User reviews

Looks nice, has some nice fight scenes but at the end of the day is rather forgettable & pointless.

The sidekick character is annoying & the film could have lived without him.

Nothing special but on the same hand not the worst film i have seen 4/10

The movie is very strange hybrid between French and Japanese cinema. As a pure Japanese movie it might work somehow. It would be nothing exceptional but okay.

As a hybrid Japanese - French movie it is quite a failure. The Japanese actors might enjoy their visit to France (and vice versa) but having fun holidays should not act as excuse of making a movie. The "Japanese part" seems to be serious, actually quite hardcore historic horror demon curse story. The "French part" seems to try to to introduce some international martial combat variety, some "fun elements" in the form of young confused Arab sidekick and some "modern elements" in form of the computer games.

These parts does not fit however. There is no observable chemistry between the lead characters, no explanation of the purpose of the "game", no reasonable explanation of the conclusion. The movie has no focus, no drive, no urgency, it is just and attempt to somehow glue unconnected scenes to have some variety. In the end it looks as a cheap EU sponsored rip off of the Mortal Combat. And that's quite bad actually.

My video store has been getting in an increasing amount of these types of movies in. What I mean by "these types" of movies: Movies that you just can't resist picking up of the shelf as you laugh to yourself about how stupid you KNOW it would be, and then you put it back on the shelf never to ever rent it. BUT, last night we rented one of these movies, and it happened to be Samouraïs. This movie had every bit of stupid plot, lame characters, and cheesy action you could ask for. However, I will say this, the fight choreography was actually decent, and some of the f/x were ok too. But as a whole, this movie bites bigtime. So, if you are like me, and you sometimes just have to rent a lamer like this to get a laugh, rent Samouraïs. 3/10

In a nut shell, this movie is bad.

I wish I could say something good about the movie because Yasuaki Kurata is in it, but I cannot. He plays the role of a Tokyo Police Captain who is also a Samuri. I actually felt sorry for him that he needed the money so bad that he played a role in this movie. I had to force myself to watch it since I paid the $3.50 to rent it.

I should probably go over the points that I feel as bad, but I would make myself relive this debacle called Samouraïs. Its hard enough just writing this! Just skip this and use your 90 minutes to tell your parents you love them.

The French action movie "Samouraïs" boasts an incoherent plot, some slightly better than average fight scenes and weak attempts at humor. Nothing that would cause any applause from the viewer, I guess.

Why watch it at all? For one, there's the music by Kenji Kawai. The legendary composer incorporates some nice tunes, except perhaps the guitar-heavy-title track. Also, the cast is OK - most notably action veteran Yasuaki Kurata and the cute leading man, Cyril Mourali.

There's really not much more to say about the film which has the look of your typical direct-to-video-stuff. Nothing exceptional. I'd give it a

Rating 3/10

Half a century ago a samurai summoned a demon from the underworld called Kodeni, to help win a battle which he and his men couldn't win. After the battle had finished the samurai tired to vanquish him back, but he couldn't and now his family was cursed with his daughter giving berth to demon so he could live among mankind. And today Kodeni heads an underground crime syndicate in Tokyo. Although, his getting weak and needs to be reborn again and so he chooses a police detective's daughter, who's been after him. But his daughter is in France studying fashion at university, so he takes the next plane to finish the job, even if that means killing his daughter to stop Kodeni being reborn. But he doesn't count on some of her French friends getting in the way.

It's all about the gloss and advertisement. What do I mean? One you could think you're watching one gigantic video clip with loud pretentious music. And secondly was this an advertising campaign for Sony? The video game idea and sequences involving it were just worked in a rather trashy way. Although what really surprised was when I came on here I was expecting the film to be averaging at least over 5, but I was stunned by the user rating average… 3.4! *Hmm* I didn't think it was that bad, even though I'll only rate it a 4.

