Il ritorno del samurai

A moderately interesting start, some pretty scenes in sixteenth-century Japan, and a promising idea. But the execution? The comparison that springs to mind after about fifteen minutes is "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death." Really. A specialist in "Oriental history" who doesn't speak any Japanese, walks on tatami without removing her shoes, and is generally dumb as celery? Please. This looks like a student film: the sets are risible, the acting (except, perhaps, for the title character) close to wooden, the plot utterly arbitrary. At least "Cannibal Women" was funny! This is best watched with someone who knows something about Japan, just to watch disbelief repeatedly crawl across their face.

For all its modest running time, the unfairly neglected 'Ghost Warrior' (1984) is, for me at least, one of Empire Pictures more fascinating and singular productions, much like the iconic, neon-bright Sci-fi mash-up 'Trancers', 'Ghost Warrior' is a low budget, boldly inventive Sf/Chanbara hybrid about an enigmatic protagonist from an alternative time-line adrift in the greatly disorientating milieu of 20th century Los Angeles. Yoshi (Hiroshi Fujioka) an esteemed Samurai Warrior from 16th century feudal Japan is Rod Serlinged into a discombobulating diorama of unfamiliar technologies, amusingly prototypical B-Move Gang-bangers, a strange, oppressively vast city with its perplexing multitudes of baffling cultural incongruities, a burgeoning love affair that spans centuries, and the shock rocking sounds of L. A. metal warriors W. A. S. P all coalesce to make Yoshi's fateful sword-slashing exodus such a quixotic B-Movie delight! Two splendidly engaging lead actors, another nifty score by maestro Richard band, and some sanguinary Samurai showdowns made me a hardcore believer, man! 500 years ago deadly samurai Yoshi was left for dead, in 20th century L. A. he's woken up completely on the wrong side of his head!

Ghost Warrior (1986)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The body of a 400-year-old samurai (Hiroshi Fujioka) is found frozen in Japan so it's moved to Los Angeles where a secret agency brings it back to life. It doesn't take long for the samurai to escape and start killing off some bad people but a reporter (Janet Julian) goes along with him to try and protect him from the agency who wants him dead before anyone finds out what they did. GHOST WARRIOR comes from producer Charles Band so that should tell you to expect a low-budget, silly story and nothing too spectacular. This here is a pretty strange film because it's clearly just trying to cash in on the success of other martial arts movies but I'm not sure who this film was aimed at. The story itself is somewhat sci-fi but those elements are never really explored. The martial arts stuff takes up a good portion of the running time but there's so much more that could have been done but isn't. Early on we get a campy scene where a bunch of punks are picking on an old man and then the samurai comes to his rescue. These scenes are pure camp and they are fun and help make the picture interesting. These scenes also contain some campy violence but sadly moments like these are so far apart from one another. The relationship with the reporter is just downright silly and never really adds up to anything. It's too this stuff wasn't eliminated in favor of more action. GHOST WARRIOR is the type of "C" picture most people are going to be expecting but it's too bad a little more effort wasn't put into it because we could have had a fun camp film.

Ghost Warrior is a low budget fish-out-of-water story about a 400 year old Samurai who is resurrected in 80s Los Angeles which would probably even confuse a person being only resurrected after 40 years. Despite being paired by Shout/Scream Factory with the more horror oriented The House Where Evil Dwells this is in no way a horror film but more of an action/thriller drama with light sci-fi elements. This is competently made and looks good but it's just a film with little momentum or urgency and nothing feels important and any excitement is muted. The cast is decent though no one looks familiar or seems memorable. The main girl is cute and looks like a young Denise Richards. She starred in the decent slasher Humongous but I didn't recognize her here. Thankfully there's no love story between her and the samurai as she just tries to guide him through modern day L. A. A romantic subplot would have dragged down an already unexciting film. This film was so low budget they couldn't even afford a "notable" Asian actor like George Takei, James Hong or Pat Morita. Yes, I know one of them isn't Japanese but like any American can tell the difference just by looking at them. Any who claims otherwise is a liar and a scoundrel.

