Samouraïs (2002)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Absolutely brilliant

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

When I first saw the film, I thought it was a Spike original, and that the caucasian actors were American, and that the dubbing was done intentionally for comedic effect. Despite learning this is not true, the sheer amount of laughter I enjoyed as a result of this film makes it an instant classic in my book. A must see. The martial arts sequences aren't the best I've ever seen, but they are far better than I myself can do. The main problem with the martial arts is the main problem I have with the martial arts in most films, it was too 'clean', too 'smooth'. A display of dojo kung-fu far more than anything resembling actual fights. Even films which are supposed to depict MMA suffer from this. See 'Never Back Down'.

Not the worst movie ever made -- that might be Gigli, or perhaps Battlefield Earth. Along with the negative aspects, widely commented on above, Samourais has some interesting positives.First, there's Kurata. He did his most notable work 35 years ago (!), but he still looks good and can handle the fight sequences with skill and grace. The best is his solo duel in the airport restroom. For some reasons, despite his character's supposed fame, skill, and ancestry, the demon's henchmen send a junior thug with a sword to meet him -- yeah sure, no problem walking through an airport with that! He meets the sword attacks by pulling out a pair of tonfa, just like in "Kung Fu: the Invisible Fist" (his best early work, rentable from Netflix), and beating the stuffings out of the guy.Second, there are the production values. Good photography, good editing, some handsome locations shots by the second unit in Japan. There are no huge explosions or car chases. Special effects are limited and appropriate to the, uh, story.Third, (I may be alone in thinking this), there is the integration of the fighting sequences with the, uh, story. Cheaply made Hong Kong chopsocky flics are pretty much just a series of fights -- one against many, or one against one to no ultimate purpose. In Samourais, the attacks of the demon's crew are more or less directed to a plot-directed purpose.Finally, there's a modest attempt by the fight choreographers to inject a little realism. When the Commissioner's daughter is attacked early in the film, she does the usual Supergirl kicks and blows, but then she uses her bicycle chain as a weapon, and draws (fake) blood with it. Looked real. Likewise, in the opener, where we see the demon's first rebirth back in feudal Japan times, the titular Samurai fights off a gang of thugs, but instead of vaguely waving his sword in the direction of his attackers, like Zatoichi or Sanjuro do, you could actually believe that the Samurai was trying to do these guys some damage.On the negative side, there's a lot of stupid dialog and bad acting, including Kurata's. His acting in the early 1970's was pretty much restricted to looking bored between fights, and pouring a lot of emotion into the action scenes. In Samourais, the emotional content is gone, and he usually looks world-weary rather than bored. No matter how good Kurata looks as a man of 56 (when Samourais was made), he's still sleep-walking through the role. The worst feature of the film, often mentioned in other comments, is the sidekick character. If you liked Jar-Jar Binks, you'll love Nadir, who unfortunately survives through the end of the picture. It won't hurt to fast-forward through all of the scenes where Mako, the junior lead kid, appears with him.Bottom line: the story seems intended to insult the intelligence of everyone over the age of 12, but the overall production is good enough to make renting it justifiable. Or you might do as I did, and tape it when it shows up on the Spike cable network again.BTW, the scenes shot in France don't show the Paris you may remember as a tourist. It's the Seine Saint-Denis arrondissement, France's version of the old East Bronx housing project vertical slums.

Having just finished watching this movie, I must say it was nowhere near as bad as most of the reviews would have had me believe. I suppose the most misleading thing about this movie is the title – it really has very little to do with Samurais at all. Basically, Samouraïs is mix of martial arts, supernatural action, cop story and techno thriller. I'll be the first to admit, the story is far from perfect, being very simplistic, and outrageously silly in a few places. Nevertheless, I did enjoy it. Anyway, let me break it down into pros and cons: Pros – great fight scenes (for the most part); some truly fantastic visual effects and CGI; great "video game" sequences; and some clever (if bizarre) story elements.Cons – the Nadir character is a truly stupid and annoying "bumbling sidekick", on a par with Jar Jar Binks; the fight scenes and violence were strangely sanitized in many ways, much more so than I would expect given the genre and subject matter; every attempt at humor and/or comic relief fails miserably (extremely unfunny and insultingly stupid); and as had been pointed out, the plot is very simplistic, and very implausible in many areas.All in all, Samouraïs is worth a watch if you are a fan of martial arts action and/or supernatural action movies, but please don't see it with expectations of epic cinema or brilliant acting. Also, if you are looking for a "Samurai" genre movie, this certainly is not it. All that aside, an entertaining and easy to watch B-grader.

The film is very different,many of the films that are given bad ratings by many of the fewers are generally rated bad because of the inability to follow a movie.Many watch just to see the fight scenes as if in real life conflicts don't generally start by things people say that is considered offensive."Lets just fight for no cause or reason".The story is well explained but you have those out there that cannot follow the film because hey,"I have to think".Ask anyone the question, why was the computer programmer of the video game killed in the beginning?"Because he knew Kung fu and Karate.Ha! Spiderman not the greatest movie of the year the hulk was OK, not anything unique.The film is very different but didn't receive the attention it deserved.The best films out there goes with- out attention.I know people who watched water world twice in one day but put something out there different unique.My point is here most people want to see the same things over and over.I'm even surprised the matrix was a big hit.