Back to the main point, what the film tries for is cross-culture mix, by adding a modern-day touch with the old traditions of martial arts. And hey some sequences are staged remarkably well. The film starts out perfectly enough, this is when most of the action takes place in Japan. Although, when the film headed to France that's when it disappoints. What it has going for it was that the premise is rapidly paced and has a fierce edge that knocks you about. Though, like most of the films of this type the problem was that action got hugely repetitive (after the airport bathroom scene), it thinks its hip by focusing a lot on its slickly done visuals, but it made it even more shallow and the plot starts out dazzling enough, but soon goes by the numbers with a lot of irrelevant happenings and juvenile humour. The humour just wasn't funny, but it was funny for all the wrong reasons. The big cross has to go to the very annoying friend/sidekick who was a real pain to listen to. You'll be hoping for his head to be on the chopping block, I guarantee! The cast's performances were nothing to write home about it, as they were pretty stiff in there depiction as conventional characters. You got the hero, woman in distress, irritating sidekick, father who knows best, henchman and their master. Surely even if you haven't seen it, by that you know how it would end! Incorporating the game into the live frenetic climax was just laughable!

Overall, it's a silly plot that thinks its uniquely clever and original. But this heavy handed light show is only saved by some of the eye catching action sequences, while everything else is a muddle or better put lousy.

Look, most of the review here say the movie is terrible...it isn't that bad. For what it is...a low budget direct to video release it is actually much better than a lot of releases that were low budget direct to video releases. The Manga like storyline is ok, the acting is tolerable, there is some good action and funny lines...I watched the english dubbed version which you have to look past. This flick isn't hald bad for what it is, if you can look past the flaws there is a decent story and some fun action scenes. It is not a film to be taken seriously, in some ways I think the director was making fun of the big budget star studded films, many of which were worse than this one. If you like Manga type action films, this one is probably worth your time...if not just move along.

Not the worst movie ever made -- that might be Gigli, or perhaps Battlefield Earth. Along with the negative aspects, widely commented on above, Samourais has some interesting positives.

First, there's Kurata. He did his most notable work 35 years ago (!), but he still looks good and can handle the fight sequences with skill and grace. The best is his solo duel in the airport restroom. For some reasons, despite his character's supposed fame, skill, and ancestry, the demon's henchmen send a junior thug with a sword to meet him -- yeah sure, no problem walking through an airport with that! He meets the sword attacks by pulling out a pair of tonfa, just like in "Kung Fu: the Invisible Fist" (his best early work, rentable from Netflix), and beating the stuffings out of the guy.

Second, there are the production values. Good photography, good editing, some handsome locations shots by the second unit in Japan. There are no huge explosions or car chases. Special effects are limited and appropriate to the, uh, story.

Third, (I may be alone in thinking this), there is the integration of the fighting sequences with the, uh, story. Cheaply made Hong Kong chopsocky flics are pretty much just a series of fights -- one against many, or one against one to no ultimate purpose. In Samourais, the attacks of the demon's crew are more or less directed to a plot-directed purpose.

Finally, there's a modest attempt by the fight choreographers to inject a little realism. When the Commissioner's daughter is attacked early in the film, she does the usual Supergirl kicks and blows, but then she uses her bicycle chain as a weapon, and draws (fake) blood with it. Looked real. Likewise, in the opener, where we see the demon's first rebirth back in feudal Japan times, the titular Samurai fights off a gang of thugs, but instead of vaguely waving his sword in the direction of his attackers, like Zatoichi or Sanjuro do, you could actually believe that the Samurai was trying to do these guys some damage.

On the negative side, there's a lot of stupid dialog and bad acting, including Kurata's. His acting in the early 1970's was pretty much restricted to looking bored between fights, and pouring a lot of emotion into the action scenes. In Samourais, the emotional content is gone, and he usually looks world-weary rather than bored. No matter how good Kurata looks as a man of 56 (when Samourais was made), he's still sleep-walking through the role.

The worst feature of the film, often mentioned in other comments, is the sidekick character. If you liked Jar-Jar Binks, you'll love Nadir, who unfortunately survives through the end of the picture. It won't hurt to fast-forward through all of the scenes where Mako, the junior lead kid, appears with him.

Bottom line: the story seems intended to insult the intelligence of everyone over the age of 12, but the overall production is good enough to make renting it justifiable. Or you might do as I did, and tape it when it shows up on the Spike cable network again.

