Samurai Zombie


Title: Samurai Zombie
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Horror, Action, Comedy
Starring: Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Issei Ishida, Tak Sakaguchi
Director: Tak Sakaguchi
Language: Japanese

Samurai. Freakin'. Zombies. If you're anything like me you'll already have been sold and will be looking about for a copy to add to your collection making my work here done rather quickly, but for the sake of those incapable of understanding how this combination could never really fail and are still reading, I'll elaborate further. The Director who also stars in this creation is usually more likely to be found working on the choreography and starring in films such as Azumi and Versus, two films that also happened to be written by the same man responsible for the script here. With an old 80s style camera work – complete with cigarette burns in the top right corner – and a cast of unknowns, its clear a hefty amount of the rather small budget has gone into filming the raining blood, decapitation attacks, samurai showmanship and getting the zombie to drool just the right amount of unidentified zombie ooze.

If you're still under some sort of illusion that there's anything remotely sensible about this film then let me make this abundantly clear; the purpose of this film is to take things to heights of ridiculously over the top proportions; to have blood spurts reach higher than any film has fired them, more silly stunts and action than should be deemed possible, and it aims to do all this whilst still kicking things to the old way. By modern standards the level of gore may not hold a candle to many films explicitly showing vital organs and the like, but since when the lack of human anatomy in 'Braindead' make the lawnmower scene less fun? And that is precisely the intention behind this film, to have an all out action romp that lives up to the legacy set forth by the likes of Versus and Evil Dead. Except with Samurai.

This is not a difficult film to mock; the cast of unknowns picked more for their looks than acting abilities and the fact that the plot has all the intelligence of a Miss Teen USA competition, its only reason for existing at all to tie together one action sequence to the next and create a slightly bigger bang than what preceded it. There is also a slight blue-ish hue to much of the film which seems a little unusual, and I'm sure there are plenty who won't like the post-production work which I can only assume was intentionally 'sloppy' to re-create an old film projector reel, complete with occasional shaking and noise. There's nothing smart about a zombie samurai with anger management issues, taking out his frustrations on the conveniently close by vic-I mean characters. It may not be the greatest masterpiece of its kind but for such a low budget it doesn't half know how to make the most of it and deliver precisely what B-Movie horror fans want.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Female Prisoner: Scorpion

Image
Title: Female Prisoner: Scorpion Rating: 4/5 Genre: Drama, Thriller, Crime Starring: Meiko Kaji, Rie Yokoyama, Isao Natsuyagi Director: Shunya Ito Language: Japanese It was the 70s that saw the rise in Japanese grindhouse cinema (also known as ‘Pinky Violence); tired of the very ‘traditional’ style of many local films, and with the rise in success of Hollywood titles such as ‘Dirty Harry’ and ‘The Great Escape,’ a new wave of daring and experimental directors came to light. Armed with a low budget and all the influences of the early Western grindhouse cheap gore flicks, they combined it with traditional Japanese film-making sensibilities to create a style that somehow succeeded in being both artistic in style whilst retaining those cheap traditions such as gratuitous nudity and violence to result in something rather unique. And it was with this, the first instalment in the ‘Female Prisoner’ series, that would influence a wave known as ‘Women in Prison’ films; with a strong the...
Read more

Slasher Hunter

Image
Title: Slasher Hunter (2011) Rating: 3/5 Genre: Horror, Comedy Starring: Chad Phillips, Derek Rothermund, Ryan Sullivan Director: Steve Rudzinski Duration: 35 mins Four pals are planning to have a great weekend of sex and brews in an old cabin in the woods. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “this is the exact set up to every slasher movie from ‘79 to ‘99; this can’t end well.” Well our group of campers have thought of that, that’s why they brought sci-fi nerd Lee along for the ride who carries within him the so-called “survivor gene.” This special gene helps prevent him from being the unfortunate victim of any slasher maniacs that may be lurking about. Unfortunately this gene is also highly coveted by a group of the most dastardly slashers around: Frank, Larry, Jay, Charles, Pleatherface, and Puzzle (I didn’t say their names were very dastardly, did I?). It’s up to a renegade, federally-employed Slasher Hunter to thwart the slashers’ plan and save Lee and his friends before it’...
Read more

Chinese Erotic Ghost Story

Image
Title: Chinese Erotic Ghost Story Original Title: Yuk lui liu chai Genre: Comedy, Exploitation Rating: 2.5/5 Starring: Ben Ko Chu, Chun Chung, Siu Wan Hung Director: Kin-Nam Cho Language: Chinese It's always a little tricky to think how these sort of films should be rated; from the title it's apparent that they aren't perhaps the most creative when it comes to titles, though if nothing else it certainly is an accurate one, with perhaps some mention of how batshit insane the bizarre events of the actual film are being the only thing missing. It all kicks off rather normally; Chu is introduced as the debt collector working for an asshole of a King with a beautiful mistress, two beautiful daughters and an even prettier wife, whilst he's stuck with a woman who sleeps 20 hours a day and spends the remaining four awake eating. Caught in the embrace of one of the King's daughters he's punished with the task of entering Satan's Temple and stealing the statu...
Read more