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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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6
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7 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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In
his video introduction to the DVD of Samurai
Cop, B-movie maven Joe Bob Briggs sarcastically
hails the film as "the recently unearthed,
soon to be classic kung fu-action-comedy-skin
flick with gratuitous gore elements." What
Joe Bob doesn't say is that Samurai
Cop is perhaps the most god-awful
example of bungled, inept action movie filmmaking
of the 1980s, a decade renowned for its cavalcade
of direct-to-video clunkers. To say this film
is bad is like saying the Pacific Ocean is slightly
moist... There simply aren't sufficient adjectives
in the English language to convey the intrinsic
stinkiness of this celluloid dung heap.
Fortunately, this means it's
also pretty damn funny.
Samurai
Cop was written and directed by Iranian
expat Armir Shervan, who helmed two other ultra-low
budget action flicks in the late '80s before disappearing
— along with his movies — into obscurity. (I'd
probably want to vanish too were I responsible
for Samurai Cop.)
In his only film appearance, Matt Hannon (onetime
bodyguard to Sylvester Stallone) stars as Joe
Marshall, a maverick undercover policeman who
was trained in the way of the samurai by the greatest
martial arts masters of Japan. (This is what we're
told, anyway.) Teamed with his wisecracking black
partner, Frank (Mark Frazer), Joe takes on and
takes down the ruthless criminal gang of Mr. Fujiyama
(Joselito Recober), a transplanted yakuza who
barks or growls every line of his dialog. Fujiyama's
gang seems to consist of, oh, about eight members;
one of 'em's a redheaded femme fatale (played
by "Cameron"; see below) whose only
apparent function in the organization is to say
"The boss is coming" (or a variant thereof)
and get naked. Robert "The Face" Z'Dar
— he of the trademark humongous jaw, here camouflaged
under a beard — is Fujiyama's psycho enforcer,
another Occidental "samurai" who wants
a showdown with Joe to prove the superiority of
his skills. As for our heroes, tanned and buff
Joe strips down to his thong briefs to simulate
humping a couple of shapely blondes (one of whom
he picks up at church); when not clumsily
edited in to Joe's scenes, Frank almost has his
"black gift" cut off and gets to shoot
a few of the bad guys. Direct-to-video scream
queen Melissa Moore (Sorority
House Massacre II, Hard
To Die) provides some of the flick's
requisite nudity. She plays one of Joe's girlfriends,
eventually tortured by Z'Dar's character by having
a pan of hot bacon grease slowly poured on her.
(Joe, whom she's suffering for, immediately forgets
her in favor of the other chick.) The film's "gratuitous
gore" scenes are just silly.
They were obviously trying
for a 'Lethal Weapon
with martial arts' sort of vibe and completely
fail on every level. Zero production values, botched
editing, horrible-to-nonexistent acting, lame
action scenes, outrageously bad dialog ("I
will bring you his head and place it on your piano!")
— nothing, absolutely nothing in this movie comes
within a mile of working. Shervan doesn't even
bother with establishing shots in many cases,
as some scenes begin in the middle of things,
apropos of nothing. (A prime example comes right
after the opening credits.) The climactic sword
battle between Z'Dar and Hannon was obviously
shot with the actors slooooowly going through
their moves, then speeding up the film.
It's pathetic, but at
least it's amusingly pathetic. The amazingly hamfisted
ineptitude of Samurai Cop
will reward cheese lovers looking for laughs.
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Samurai
Cop was recently
released by Media Blasters under the auspices
of the company's "Guilty Pleasures" line of budget
DVDs. (Tokyo Shock and Shriek Show are also Media
Blasters sub-labels.) While the AV quality of
the fullframe transfer isn't much better than
an EP-speed videotape, in a way it's actually
befitting of the movie... This is exactly the
kind of dreck that was released direct to VHS,
by the buttload, back in the pre-DVD era of home
video. The blind $1 rental experience is faithfully
recreated here. (Only it'll cost a bit more.)
So I'm not going to knock Media Blasters on this
one. Given the wretchedness of the movie as a
whole, it probably looked like this the day the
film stock was processed in the lab. Ironically
enough, it seems Samurai
Cop —
a film too pathetic to have ever played in theaters
— was never even
released on video in the United States... It's
just that bad! Supposedly this disc marks
the first time it's ever been seen domestically
in any shape or form. Did it never run
on cable TV? No movie could be so awful that it
can't be shown on Cinemax. Or can it?
Some fun extras are
what seal the deal. Along with trailers for other
Guilty Pleasures titles — a bizarre selection,
including such oddities as Sex
Bomb with Robert Quarry and Ray Dennis
Steckler's Bloodshack
(aka The Chooper)
— there's a gallery of publicity photos taken
for Samurai Cop (which
try very hard to make it look like an Andy Sidaris
movie) and a recently taped video interview with
actor Robert Z'Dar (Maniac
Cop, Tango and
Cash). Running 12 minutes, the latter features
an amiable, jokey Z'Dar discussing the making
of Samurai Cop, its
director and his co-stars. His freshest memories
concern martial arts training with Gerald Okamura
(on their own initiative, as no provisions were
made for even rehearsing the fight scenes),
the bizarre eating habits of star Matt Hannon
(he consumed nothing but chopped turkey every
day during the 3½ week shoot, claiming it kept
him "lean"), and doing a nude sex scene with Cameron,
whom he later learned was actually '80s porn star
Krista Lane trying to go legit. (In this
piece of crap?) As for writer-director Shervan,
Z'Dar has nothing to say about his qualities as
a filmmaker, only that he was a very nice fellow
who'd at one time "owned every theater in Iran"
and who treated him like a genuine movie star
— "Like gold."
The true highlights of the
disc are the video introduction by author/comedian/schlock
movie connoisseur Joe Bob Briggs and his full-length
"comedy commentary". If you ever saw his shtick
as host of TNT's long-since-canceled MonsterVision
then you know what to expect, only here he has
the freedom to be more lewd and lascivious. In
the introduction segment he recites his trademark
"Drive-in Totals" while preparing us for the experience
to come. (I'm still not quite sure where he came
up with the odd figure of nine breasts.)
His audio commentary differs from the Mystery
Science Theater 3000 approach in that he provides
the occasional factoid about the movie in between
zinging its ineptitude with twangy gusto. In a
way it could be described as a hybrid of your
typical commentary track and an MST3K-style ribbing.
Briggs' comments are consistently amusing, at
times downright hilarious; he seems to be having
a good time ragging on the film and I enjoyed
listening to him do it.
7/01/04
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