BTW, the scenes shot in France don't show the Paris you may remember as a tourist. It's the Seine Saint-Denis arrondissement, France's version of the old East Bronx housing project vertical slums.

i can not even describe the awesomeness of this movie...it was surely overwhelming. if your life is lacking the necessary awesomeness i recommend u watch this. just blabbing because IMDb hates shorts comments but just watch the awesomeness and living will be so much h better for you. great such great i expect this movie to win many Oscars and whatever other awards that they give out. this is line number 7 of awesomeness supposedly i need three more lines of talking about awesomeness but words cant even describe what this movie does to your daily intake of awesomeness. just watch and see you will be a changed human being

Having just finished watching this movie, I must say it was nowhere near as bad as most of the reviews would have had me believe. I suppose the most misleading thing about this movie is the title – it really has very little to do with Samurais at all. Basically, Samouraïs is mix of martial arts, supernatural action, cop story and techno thriller. I'll be the first to admit, the story is far from perfect, being very simplistic, and outrageously silly in a few places. Nevertheless, I did enjoy it. Anyway, let me break it down into pros and cons:

Pros – great fight scenes (for the most part); some truly fantastic visual effects and CGI; great "video game" sequences; and some clever (if bizarre) story elements.

Cons – the Nadir character is a truly stupid and annoying "bumbling sidekick", on a par with Jar Jar Binks; the fight scenes and violence were strangely sanitized in many ways, much more so than I would expect given the genre and subject matter; every attempt at humor and/or comic relief fails miserably (extremely unfunny and insultingly stupid); and as had been pointed out, the plot is very simplistic, and very implausible in many areas.

All in all, Samouraïs is worth a watch if you are a fan of martial arts action and/or supernatural action movies, but please don't see it with expectations of epic cinema or brilliant acting. Also, if you are looking for a "Samurai" genre movie, this certainly is not it. All that aside, an entertaining and easy to watch B-grader.

I signed up on IMDb just to say that this is, without a doubt, the worst movie that I have ever seen.

I'm a huge fan of martial arts and action movies and it takes a lot for me not to like one. As long as the action is good, I really don't give a crap about the story or acting (ala Tom Yum Goong). With that said, the action sequences in this movie were completely derivative and horribly acted. You'd end up rooting for the good guys to get killed, if it weren't for the fact that the bad guy wears a goodamn black diaper... there is NOTHING badass about this movie at all. The only way that the movie could have been salvaged is if at the end, a nuclear explosion blew up the set... sadly that didn't happen.

While it's nice that more French non-art movies are being brought to this side of the Atlantic, this is one that can be skipped. To be sure, it has a few nice martial arts sequences, and the production values are pretty good - in fact, some of the special effects are up to those in big-budget Hollywood movies. Unfortunately, the movie has some of the negative attributes commonly found in big-budget Hollywood movies - a story sorely lacking in explanation, annoying characters, blatant product plugs, and unfunny comic relief. But the main problem is that the story is slow-moving and downright dull at times. If you want to see a more entertaining French actioner, rent WASABI.

I'll tell you this deserves negative two stars out of ten just for being so campy, annoying and lame for all of the reasons I'm about to tell you members.

The plot I won't even bother getting into because it's already absurd-sounding if you read the summary posted on here; I don't know any of the French and Asian actors, but they don't look happy to be here nor do they look impressed with the material either; the humor isn't even close to lame, it's more close to an unfunny punchline which doesn't even seem to be part of a joke; and, last of all, the action sequences are not at all impressive and are not going to impress any viewers unless they have never seen a single movie with this type of material before, but even then they'll forget about it the next day so . . . tough luck, very tough luck.

I saw this on Spike TV and I deeply regret wasting my time with this flick which everyone else seems to thinking the same thing. The "imdb rating" is currently a 3.4 out of 10 for a reason folks ! Do yourself a favor and avoid like the plaque!

I really enjoyed it. I don't get the bad reviews. The fight scenes are amazing.

Simply as an action film, this is not as bad as some comments would lead one to think. There's plenty action and it comes across fairly well.

To be sure, the plot is ridiculous, but hardly any more so than the second "star Wars" trilogy. The characters are two dimensional, but there's no pretense that they might be anything more - they're simply performers in an action film, meant to swing fists, throw ninja stars and wave guns around. They do this all as well as any group of action film performers.

The film does have one undeniable positive - a rare later appearance by Yasuaki Kurata, one of the grand masters of martial arts cinema, who played a dozen bad guys for Shaw Brothers in the 1970s, and who some may remember as the aging karate master confronted by Jet Li in "Fist of Legend". He looks remarkably fit for his age, and still able to act and perform martial arts.

I would certainly caution potential viewers not to have high expectations for this film; but I wasn't all that insulted; and it was fascinating to watch a European perspective on martial arts cinema for a change.

