American Samurai fits into a genre of cinema that enjoyed far to short lived a success, that being the underground, martial arts death tournament film. Films like this enjoyed a great boom in the eighties and early nineties and arguably were the influences for the modern fighting tournament games such as Street Fighter 2 and the like. Some other films of this genre are "Ring of Steel", "Best of the Best 2", "Blood Fist 2" and perhaps one of the last of these magnificent creatures to appear in theater; John Claude VanDam's "The Quest"... unless of course you count the more recent "Fight Club", which you shouldn't because it's not about underground martial arts guys that fight but just normal guys and that isn't the main plot of the film anyway really. As evident from the title this film also belongs to the school of sticking the word American in front of stuff IE: American Ninja's 1 through 4, American Ronin and American Cyborg. this usually means you have an instant classic on your hands. Anyway what really makes the film shine is the cast of characters. American Samurai offers more weird fighters than any other film of the genre that I have yet seen. If nothing else it would make a great video game. I will attempt to catalogue the assortment of fighters in the style of a badly translated Nintendo instruction booklet.
- The American Samurai: A warrior of much honor though American, trained by master Samurai in Mountains of Japan. Master of Sword and peaceful of heart but strong to win. Entered tournament to reclaim family sword from evil brother.
- His Yakuza Samurai Brother: Adoptive brother of American Samurai and son of Master Samurai. Strong fighter but gangster with no honor or mercy too.
- The Bowie Knife Cowboy: American fighter, fast with knife although quite stupid. Fights in tournament for much cash prizes and honor.
- African Master of the Quarter Staff: Not much known about this fighter. likes to strike poses with his staff weapon.
- Pirate Swordsman: A much feared prate from the coast of far off lands. Wears eye patch but is still dangerous.
- The Deadly Braid: Much like fighter in "Best of the Best 2" he fights with sharp implement tied to his long braid of hair. Born in China he possess much fighting spirit.
- Chinese Axe Spear Guy: Second warrior from china and master of martial arts axe spear technique. Fast warrior but uses much energy in attacks.
- Conan the Barbarian Guy: Former stunt man of lame 80's European sword and sorcery/caveman movie genre gone renegade. Now looks for new career wielding broadsword for money and glory in tournament.
- Nordic, Viking, Berserker Type: Crazy Horned warrior from Sweden. Attacks fierce with axe.
- Weird-ass, Klingon Sword Looking Thing Wielding Guy: Warrior killed by Evil Yakuza Brother. Fought with weird-ass star trek, alien weapon things.
I know there wear a few guys I've forgotten too. Oh yeah this film also features John Fujioka playing the Japanese martial arts master who raises and trains our hero upon finding him stranded in his infancy. This is the exact same role he played in American Ninja. "I only play old Japanese Guys that find American babies and raise them to be martial arts masters". Now that's over specific type casting if you ask me. Anyway the film is also peppered with blindfolded swordsman training sequences, lots of crazy fighting and flash backs to really bad wise old sensei advice. In short this movie rocks. There should be more films like this. I'd comment on the film's success at creating one of the most awkward romantic subplots ever but I think I've run out of space. See it yourself.
