Makai tenshô: The Armageddon

Well, admittedly, the full title of this film (as I saw it anyway), "Reborn From Hell: Samurai Armageddon" is truly one of the great ones of the late 20th Century. However, this movie is wack, and wack is truly the most accurate word for it. The opening is promising enough, with an evil overlord that looks like that crazy host guy with the beaded jackets from "Iron Chef" raising the first of his army of demon warriors--who bursts alien-style through the body of a nude Japanese virgin (the first of a legion of nude virgins). But, from there on in, aside from occasional bursts of gore (tons of very fake blood, until they get into battling demons, at which point they apparently ran out and went with green tempura paint), more toplessness, mediocre swordfights, green light bulbs, primitive blue-screen effects and pointless plot twists, there's not much to see here.

Even worse is that the ostensible hero is plodding along, working his way through the seven (well, sometimes there's nine, depending on who's was standing around in the dubbing booth right then, I guess) demon warriors and then all of a sudden we cut to evil Iron Chef guy going "Ah ha ha ha ha! There's still three more demon warriors to go! And Armageddon comes on June 6 at 6am! Ah ha ha ha!" And then the credits. What about the kidnapped chick!? What about the ostensible hero's impending showdown with his father!? What about Armageddon!? What about the other three to five demon warriors?! Sheesh.

The movie opens up with a evil sorcerer participating in an evil ritual, using a naked girl. Several scenes with bad special effects later, we learn that this evil sorcerer is going to bring back to life seven of Japans greatest leaders (they are going to be REBORN FROM HELL, we know that because that phrase occurs every few lines, to remind us) so that they can lead a army of demons and bring about SAMURAI ARMAGEDDON. In effect, it is the equivalent of an evil sorcerer bringing Abe Lincoln back to life to lead a demon army to bring about "Soldier Armageddon". By the way, apparently the only way to get historical figured REBORN FROM HELL is to get them to have sex with strange women, at what point they turn into a zombie/demon and go sit in a closet in the evil sorcerer's cave, waiting patiently for their turn to fight the hero

The only hope for the world is a lone one-eyed Samurai, Jubei. Jubei runs in to a reborn demon, kills him, then decides to save the world and stop SAMURAI ARMAGEDDON. If a one eyed zombie slaying samurai fighting historical icons isn't great enough, there is also the fact that the movie makes about no sense at all. After the evil ritual it goes straight in the middle of a fight, sticks in characters that the viewer apparently already should have known, and half of the seven demon leaders have already been REBORN FROM HELL. Simply mind-blowing.

You would think with Samurai Zombies you would get some excitement but this is a bit of a snoozer. Long and complicated plot about dead warriors trying to take over the world. It ends somewhere in the middle of the story and has the feeling of a tv mini-series.

This movie just stops, has no armageddon (or armegeddon!), and the back cover of the video goes on further in the plot than the movie does.

This movie will make you want to go bang heavy objects against your skull. And what was with the long-nosed mask????