I didn't know until now that countries like Spain and, or France were capable of making things like Samourais. I understand America's obsessive impulse to rent movies that are hilariously terrible, but I didn't know that Europeans are answering our demands. I'm not saying all foreign films are great, but for the larger majority of what we absorb in foreign cinema, American audiences usually get the upper rung.

However, Samourais seems to be the product of a massive delusion on the part of the director, writer, etc. I don't know how money gets spent on things like this. If movies are meant to incur a profit, Samourais' net gain must have earned the director a sandwich.

If I wanted to see a film that included scenes with insipid lackeys working at a video store,transmute into what's supposed to be ancient warriors/demons coming back from the past to battle, I. . .well, to tell you the truth, I don't know why I would ever watch something like this. I find that actually reading about Japanese mythology or renting Kurosawa films much more enterprising. Why spend money on something with clunky cumbersome dialog as it is? Especially considering that the dubbed features only convey that the French/Spanish dialog is bad in itself ! The worst is the action sequences- Historically, most martial arts films puts characters into the perspective that they are warriors fighting against impossible odds, however, this film mutates that concept horribly. The fighting sequences are just as awkward and clunky as the dialog, and they lack the fluid execution and limits that most martial arts movies are actually implicative of. This movie seems like it was made by someone who failed a course in metaphysics in college.

The only thing good about this movie is the repulsive french rap during the credits.

Actually there is no need to speak long about this one.During the movie,you can not find a way to connect this movie into the samurai culture.An interesting idea but lots of clishes.This movie needs a director who knows how to get into action.<Actually when I see John Woo's name in the airport scene,I get some kind of hope.>The characters,the dialogs,the things happened,the things done;they are all well-known from the American movies.Besides,while there is nothing new in the screenplay side,the action side is worse.There are a couple of fight scenes to remember and the final fight going parallel with the PS2 game is just a brilliant idea.But there is no director to use these in the way they should be.So if you want to see something glorifying about Samurai,keep on sticking with 'THE SEVEN SAMURAI'

WOW - when i saw this movie i´ve thought "It´s a long time ago i saw such a great enjoyable fun and popcorn-movie like Samouraís!". Ok - the story is very stupid and it takes a time before i could laugh about Nadir "The Bone-Body" :o) What i like is the very cool style, the very good locations, the genius camera-work and how it uses the Cinescope-format 2,35:1 !!! Also the hard fights with weapons you see never in actual productions (Tonfa, Sing-Gabel, Shuriken, etc.). The production of the movie is very high. Locations, costumes, etc. are very nice and epic. There is so much atmosphere in this movie!!! And the FX are very fine! The fights in the Toilet-Room of the Airport, at the Training-Center (20 People fighting!!!), at the stairway, etc. - all are impressive, hard and awesome choreographed by Philp Kwok who do the fight-scenes in "Les Pacte des Lopes" with Marc Dacascos and very much more Hollywood-Blockbuster - and that´s fact!!!

If you like epic style pictures - than give him a chance! If you like hard and realistic Fights without CGI and wire-fu - than give him a chance! If you like cool looking Japanese in cool suites, with sunglasses, big weapons and Swords - than give him a chance! If you are open minded for humor of other countries - than give him a chance!

And at the end - if you like high quality DVD-transfers - than you HAVE to take this movie on DVD, because the german DVD has a genius, clearly picture-transfer and an impressive DD5.1-Sound which will let your Rears rock!!!

who wouldn't love a French martial arts movie? The dubbing alone was the epitome of spoof, especially the hapless sidekick, a Tunisian-looking dude who was voiced by some sort of terrible Eddie Murphy/Martin Lawrence impersonator. Not much of the movie made any sense (in a good way), but quite frankly, whatever. It was what it was, and the fight scenes, I thought, were very good- especially the fight in the gym with the 7 or 8 identically dressed Japanese goons against the 20 or so sparrers- multiple styles, 1 on 1, 3 on 1, every other combination. Plenty of mean-looking cold-eyed warrior action, open-hand, sword v. baton, all kinds of good stuff. Go at it with open eyes and enjoy on every level.

Very good action movie, a must for viewers that like martial arts. The plot is not very sophisticated but the the effects are good and the actors are pleasant. The film director Giordano Gederlini is specialized in this genre (action movies) and once again gets good results. I would rate it as 10/10