Samurai

This rockbottom-budgeted feature supposes that the samurai-spawning religion of Bushido is as natural to the Japanese as killing gazelles is to lions--with about the same results! The protagonist, a war orphan adopted by white Californians, hears the blood-call in the suasions of a zombie-like Shinto priest. The pretty, Americanized little boy is inexplicably sent to Europe (to study medicine and art) and returns craggy-countenanced, with a thickened accent and Japanese manners. Stereotypically squint-eyed and toothy, he reunites with his mentor, and the duo leer vampirishly over the prospect of planet-wide domination. With all the panache of a grade-school production, much of the movie is composed of docudramatic narration, apparently as a money-saving measure and to assure the buy-war-bonds message emerges from the slapsticky silliness of squawking Nipponese bureaucrats and sword-slashing pseudo-samurai. As a historical piece, the film is a thorn among thorns (that will prick the funnybone of many!)and is, of course, of interest as a particularly odious example of wartime propaganda.

Racist propaganda about how a small boy rescued from the 1923 Japanese earthquake who is adopted by a western couple who found him in the rubble. The kid, named Ken, learns about Bushido and the ways of the samurai and is forever twisted by it and the love of death and the emperor. Illogical to the nth degree the film has Ken going traveling the world studying art and sciences, and the teachings of Bushido from masters placed around the globe. The 23-ish year old kid comes home from his worldly studies looking like a well worn 50 year old buck toothed stereotype Japanese from a propaganda cartoon complete with impossibly thick accent. Now back in the US, Ken, who now looks older than his adopted father, begins to set up a network of spies along the West Coast as well as preparing maps hidden inside of his modern art style paintings. Very much of the time this was made its now almost no longer watchable since sensibilities have changed so much in the last 60 plus years that this sort of treatment of an ethnic group is unthinkable (never mind that the film is only marginally okay). In the right frame of mind this would be a yuck fest of the highest order for those who love bad movies, however after a short time the general poorness of the film and the ugly point of view takes away a great deal of the fun. Recommended only to those who are interested in World War 2 propaganda or those who really need to see every bad movie ever made.