AboveDeepBuggy Some things I liked some I did not.

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

bob the moo It has been a while since I watched Black Belt Jones, but that was the previous Jim Kelly film I had seen and recently the mood took me for some blaxploitation films. Where the previous film had Kelly fighting for his own streets, here we have him as a much in demand secret agent. He plays Robert Sand (Bobby to his mates) who is on holiday playing tennis with some hotties with the phone off the hook whenever his employers come to him for help in breaking a right of black-magic using international drug dealers. Sands of course says no, until he finds the group have kidnapped the daughter of the Japanese Ambassador to the US (Toki) who also happens to be Sand's girlfriend (albeit not one he is particularly faithful to). Sand sets out to rescue her and bring down the gang all at once.I quite like Blaxploitation films when they work; the best of them manage to be really good and make the most of limited resources, but there can still be good ones that try and have fun while being inherently poor. Unfortunately Black Samurai seems to either not be aware of its own limitations or just seems content to totally ignore them and hope it will all just come together. By this I mean that it doesn't play to its strengths very well but instead plays to an ideal that it can't achieve either financially or in terms of the skills of those involved. There are big moments of this (like the jet-pack scene) but generally the whole film is poor and just seems worse for how far from its own target it falls. The plot is clunky and very little fun at all while the action sequences don't even offer cheesy thrills because they are mostly poorly done. It is a shame because I like Kelly but he looks poor because of how bad the extras are at even things like falling down.Technically the film shows how little effort went into this. The direction and shot selection is poor but it is the audio that is most shocking. Quality varies between lines within the same scene but more annoying is the ADR/dubbing done after the film. When it at its best it is just out of synch but at its worst lines are dubbed onto people who aren't even speaking at the time – the fight with Bones and Sand is hilarious as a result. And so the film goes – it fills time when it can, point a camera roughly where people are standing when they're doing something and generally fails to be fun, dramatic, exciting or even funny in a cheesy retro way. The cast can't do much. Kelly is not a great presence but he is totally wasted here – uncool, not allowed to impressive physically and just looks uncomfortable for most of it. The supporting cast are weaker – Joi and Chia are cute but never given the chance to be a sexy distraction in the film as they should have been. Meanwhile the main villains stand and pull faces while rubbish henchmen fall over awkwardly.A poor film then – even by the standards of the genre. It seems to think it can make big things work despite having no talent or resources to achieve it and the end result is poor no matter how you look at it. It says a lot when you consider that the entertainment high-point of the film is a fight with a vulture where Kelly lies on his back doing defensive arm movements while someone waves a stuffed toy in his face, intercut with a white stuntman standing in for Kelly who appears to have had a panicking vulture stapled to his chest – and even this only works because of how unintentionally daft it all looks.

MartinHafer Yes, this movie stinks. But before you start ragging on it too much, understand that for this director (Al Adamson), this is a very good film and a massive improvement over his usual films! So, while this movie is of course quite bad, at least it's better than many of Adamson's other grade-z films, such as "Dracula Versus Frankenstein", "Brain of Blood" and "Hell's Bloody Devils". It's not an exaggeration to say that Adamson could easily be the worst director in film history--even worse than the famed Ed Wood, Jr..As for the film, it is pretty typical for an Adamson epic, though I am surprised that Jim Kelly needed the money so badly that he'd agree to make the movie. I am also surprised that Kelly actually made two films for this schlock-meister! He sure has sunk a long way since his breakout role in "Enter the Dragon".The film features some terribly exciting scenes. One is a Cadillac that goes off the road and down a small embankment...then naturally explodes (you can see that the car was LATER exploded and this clip was clumsily stuck in after the car goes off the road). Another great scene is using his martial arts on midgets--ooh, gotta be careful of those ninja-midgets (Hmmm...wouldn't it be a cool remake if they made "Snow White and the Seven Ninja Dwarfs"?). And, not content to do this once, Kelly fights another midget later in the film. Not surprisingly, the little guy was amazingly easy to beat! Imagine that! Additionally, Kelly fights an assortment of baddies whose martial arts talents are nil--so you never really get a chance to see the sort of action Kelly actually is capable of doing. In fact, I think that fighting the ninja midgets was about the best fighting in the film!! Despite the film being filled with deficiencies, there are a few positive things I should point out. Kelly drives a really, really cool sports car and I am surprised the budget could afford it (perhaps it belonged to Adamson or one of the other cast members). Also, at one point he flies around using a jet-pack! In reality, one of these machines can only remain airborne for a few seconds (20-30 tops) but various clips were strung together to make for a neat scene--though oddly, a few "throwaway" scenes were allowed to remain (such as when he crashed into the creek).As for the plot...well, forget it. Who cares?! It's a confusing melange concerning kidnappings, drugs and a devil cult...nuff said??!!Overall, bad action, bad acting, a terrible script and pitiful direction make this a rather stupid film from start to finish and is only of interest to bad movie fans like myself. Chalk up another to Adamson, King of Dreck! By the way, if you do see the film, isn't it interesting that one of the bad guys looks a lot like Damon Wayans!

