *

Jack Yang Jack Y. Yang is an American computer scientist and biophysics, biophysicist. As of 2011, he is the editor-in-chief of the ''International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design''. Education Yang received his Ph.D. and MS degrees fro ...

as Hiko Kogo * Jennifer Chung as Security Tech * Yulin Hswen as Servant * Paul Wu as Master Ninja * Toshi Haraguchi as Yukimura * Kwesi Ameyaw as Surgeon *

Warren Christie Hans Warren Christie (born 4 November 1975) is a British-Canadian television and film actor known for his roles as Ray Cataldo on the ABC drama '' October Road'' and as Aidan "Greggy" Stiviletto on the ABC series '' Happy Town''. More recently ...

as Dr. Thomas Fleming * Jeffrey Parazzo as Bartender *

Byron Lawson Byron Lawson (born August 26, 1968) is a Canadian actor of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent. He portrayed gangster Eddie Kim in the 2006 film ''Snakes on a Plane''. His past credits have included the television series '' These Arms of Mine'' ...

as Tough * Jasmine Chan as Young girl *

Apollonia Vanova Apollonia Vanova ('' Slovak: Apolónia Váňová'') is a Slovak-born actress and opera singer, known for her roles as Silhouette in the film version of ''Watchmen'' and as the leading Wraith Queen and leader of a Wraith Alliance in the '' Starg ...

as Seaya * Jim K. Chan as Visa Clerk * Nicole Fraissinet as Joanne *

Shannon Chan-Kent Shannon Chan-Kent (born September 23, 1988) is a Canadian voice and stage actress. She is known for her roles as Silver Spoon and Smolder and the singing voice of Pinkie Pie in '' My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'', Misa Amane in the English ...

as Attendant * Kendall Cross as Female Paramedic * John Hainsworth as Painting Man * Jason Diablo as Male Paramedic * Darryl Quon as Sumo * Peter Kawasaki as Priest * Silver Kim as Shady Man * William MacDonald as Detective * Adam Thomas as Greek God * Stephanie Penikett as Vampire * Daniel Boileau as Bartender * Hector Johnson as Bulky Guard * Tom Tames as Drunk Hipster

References

External links

*
Former Samurai Girl Official Site
{{ABC Family Original Movies 2000s American television miniseries American martial arts films Martial arts television series Television shows based on American novels ABC Family original films Television series by Alloy Entertainment Television series by ABC Studios 2008 martial arts films 2008 films Japan in non-Japanese culture Asian-American television Works about the Yakuza 2000s American films