Samurai Cop (1991)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Better Late Then Never

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Sometimes I give honest IMDb grades for quality. Others are like this where it's so freaking entertaining that this needs a higher grade than Batman v Superman. Seriously, for several months I've had an obsession with this before seeing it. I finally bought and it doesn't disappoint. You can watch Samurai Cop tell a horny nurse, "I love what I see," a hundred times and never cease to laugh at how bad it is. I don't think you could make a movie this bad if you even tried to. This movie even grows better each time you see it. The fact half the movie is a re-shoot causes so much discontinuity in the setting, lighting and even hair lengths that you won't even see the reflections of camera men and boom mics. I promise, this is truly so bad it's good. Not one scene is boring.

SAMURAI COP is another hilariously inept action B-movie from the guy who brought us Killing American Style. I think Amir Shervan's earlier film has the edge in terms of out-and-out cheese and comedy, but SAMURAI COP comes a close second. The title's a misnomer, brought about because there are a couple of samurai swords in the film; otherwise this is the usual cops and robbers stuff as upstanding heroes battle gun-toting criminal gang members.This film is so much like Killing American Style it feels like they were shot back to back: the movies share cast members and look and feel exactly the same in terms of staging, fight scenes, etc. The staging is staggeringly inept, with most scenes shot in single takes, and the acting is quite horrible. The main actor, Mathew Karedas, has a long hair style that swaps from being real to a woman's wig and back again as the story goes on (the story is that he had his hair cut short halfway through the production so had to wear a wig for the rest of the filming).SAMURAI COP is a film that nobody can take seriously, so the best thing to do is to sit back and laugh at it. In this respect it becomes something of a gem, an example of so-bad-it's-good entertainment. As with Killing American Style, Robert Z'Dar plays in support as the chief villain. Others must have enjoyed this movie, because a sequel followed in 2014 (!).

I guess I was behind the curve on finding out about this messterpiece, but about a year ago I was clued in and have seen it several times since, as well as seeing the Kickstarter fueled Samurai Cop 2 in its theatrical run, no less. But let's get back to the original. A highly incompetent Lethal Weapon ripoff mixed with a ninja film, this was barely released direct to video in 1991 and thereafter floundered in obscurity. It may have actually gotten a theatrical release in some lesser nation; I know there was a movie poster from Poland which served as the basis for the first DVD cover. Years later, some hipsters dug it up and thanks to the internet, it developed a well-deserved and appreciative dedicated cult fandom. Although plagued with nonsensical writing, bad acting, non-existent direction, hack-job editing and video-game level musical score, Samurai Cop is actually a hilarious entertainment experience, unlike the even worse action/exploitation flick also made by an Iranian immigrant, the diabolical Dangerous Men. Where Dangerous Men is filthy, difficult to watch and depressing as hell, Samurai Cop is rollicking, goofy and insane. A lot of this appeal is due to the good will engendered by the two leads, Matt Hannon and Mark Fraser, who ended up doing very little after this film, career-wise, which is a shame. Half the script makes no sense as it is an impression of American films and American culture written by an outsider, English-as-a- Second-Language auteur, director Amir Shervan. Lead actor Hannon wears a cheap ladies' wig through much of the film as he had gone off during a break and cut his hair short (to be fair, Shervan told him the film was done and called him to come back for more shooting about six months later). Special effects are bargain basement, fight choreography is nearly non-existent, and the Japanese gang with only one Japanese person in it must be seen to be believed. At this point you probably don't need my recommendation to go see this as the film's reputation for hilarity is probably up there next to Tommy Wiseau's The Room by now. I'd even recommend repeat viewings as there's probably more laughs to be mined after the first go round. See it before you get shipped back to Tokyo in a garbage bag for fertilizer!

Samurai Cop has brought dishonor to buddy cop genre, because how badly, made it was. As penance, this action movie has commit seppuku. Director by Amir Shervan, this movie wasn't never released in theaters, and promptly vanished for years, after a failed attempt to find distributors in 1991. It wasn't until 2007 that a mysterious clip from the film was uploaded to Youtube, that most people became aware of this film existence. Still, the film wasn't available until 2010, when a print stored in a vault in Los Angeles was found. From that, a proper DVD was released, shedding some light on the mysterious film. In 2012, rumors of the main actor's demise, became news, but it quickly was proved false, when in 2014, the movie's top star, Matt Hannon miraculously announced that he was still alive amidst the evidence and rumors of his death. Following Matt Hannon's announcement, interest for the movie grew and people finally got to see it, like myself. This action thriller movie tells the story of Officer Joe Marshall (Matt Hannon AKA Matt Karedas) & his partner, the street wise Officer Frank Washington (Mark Frazier) on their journey to take down, a fearsome Japanese crime syndicated known as the Katana. Can 'Samurai Cop' and his buddy stop the evil drug lords from taking control of the streets of Los Angeles or will the Katana gang win out in the end? Watch the movie to find out! Without spoiling the movie, too much, I have to say, this obscure movie has a lot of troubles, during production. First off, director Amir Shervan ran out of money during filming. While, some of the footage was shot during summer 1990, production didn't resume until months later, in 1991. By this point, Matt Hannon had cut his hair which lead to the infamous bad woman wig, being used in half of the reshoots. I like how the wig kept, falling off, during the low budget poorly choreograph sped up fight scenes with the very white, Robert Z'Dar's supposedly Japanese character, Yamashita. It's even funnier, when you find out, that the rest of the Japanese gang is made out of no name, White, Mexican & black guys. Supposedly, Joe Marshall is also supposed to be Japanese, but he looks more like a Chippendale's dancer with shoulder-length women's mullet like hair. I like how the movie states out, that he's fluent in Japanese, but can't pronounce any Japanese words. It's funny how dialogue shots were done with a single take. You can see many of times, the actors messing up their lines or having their lines redub. The movie also spouts out some of the oddly sleaziest & cheesiest exposition lines you've ever heard. The pointless horny nurse scene is infamous for this. The best part of that scene is Mark Frazier's reactions. Amir Shervan also stopped using a boom mic and did all of the secondary character's voices were loop by himself, to save money. It's funny that he badly warped the voices in post-production to try to sound different. His lack of ability to do this correctly means that some of the ADR sounds heavily robotic. It also doesn't help, that the music sounds like 8Bit Nintendo. The absurd doesn't end there. Shervan also could not afford lighting to shoot at night, so the entire film was set during the day. Since, Shervan shot at different times of the day, the movie has this awful yellow tint to it. You can really tell, which ones were the original shots, and which ones were redoes. It's pretty bad that the movie has no establishing shots. Even if they did, the interior and exterior shots don't really look alike. One of the bigger problems of the film, is the editing. The movie is full of awkward jumps cuts. The footage is so short, that it doesn't leave enough room for the editors to do anything, besides that. It's odd, how the movie always cut to nudity or near nudity, after an action piece. While, the women actresses are pretty hot in the film; they are not given much to do, besides sleep with the good guy. The promiscuous helicopter pilot was somewhat offensive. Also the movie tries to be, very serious with its brutality gory nature, but it comes off, laughable due to the cheap effects, and over-the-top acting. Another crime of the film is the misleading poster. Not once, do you get to see, what's the poster is supposedly showing in the film. Very disappointing. Anyways, this Lethal Weapon rip-off, got a Kickstarter sequel, 2015: Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance. I have yet to see it, so I don't know, if it's worth watching. Overall: I could go on and on... and on about this movie, but if I keep going on then I won't leave much for the viewer to see for themselves. This is a true experience of 'it's so bad, it's good'. There is just so much to make fun of. Lots of laughs. Worth checking out just for that.