The film mostly slogs along with the samurai having awkward encounters with home invaders, idle motor vehicles and a TV playing a WASP video. At one point he encounters a gang and despite this being an independent film it's one of those multi-cultural gangs mandated by Hollywood propagandists. He saves an old black man from them including cutting off a hand in one of the films few gory scenes. This assault made me think of the recent story of poor, old 73 black man, James Lambert who was murdered with traffic cones at 3 am on the streets of Philadelphia. His attackers weren't young adult multi-racial men but a savage, feral gang of 10-14 year old male and female black "children". A disgusting and vile story almost completely ignored by the media. Sorry James your black life didn't matter because it was ended by people who weren't pale enough. The kindly old rescued black man takes the Samurai to a sushi restaurant which is kind of hilarious. He's mistaken by a couple there for Toshiro Mifune proving again that all East Asians look alike to Americans. Eventually the plot gets going as the scientists who resurrected him try to hunt him down. They want to kill him and make it look like he was never revived so they can't be blamed for his murderous rampage.

Ghost Warrior is decent but just never gets very exciting. There's some violence including a severed hand, knife to the eye and other sword slashings. One person is killed in a samurai/motorcycle duel but they drop the ball not showing the person's top half flying off with blood showering all over. Instead they just show you him lying on the ground with some blood oozing from his mouth. Another way they drop the ball is when the girl feeds him a cup of Ramen noodles. We never get to see his reaction to see how they might compare to ancient Japanese cuisine. Are cheap Ramen noodles just as good as Asian food from hundreds of years ago? We'll never know because this movie just isn't that well thought out. This is R-rated but the violence isn't especially graphic though it has to be the only reason for the R-rating as there's no drugs, sex/nudity and only mild profanity. There's a few racial slurs as the gang calls him things like "Banzai" and "Nip". Nip makes me think of that Seinfeld episode where Elaine exposes herself unknowingly in a Christmas card. The Ghost Warrior title isn't really appropriate and only mentioned during the movie as him being a "ghost" from the past that doesn't belong in this era. An alternate title in the trailer is Swordkill which is kind of cool but also bland. This movie is also kind of cool but also bland. 81 minutes is plenty long for this. It's basically a movie to watch when you don't want too much excitement and just want to relax with something safe and mostly inoffensive.

In 16th century Japan, an efficient and fearless Samurai named Yoshimitsu (Hiroshi Fujioka) is wounded in battle after his sweetheart has been killed. He falls into a body of water and is frozen for over 400 years. Then, in the 1980s, his perfectly preserved body is discovered, shipped to America, and he is soon revived, to adjust to a different time in history and a different culture. A journalist named Chris Welles (Janet Julian) tries to protect him from those that would do him harm.

"Ghost Warrior" is definitely a notch above the typical Empire Pictures fare. Produced by Charles Band, written by Tim Curnen ("Forbidden World"), and directed by J. Larry Carroll (co- writer of "Tourist Trap"), it works largely because it's able to downplay comedy and take its premise fairly seriously. It also works because it allows Fujioka to play his time travelling warrior with a great deal of dignity. This doesn't mean that it's without a sense of humour, but it never gets overly campy or cheesy.

Granted, more could have been done with scenes of Yoshimitsu experiencing 1984 L.A. (among other things, he discovers cars, tires, TV sets...and the heavy metal band W.A.S.P.). The character of Alan Richards (John Calvin) is rather ridiculous what with the about-face that he pulls. And the movie ultimately loses a bit of momentum in its final act.

Still, it's appealing, and earnestly acted. The lovely Julian ("Humongous", "King of New York") is a fine leading lady. Fujioka does have an effective screen presence. Veteran Charles Lampkin (Arch Obolers' "Five") is extremely likable as the senior citizen who attempts to befriend Yoshimitsu. Bill Morey ("Death Race 2000"), Andy Wood ("Rambo: First Blood Part II"), Robert Kino ("Night of the Creeps"), and Peter Liapis ("Ghoulies") co-star.

"Ghost Warrior" has a solid, atmospheric opening and a very nice music score by Richard Band. It actually gets pretty gory at times.

Worth a look for 1980s cult cinema enthusiasts.

Eight out of 10.