User reviews

Anyone who thinks KILL BILL is the first and last word in chambara/grindhouse kung fu films really need to see this earlier film.

BLOOD OF THE SAMURAI may not have a hip soundtrack, name actors, or much of a budget, but it does have a lot of love for the genre. It borrows from HOUSE WHERE EVIL DWELLS, NINJA III: THE DOMINATION, and every show ever on KIKU-TV, but it doesn't have a rip-off feel to it the way KILL BILL does. Oh yeah, it also beats KB's over the top blood spurting with some interesting (and surprising) effects by Screaming Mad George.

If you wanna see an honest tribute instead of someone's egofest, watch this!

Trash/bad movies usually ain't bad because I will find them enjoyable. This one is so bad that I am out of words to describe it - its below "bad". There is an instruction in the beginning of the film that tell you what to do during the movie. Needless to say, the instruction and a dozen of beer couldn't help me seat through the entire film. One tagliner compares this one to KILLBILL which is certainly unthinkable and an insult to our intelligent. Obviously. this tagliner had a plan to tempt you into buying this DVD.

If you are considering renting this one, put it down! If you are thinking of buying, Dont think! If you unlucky to have this dvd, dont play it, throw it in trash bin immediately.

I have no clue as to what this was shot on but you can definitely tell that they had no budget. Bad acting, horrible cinematography, and lame plot and some decent special effects do not make a good movie. The WWF style cinemtography will make you cry...where's the tripod?! The filmakers aimed high, but sorely missed their mark.

I still don't know why I forced myself to sit through the whole thing. This "film" wasn't worth the Memorex DVD-R it was burned on; I thought I was watching the end result of a group of middle schoolers stealing their parents' camcorder. This is by far the worst movie ever made. I truly, from the bottom of my heart, want to sue Aaron Yamasato for the two hours he stole from my life.

So apparently, it's supposed to be bad on purpose; However, if you should end up in Hell and are forced to watch this 90-minute coil of doo-doo, you'll see that Yamasato is really trying hard to make an awesome flick. The actors attempt dramatic kick-ass performances comparable to Crimson Tide but come closer to The Marine.

The crap acting is just the tip of the iceberg. The camera angles are awful. The story is C-movie at best-- the plot isn't even good enough to be considered B-movie caliber. The dialogue attempts to be dynamic and witty, but is crap like everything else. Rumor has it that a hard copy of the screenplay actually attracts flies. Plus, the techno score is annoying... not because it's techno, but because it's NON-STOP. That's right, the music plays in the background THE WHOLE TIME, acting as a subliminal reminder of how bad this thing is. I don't care what the disclaimer claims, I don't buy it. BOTS was not made this bad on purpose, because it takes itself WAY too serious for what it was: a joke.

This "film" was very low-budget. But that is no excuse for its record-setting suck factor. Great films are born of substance, not budget. BOTS had neither.

Allow me to further articulate the overwhelming power of this 90-minute waste of time: if I were having a three-way with Jessica Alba and Jessica Biel in front of a TV and Blood of the Samurai came on, I'd be out of there quicker than Steven Seagal in Executive Decision.

Undoubtedly, some people will try to defend the movie. Two, maybe three. They'll say, "it's grindhouse chop-socky!" or "cheesy in a good way!" or "it's so bad, it's good!" Those people are idiots. A movie is either good, or it's bad. There's no such thing as a good bad movie. But there ARE such things as idiots that like crappy movies. Don't get me wrong; there are lots of cornball not-to-be-taken-seriously movies out there that are enjoyable and entertaining. Slither is one. BOTS is not.

This suckfest runs about an hour and a half, and in my humble opinion, it's 90 minutes too long. The best thing about this "film" is the DVD cover, so next time you're near the Wal-Mart DVD bargain bin, take a look at it-- DON'T TOUCH IT, just look-- and quietly walk away.

I didn't really know what to expect from this movie except it obviously had samurais and there may be a lot of gore. Well after seeing it I was very disappointed that I payed $16 bucks for the DVD, because I felt rather ripped off (although I should be lucky that I didn't pay the $19.99 that I see it listed as in many other places).

The only "gore" in the movie is the beginning when some chick gets cut in half, but even then it's so damn cheesy looking it becomes rather pointless. I think it would have been better without the cheesy-looking mannequin. Other than that, we see a lot of blood, especially towards the end.

I give credit that the director does have ideas and his mind set in the right place, but the script and directing definitely needed a lot more work. The hand-held cam really wasn't doin' it for me and the dialogue was just horrible.

