1991
Director: Amir Shervan
Genre: Bad action movie
Sometimes, you don’t want to review some heavy hitting drama film or some surreal expressionist work of art.
Sometimes you have to talk about a film called Samurai Cop, which is about a detective who is not a samurai.
More than most comedies, I find that some good bad movies are meant to be experienced rather than just talked about. Sometimes you have to witness such wonderful awkwardness for yourself in order to believe your eyes.
Thus, behold.
Nearly everything in this film is a god damn delight to watch. The same dialog is repeated during a chase scene multiple times. So many scenes cut to shots that were obviously filmed much later at a completely different location. The main character has this amazing speech to the bad guy that is delivered in such an unbelievable monotone that you have to imagine that the actor was just trying to see how badly he could act (which is actually true).
This film gives us a great glimpse into the mind of a foreigner trying to make an american action movie. He has all the moments there, with the main character getting all the women and being a badass. But since Mr. Samurai Cop has literally no charisma, all the attempts at cliches come off as unbelievably awkward and confusing. It has that bad movie quality, which makes you think the film was made by aliens.
There will always be something to laugh at in every scene. Even a simple interaction between two characters is uplifted by a giant lion head that takes up over half of the frame for some reason. There's a lot of sleaze and terribly shot nudity, but it ironically comes off as innocent.
The film can start to feel tedious at parts, and I wish the main character actually used a samurai sword more than twice in the whole film. But this is a film you need to see if you're a fan of good bad movies. Get a group of friends together, pick up some drinks, and have a good evening laughing at Samurai Cop.
Oh and by the way, what does Katana mean?
"It means Japanese sword."
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