I remember this film as a kid because it used to come on the TV station USA about 6 times a year from around 94 to 98. Thought about it recently for some random reason and bought a copy pretty cheap online.
American Samurai came out sort of at the tail end of the martial arts arena fighter craze and in my opinion and fallows the usual story line where a martial artist's (insert wife, brother, mother, sister, child, teacher, student, pet dog, pet fish) is seriously injured or killed by some scary psychopathic guy who also is a martial artist either in the ring or out, enters arena combat and then gets revenge. But there's a few twists.
This time however, Doug Bradley is going after a sword stolen by Mark Dacascos' thugs who happens to be the son of his guardian who trained them both to be samurai. The first 30 minutes of the film is the usual bull crap with terrible and seemingly pointless dialogue and is fallowed up on by some really good action sequences. This movie is a lot different than your average arena fighter. The combatants employ the use of blades and the body count is much much higher and it's much darker in my opinion than other movies in the genre like Mortal Kombat and Kickboxer.
On paper it sounds pretty awesome but it's marred by the use of hokey arena fighters (one is dressed up like Conan the Barbarian for example) and bad editing. There was one scene of monologue in the film that featured a combatant that had just been killed 30 seconds earlier. The acting is bad, but it's better than the likes of Bloodsport (im not dissing Bloodsport, just making a valid statement).
The best parts of the film in my personal opinion are Mark Dacascos and the ending itself. Mark does overact, but gives a fine performance for his first film and the ending resolves on a bittersweet and abrupt note that left a lot of loose ends for a sequel that to my knowledge was never made.
After growing up and seeing this movie again I have to say that I still like it. But it's very flawed due to bad directing/ editing and it's definitely dated now. It's worth seeing and I think that a good director could remake this film right and come up with a good product.
American Samurai came out sort of at the tail end of the martial arts arena fighter craze and in my opinion and fallows the usual story line where a martial artist's (insert wife, brother, mother, sister, child, teacher, student, pet dog, pet fish) is seriously injured or killed by some scary psychopathic guy who also is a martial artist either in the ring or out, enters arena combat and then gets revenge. But there's a few twists.
This time however, Doug Bradley is going after a sword stolen by Mark Dacascos' thugs who happens to be the son of his guardian who trained them both to be samurai. The first 30 minutes of the film is the usual bull crap with terrible and seemingly pointless dialogue and is fallowed up on by some really good action sequences. This movie is a lot different than your average arena fighter. The combatants employ the use of blades and the body count is much much higher and it's much darker in my opinion than other movies in the genre like Mortal Kombat and Kickboxer.
On paper it sounds pretty awesome but it's marred by the use of hokey arena fighters (one is dressed up like Conan the Barbarian for example) and bad editing. There was one scene of monologue in the film that featured a combatant that had just been killed 30 seconds earlier. The acting is bad, but it's better than the likes of Bloodsport (im not dissing Bloodsport, just making a valid statement).
The best parts of the film in my personal opinion are Mark Dacascos and the ending itself. Mark does overact, but gives a fine performance for his first film and the ending resolves on a bittersweet and abrupt note that left a lot of loose ends for a sequel that to my knowledge was never made.
After growing up and seeing this movie again I have to say that I still like it. But it's very flawed due to bad directing/ editing and it's definitely dated now. It's worth seeing and I think that a good director could remake this film right and come up with a good product.