American Samurai

1992
4.9| 1h34m| en
Details

When a father passes on the traditional family sword to one of his two adopted sons, the other--in a fit of jealous rage--joins a yakuza drug smuggling mob. When the other son decides to find him and set things straight, things don't seem to go as smoothly as he planned, and a misunderstanding leads the stepbrothers into a Turkish arena to battle swordsmen from around the world.

Director

Producted By

Cannon Group

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Reviews

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.
Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.
Hulkeasexo it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.
Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...
bronsonskull72 David Bradley stars as Drew, An American samurai who has incured the wrath of his step-brother by earning his father's sword. Of course years later the brother Kenjiro (Mark Dacascos) is a yakuza mob boss and Drew now a journalist, Kenjiro forces Drew back in a to the death weapons tournament in this martial arts actioner which pretty much delivers what you would expect. (Which is to say not much.) The plot is stolen from the Chuck Norris starred dud Octagon and although this is slightly better, American Samurai suffers from Bradley's lack of charisma and Dacascos is far too over the top to take seriously. Some brutal yet satisfying action abound to make this go down easier.2/5 Matt Bronson Review brought to you courtesy from Spike TV and their midnight airing.
Wizard-8 Having all but exhausted the exploitation of ninjas, what was Cannon to do? Right - exploit samurais instead! As well as recycle elements from their past hit BLOODSPORT, including a big burly guy with a beard as one of the contestants! It's clear the movie was cut for an "R" rating, given how some wounds and killings are not shown as clearly as you would think, but the editing also shows signs of production problems. One lengthy scene seems to have been cut in half, with the subsequent half played much later in the movie. There is also awkward narration and a very long sex scene where you never see the faces of the lovers, furthering the suspicion of frantic efforts to patch together the movie. The production values are pretty good, and Firstenberg does deliver the goods with the fight sequences, which are expertly choreographed. He doesn't do well with the actors however, having Dacascos overact at times and Bradley giving yet another uncharismatic performance.
wingtam Okay, so it was never going to get an Oscar, but consider this movie's merits for what it is ¡V a low budget film trying to ride out on the ¡§fame¡¨ of a B grade star with Ninja hype. Take that away and what you have is an innovative late 80s early 90s martial arts flick that managed to repackage the ¡§Blood Sports¡¨ idea using (some) extremely talented actors. I watched this video as part of my research on a new director, Tony Szeto. I was amazed by the fight scenes that involved Mark Dacascos (Kenjiro) and Tony Szeto (Phan-Xu). Even with the dismal fight between Dacascos and a hopeless Bradely (Drew), the close-ups reveal a telling red flag ¡V obviously the close-ups of the previous fight between Dacascos and Szeto. Realize that, barring the slow motion, all fighting was done in real time. That is, there was no motion speed-up as often used in Hong Kong kung-fu films. I don't know about the rumors that they used actual weapons (blunted of course), but I have an article from an Israeli newspaper that says one of the actors were injured by a weapon while shooting one of the fight scenes. With ¡§Brotherhood of the Wolf (2002)¡¨, it is surely only a matter of time before Dacascos hits the A-list in Hollywood. But with the knowledge that much of the martial arts choreography was done by Tony Szeto, I'm looking forward to seeing his directorial debut in ¡§DragonBlade (2003)¡¨, which apparently will be packed full of martial arts weaponry.
martymaster This movie is all about cage fighting. Cage fighting is two martial arts experts being locked in a cage and fight to one of them is dead.(sometimes they use weapons like swords,spears etc)You dont watch a movie like this for nothing else than cool fighting scenes,because it has almost no plot and the acting sucks. But in this movie the fighting scenes is especially good,and it shows of many different fighting styles.The movie contains some really strong scenes of violence and gore,what did you expect,it is about men who kill each other.If you like martial arts movies for the fighting scenes,then you will love this one.

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