Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance

Like many of you reading this review, I am one of those special individuals who enjoys watching bad movies because of the non intentional hilarity factor involved. A movie which has a cast and director who actually try to make a good movie but are not aware nor can cope with their lack of expertise, budget or comprehension of a proper film can have gut wrenching laughs.

Now enter the Samurai Cop 2. Building up from its cult following and the internet movement of glorifying old bad movies, it invested some money into creating a sequel to satisfy rabid fans. Now the problem is that the movie is too self aware about what's going on. The first film had an amateur director with big dreams leading a cast of actors who where desperately trying to build their acting portfolios and then suddenly everything crashed and burned. The second seems like it was trying too hard to re-create the tragic magic it had from the first film and instead of making a movie so bad its good, its just a terrible film. The cast and crew came into this movie knowing it was nothing special and it ends up being just that.

First off we can talk about the story. I have yet to figure out what the hell was going on. At first it seemed to make sense. Losing a loved one caused samurai cop to go into hiding. There's a clan war between two large gangs and they need him back to stop the impending chaos. After that you get random scenes of flash backs, poorly executed action scenes and reused meditation sequences of samurai cop on the beach. I know the story wasn't the main attraction but it created this vortex in which the more you tried to follow it the more you got lost in what was going on. It got to the point where you couldn't focus on the jokes because your brain was too warped from the messed up information it just received.

The actors that were in the film weren't great either, which is to be expected because they brought back many of them that were in the first film. The new characters consisted of porn stars and Tommy Wiseau to cater to those who enjoy gratuitous nudity and The Room. I am one of those people so that's where one of the stars from my rating is derived. I enjoyed Kayden Kross' performance and it's quite sad that her acting was better than most on set. Her black wig made her look like Jill Valentine...mmhhhmm...anyways back to the review.

The interior sets were poorly done consisting of reused basement rooms and decorated basement rooms to simulate places such as bars, clubs and building complexes. The colour scheme they used was really bright which almost rivaled tron for its neon use. They said they used the kickstarter money for special effects but it looks like basic animations and sfx that come free with a low end video editing software. They really screwed kickstarter backers if they spent 50k on elementary school cgi work.

The music was the other reason for the second star for this review. I enjoyed it and it set the mood quite well and hit the right notes to move you through the poorly acted scenes.

All in all I give this movie a 2 out of 10 starz rating. I would not recommend this film. They ruined perfectly good memories of the first bad film and didn't even try hard to make a good film which would end up being unintentionally bad. They should have used the budget and kickstarter money to make a porn parody as they could've used the same cast, been more entertaining and cost less money.

Positives:

+++Many Actors from the first Movie

+++ Some good insider Jokes

+++ Some Easter Eggs

+++ Mostly good Soundtrack

+++ Wig

Negatives:

--- Frank plays only a little Role (horrible end Scene)

--- Picture is way too red, maybe they would copy the first one but failed

--- Side Actors are mostly bad, Tommy Wiseau is ok but dont fit in that Movie

--- Horrible CGI

--- Story is crazy and not good

--- Fight Scenes are not so good

--- looks very cheap even for a Kickstarter Movie

--- not really a Backstory from the Samurai Cop

--- Bad Ending

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For me its a Big Chance missed because they had so many Actors from the first Movie and they will never come back, they could make a Cop Movie like the first One where they fight the Yakuza again. Simply and same Goofy as the first one with the Wig gag and many Others but not this Space Story that dont fit.

I am all for bad movies but this isn't even good bad. How?! How did this get a better rating than the first 1991 film?! The plot - what plot - is so hard to follow and it is just a hot mess. Still funny because it is so awful but really makes zero sense. If you choose to go down this rabbit hole, God Speed.

OK, so this movie is really bad,..... on purpose? I think yeah... (not sure?)... So this is in fact a great movie to watch drunk with friends for sure. Also on level with "The Room" ( and Tommy Wiseau is in it) Seriously the best/worst special fx (SNL style green screen) and uses video game noises for the punch and kick sounds. This movie is terrible, but good terrible. Give it a shot if you just really want a good laugh.Also you might want to use subtitles.

Oh and I forgot about the acting. It's just goes beyond unicorns and footballs ... "Oh hi Johnny" *stares "RED BLOOD!!! RED BLOOD JOHNNY!"

Just magical. Majestic even.

SAMURAI COP 2: DEADLY VENGEANCE is a fan made film, funded by Kickstarter and released as a tribute to the original SAMURAI COP. For those who don't know, SAMURAI COP (and the likes of KILLING American STYLE) were cheap, inept and cheesy low budget action flicks from the early 1990s which today have a kind of cult charm and so-bad-it's-good feel.

Sadly, this follow up makes a huge mistake in that it looks and feels nothing like the original movie. All of the humour and the goofiness has gone and what we're left with is a cookie cutter film packed with all the awfulness a typical Z-grade film can muster: terrible stilted acting (most of the cast are moonlighting porn performers), embarrassingly bad direction, rubbish fight scenes, and a general lack of plot cohesion. Amir Shervan, who wrote and directed the original SAMURAI COP, must be spinning in his grave.

I think SAMURAI COP 2 is a good example of the difference between old B-movies and new ones. The old B-movies at least had something going for them; they weren't perfect, but they had a kind of cheesy, hard-working charm. These days, film-making is so cheap that anybody can make a B-flick, except few amateur film-makers have the talent even to make so-bad-it's-good productions. They're mostly just horrid, like this one.

Robert Z'Dar died before the production began - that was a lucky break - but Mathew Karedas, Mark Frazer, and Cranston Komuro all return from the original film and yes, Karedas is still the bad actor that he always was. If you were ever interested in seeing how badly Laurene Landon (MANIAC COP) has aged, here's your chance. Oh, and Bai Ling (DUMPLINGS) is here too in her most awful performance yet; I guess she really will appear in any old thing.