American Samurai

American Samurai fits into a genre of cinema that enjoyed far to short lived a success, that being the underground, martial arts death tournament film. Films like this enjoyed a great boom in the eighties and early nineties and arguably were the influences for the modern fighting tournament games such as Street Fighter 2 and the like. Some other films of this genre are "Ring of Steel", "Best of the Best 2", "Blood Fist 2" and perhaps one of the last of these magnificent creatures to appear in theater; John Claude VanDam's "The Quest"... unless of course you count the more recent "Fight Club", which you shouldn't because it's not about underground martial arts guys that fight but just normal guys and that isn't the main plot of the film anyway really. As evident from the title this film also belongs to the school of sticking the word American in front of stuff IE: American Ninja's 1 through 4, American Ronin and American Cyborg. this usually means you have an instant classic on your hands. Anyway what really makes the film shine is the cast of characters. American Samurai offers more weird fighters than any other film of the genre that I have yet seen. If nothing else it would make a great video game. I will attempt to catalogue the assortment of fighters in the style of a badly translated Nintendo instruction booklet.

• The American Samurai: A warrior of much honor though American, trained by master Samurai in Mountains of Japan. Master of Sword and peaceful of heart but strong to win. Entered tournament to reclaim family sword from evil brother.

• His Yakuza Samurai Brother: Adoptive brother of American Samurai and son of Master Samurai. Strong fighter but gangster with no honor or mercy too.

• The Bowie Knife Cowboy: American fighter, fast with knife although quite stupid. Fights in tournament for much cash prizes and honor.

• African Master of the Quarter Staff: Not much known about this fighter. likes to strike poses with his staff weapon.

• Pirate Swordsman: A much feared prate from the coast of far off lands. Wears eye patch but is still dangerous.

• The Deadly Braid: Much like fighter in "Best of the Best 2" he fights with sharp implement tied to his long braid of hair. Born in China he possess much fighting spirit.

• Chinese Axe Spear Guy: Second warrior from china and master of martial arts axe spear technique. Fast warrior but uses much energy in attacks.

• Conan the Barbarian Guy: Former stunt man of lame 80's European sword and sorcery/caveman movie genre gone renegade. Now looks for new career wielding broadsword for money and glory in tournament.

• Nordic, Viking, Berserker Type: Crazy Horned warrior from Sweden. Attacks fierce with axe.

• Weird-ass, Klingon Sword Looking Thing Wielding Guy: Warrior killed by Evil Yakuza Brother. Fought with weird-ass star trek, alien weapon things.

I know there wear a few guys I've forgotten too. Oh yeah this film also features John Fujioka playing the Japanese martial arts master who raises and trains our hero upon finding him stranded in his infancy. This is the exact same role he played in American Ninja. "I only play old Japanese Guys that find American babies and raise them to be martial arts masters". Now that's over specific type casting if you ask me. Anyway the film is also peppered with blindfolded swordsman training sequences, lots of crazy fighting and flash backs to really bad wise old sensei advice. In short this movie rocks. There should be more films like this. I'd comment on the film's success at creating one of the most awkward romantic subplots ever but I think I've run out of space. See it yourself.

This is an excellent movie in my opinion. Good plot, amazing fighting scenes, and great effects. David Bradley does a great job, and so does Mark Dacascos. However, if you really want to enjoy this movie, don't get the US VHS version, because it is heavily cut. The UK VHS, although it is PAL, has only 1 second missing, and it's a part where a man pulls out a knife in a disco. The reason they cut this out is to prevent kids from imitating this (yeah I know it sounds funny). However, EVERYTHING else has been left intact. Since it is PAL, you would have to convert it to NTSC, but it is much much better than watching the heavily edited US tape.

The French DVD titled "American Samourai" is completely uncut, and also has the one second missing from the UK tape. The bad thing is that this french DVD does not have English sound, only french.

Anyway, this movie is an excellent martial arts movie!

Having all but exhausted the exploitation of ninjas, what was Cannon to do? Right - exploit samurais instead! As well as recycle elements from their past hit BLOODSPORT, including a big burly guy with a beard as one of the contestants! It's clear the movie was cut for an "R" rating, given how some wounds and killings are not shown as clearly as you would think, but the editing also shows signs of production problems. One lengthy scene seems to have been cut in half, with the subsequent half played much later in the movie. There is also awkward narration and a very long sex scene where you never see the faces of the lovers, furthering the suspicion of frantic efforts to patch together the movie. The production values are pretty good, and Firstenberg does deliver the goods with the fight sequences, which are expertly choreographed. He doesn't do well with the actors however, having Dacascos overact at times and Bradley giving yet another uncharismatic performance.

Whilst I understand the lower ratings given by others, and the derogatory comments directed toward this film, I believe it's also important to point out the merits of the film. David Bradley's acting is certainly passable in this film, and his martial arts abilities are obviously very adequate for his role, with some slick fight scenes. Mark Dacascos is a stand out in a film bursting with a rich variety of contrasting fighting styles and weapons. This is "BloodSport" with weapons, and a LOT more blood!!! (it even boasts a cocky large Yankee competitor like Bloodsport!). The action is somewhat brutal, and in the original cut, very little is left to the imagination when it comes to the gory wounding and killing blows (which I feel is as it should be!). Dacascos as Kenshiro in particular brings a restraint and elegance to his role as a Yakuza swordsman, intent on perfecting his craft at the expense of his opponents (and their limbs!) in the arena - only drawing his sword upon his infliction of a lightning fast maiming or killing blow.

Yes, this film does not boast polished storytelling, or compelling characterisation, but it does provide a unique and entertaining addition to the martial arts genre and stands alone as an ultra-violent tournament-style actioner with a talented cast of martial artists.

And for this at least, we should recognise it's value!!!

I have seen MUCH worse Fu/ninja flicks then this but this one isn't very good either.

Kind of a ripoff of American Ninja, white guy learns Japanese style blah blah blah. Unlike the characters in that series of movies, some of the people in this actually do seem to know martial arts. Kind of a cross between a genuine fu flick like a Jet Li movie and typical American crap.

The rest of the plot is......ah who cares, its a samurai movie, doesn't matter. :P

Unlike American Ninja this movie doesn't have 2 guys taking on dozens of "ninja masters" that can be knocked out with one punch, this has more of a realistic one on one style and it is a challenge for the combatants. Much like Blood Sport.

What it does have going for it it the interesting fighters in the last 45 minutes of the movie, the first half of the movie is just filler to make an excuse for all of the fighting at the end so skip it.

The fighters at the end look like they were pulled straight from an early 90's 2D arcade fighting game. That is the high point of this flick.

The low point, and I mean VERY low point is the last fight scene. Both of the "samurai" are wearing the same black and white outfit, no other colors. If you look close during the last fight though you can clearly see red streamers coming from out of the frame, they reused footage from one of the earlier fight scenes to add length to the last fight and it looks SOOOOOOOO cheesy. Also the actors don't know a damn thing about sword fighting, they just clang them together for 5 minutes, that coupled with the reused footage makes it a non-climax.

Since 45 minutes of this movie is solid fighting with fighters that actually do know how to use their weapons, the very last scene isn't as important.

You can do worse then this, any American Ninja above 2 for example.

Not really good or really terrible.

5/10 when compared to other Fu/ninja movies, would score higher if the last fight scene was done well.