David Bradley stars as Drew Collins a raised Samurai who was given the family sacred sword which ticks off his younger step-brother (Dacascos) who joins the Yakuza and now is the favorite in a weapons circuit, when Dacascos swipes the sword from Bradley, Bradley travels to Turkey to get it back. American Samurai is an interestingly atmospheric attempt at starting a new franchise to which Bradley looked to capture when he couldn't upstage the original American Ninja, Michael Dudikoff. (Not exactly the world's hardest actor to upstage...) so he tried his hand at being an American Samurai and of all ironies this one is only noteworthy as his co-star Mark Dacascos' debut. Bradley would later find minor stardom in the moronic Cyborg Cop movies. American Samurai however suffers from terrible acting and not enough verve in the fight arena. The movie seems edited very poorly as we are missing initial kill shots, perhaps the movie was cut for release, even so the movie is just too stupid to work as even guilty pleasure. American Samurai is a thoroughly dull effort which doesn't have enough plot to back any of it up. The action sequences are lifeless and in the end it just never gels into anything of worth.
*1/2 out of 4-(Poor)
*1/2 out of 4-(Poor)