As for action, it is decent for its budget, but the choreography could have been executed a lot better. It doesn't look like they practiced much. I wouldn't recommend this movie unless you can get it for $5 bucks and have an appreciation for incredibly cheesy low-budget flicks. I gave this a 5.

I've seen this movie on several different occasions. I find one of the funniest things to do is to just watch the reactions of the different types of people who go to see it.

Type 1: OLD PEOPLE. A lot of old Japanese men and women go to this movie because they think it will be a honest-to-goodness samurai movie with lots of swordplay and medieval Japanese dialogue. As soon the two protagonists begin debating horror movies while inserting expletives almost randomly throughout their sentences, the old people walk out, usually disgusted.

Type 2: FILM SNOBS. These people think that just because a movie bears the label of "Independent" that it will automatically be a load of hard-to-follow, overemotional crap that may or may not be in English. Yet they see it anyway just to sing praises about it later so that people will think they are intelligent and cultured. They are really in for a surprise when they see this film. As soon as the blood begins to squirt exaggeratedly from anime-inspired sword battles or the over-the-top villain nonchalantly pegs a dog with his crossbow during a phone conversation, these people will be so dismayed, they will walk out. A few will stay just to see "how bad it will get" and later they'll rave about what a horrible film it was to their friends.

Type 3: PEOPLE EXPECTING TO SEE LIVE-ACTION ANIME OR MATRIX-LIKE SPECIAL EFFECTS. Sorry folks, the martial arts are pretty solid in the film, but director Yamasato really doesn't have the budget for that kind of thing.

Type 4: PEOPLE WITH NO EXPECTATIONS. These are the people who really enjoy the film. Whether they had only heard of Blood of the Samurai, picked it at random, or stumbled into the wrong theater in an alcoholic haze, these are the people who will laugh at all the jokes and appreciate the movie for what it ultimately is: ENTERTAINMENT. This movie was not made to enlighten or to provoke deep spiritual thought, it was meant (if I may borrow a line of dialogue from the film) to "really kick some ass." And that's what it does.

So depending on what type of person you are, you may or may not enjoy this film; however, if you appreciate the movie for what it is and can enjoy an excess of blood and acting, then go see this movie and make sure to bring your friends.

The good: action. lots of action. all the fighters in the film with the exception of maybe the tracker and the girls were apparently real martial artists. while they did take a few shortcuts for safety reasons, overall, the fighting was better than say a van damme movie.

the bad: the non-fighting action scenes, such as the motorcycle ride, were too long. it seemed to me that somebody was really proud to have a sporty-looking motorcycle and wanted to feature it prominently in the film, which imho, hurt the film tremendously. There are many places where "cool equipment" figures prominently in various slow-mo scenes, which is distracting when the equipment is not cool to begin with, but can be purchased from a store rather than custom-made.

the ugly: the dialogue. while bad writing is almost normal these days, it was also paired with bad delivery, particularly from the two main characters. on top of this, the budget was also too low for decent sound work. the voices tend to sound tinny and far away. i think they weren't able to use a sound stage, which, given the budget, is forgivable. but, having bad lines, bad delivery and making it hard to hear is unforgivable.

Overall, since I am proud of the fact that a hawaii production got the attention it did, and that it was able to attract enough funding from this film for a 6 episode run on local cable, I wish there was more to offer here than just local pride.

This movie for what it is, may be one of the most amazing indie films of recent day. Made on a super small budget, the film has special effects that blow away alot of the current films! IF you have a chance watch it!

I first saw BLOOD OF THE SAMURAI at its premiere during the Hawaii International Film Festival. WOW! Blood just blew us away with its sheer verve, gore, vitality, gore, excitement, gore, utter campiness, and even more gore, and all in SUCH GREAT FUN! Especially for those of you who enjoy all those Japanese chambara samurai and ninja films, YOU DEFINITELY HAVE TO SEE BLOOD!

The bad news is that this movie has bad acting, bad writing, bad sound mix and one dimensional characters... the good news is that it's supposed to be that way, and it even warns you in the beginning!

Blood of the Samurai doesn't try to be any more than a fan film that represents the kind of things that the filmmakers like in a movie. The fight choreography is not bad, and probably took ten times as much work as the dramatic scenes and writing. But those dramatic scenes are very difficult to watch. Some parts are so corny that they're clearly that way intentionally.

You should watch this movie with friends and alcohol.