bensonmum2 When a Hong Kong diplomat's daughter is kidnapped by drug smuggler / Satanist named Janicot, Robert Sand aka the Black Samurai (Jim Kelly) is called in to rescue the girl. And it's more than a job, it's personal. Sand and the girl have a relationship. Sand must use all his skill karate skill and training to bust up the bad guys and free the girl.In something I wrote recently about the movie 100 Rifles, I called Jim Brown "wooden". That was before I saw Black Samurai. Jim Kelly makes Jim Brown look positively animated. Kelly may have been a martial arts master and good in the choreographed fights scenes, but a thespian he ain't. You can't question Kelly's athletic ability, but his acting ability – forget about it. Believe it or not, Kelly isn't the worst this movie has to offer. Most of the rest of the cast is even worse.Everything about Black Samurai is, in a word, amateurish. The movie is a technical mess. Editing, cinematography, lighting, sound, etc. are horrible. Al Adamson has to be one of the most untalented directors ever. It's amazing he was able to find people willing to hire him to make so many movies. Ed Wood comes off looking like Alfred Hitchcock in comparison.Even with all the faults, and there are plenty, there is some entertainment value to be had in Black Samurai. Where else are you going to see Jim Kelly kicking butt, battling midgets, fighting a vulture, flying in a jet pack, and just being plain old cool?

RPBongo Just this past weekend, a bunch of my friends and I planned on going to out local multiplex and see either Man on the Moon or Magnolia. But both films were sold out and our hopes were dashed, but we decided something should come out of this. We stopped by our local Blockbuster Video and after browsing came up with 2 titles; Office Space and Black Samurai(neither film was one I wanted to see in the slightest, but since I wanted to allow my friends to pick something they wanted to see I indulged them). After we finished watching the former film (which my friends found hilarious, I found to be only alright)we decided to pop in Black Samurai, a film we had no expectations for other then to be amused by it. This film definitely followed through in this aspect.After a brief opening that takes place in a completely non-descript place and where Robert Sands aka Black Samurai's girlfriend also the foreign ambassador's daughter (what a coincedence!) gets kidnapped by a couple of thugs who work for a voodoo priest who plans or bringing a modern day slavery ring to life. Definitely has to be a mission for D.R.A.G.O.N member Black Samurai (I still have no idea what that acronym could possibly stand for). When Sands/Samurai hears of this crime he goes off on an adventure featuring the shortest, most anti-climactic car chase, a jet-pac that resembles scuba gear, fights with cowboy midgets and spear chucking natives that reside in what looks to be Nevada and to top it all off a climactic battle with the Voodoo Priests vulture (named Vultron) add a dash of horrible lighting and a director who just allows the action to go on somewhere in the vicinity of the camera's shooting area, a sprinkle of gratuitous nudity, and every cliche found in the Blaxploitation films in this era, and you have one of the most unintentionally hilarious films ever made! Definitely a must-rent for someone who is need of comedy...but to make it better get a group of friends and let the Mystery Science Theater 3000-type mockery begin!88 Minutes long Made in 1976 Rated R for Gratuitous Nudity, Mild Violence, Brief Language