Laikals
The greatest movie ever made..!
ShangLuda
Admirable film.
Kodie Bird
True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.
Hayleigh Joseph
This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.
Leofwine_draca
SHIRA: THE VAMPIRE SAMURAI is a no budget action movie shot in a wooded location. It looks like the director and his mates got hold of some plastic props and a suit of samurai armour and decided to shoot a movie with it, making up the story and dialogue as they went along. The film is chock full of low rent and disappointing action sequences centred around the film's protagonist, a half-vampire woman with cool contact lenses. There's very little to say about this silly production other than that it's an embarrassing bore.
obloco
I love bad movies. You know the phrase "so bad it's good", well in this case it isn't. It is just plain bad.I couldn't finish watching it bad.I didn't have any clue that the Japanese scenes were supposed to be 16th century until I read it elsewhere. The casting is terrible. The costumes suck. The "effects" are horrid, worst fake blood I've seen in quite some time. The acting is bad, but not bad enough to have camp value. Worst fight choreography I've seen anywhere. No continuity between many of the scenes, they just jump to what they want to show next without any tie-in to plot or previous action. Even the T&A, which would have been this flicks only redeeming virtue, was done poorly.Worst. Movie. Ever.I think this would be a fine candidate for the 100 worst movies, except it will probably never get enough votes to make the list - which is a good thing, because it will mean many folks never saw it and were spared intense suffering.the loco
JoeB131
Badly edited, badly acted, and a plot that made little sense, and they resurrected Adrian Zmed of TJ Hooker fame as a Vampire. What could possibly go wrong? Well, quite a lot, actually.Shira is a Samurai babe from 16th century Japan who gets turned into a vampire, but commits seppuku before the transformation is complete. That allows them to train her to be a vampire huntress. The action keeps switching back and forth from 16th century Japan to 21st century LA.Now don't get me wrong, the lead actress, Chona Jason, looks pretty good for a woman in her forties. Except when they do close ups of her face, that is. She gathers a bad of barely competent vampire hunters to do the exposition for her and keep her mangled lines of dialog to a minimum. (Chona, honey, when you make the transition from Playboy Model to actress, it usually helps to take acting lessons).Intersplice some badly choreographed fight scenes, gratuitous nude scenes with a beefcake with even less acting ability. "Why can't we be together?" "I wouldn't want to put you through hell." HEY, try watching this movie, that's hell!) The idea is that Adrien wants to impregnate Shira so he can give birth to a race of "Daywalkers" to help vampires take over the world. This ends in a final scene where the last of the inept vampire hunters and vampires wipe each other out, and Shira survives to fret about the possibility of being the only one stuck in the sequel.
The_Flashing_Blade
In order to fully appreciate the greatness of a movie like Shira you need a kind of cinematic masochism. The kind of thing where something really really bad somehow becomes something wonderful. Luckily, my friends and I are exactly those types of masochists. If you are also a member of this somewhat dubious breed then you will love Shira. There is just so much to choose from; the (apparently ex-porno) cast, the thoroughly incoherent script, the made up pseudo Japanese words and fight choreography that must have Bruce Lee spinning elegantly in his grave. I would summarise the plot but I am unconvinced that there really is one. Suffice to say that it is a little from column Blade, a little from column Buffy and a little from column Highlander. If you find yourself beginning to prefer $50,000 straight to video shlockfests to $500 million A- list epics then you should run out to your local movie store and get yourself a copy of Shira. Seriously, you will be glad you did.