Hirokin: The Last Samurai

This film's cover caught my eye: I wasn't expecting anything great, but I was at least enthralled to see some samurai dude on another planet hacking and slashing away at some aliens or something.

Surprisingly, there's not much hacking or slashing involved; a few cheap and stupid fights, but nothing more. One of the more inventive scenes involved the fighters chained to a post, and whenever the chain slackened, a big spike would come down and murder a hostage. Aside from that, the film came off as being rather dull.

The story didn't really captivate me either; it's full of dull and lifeless characters, going through the motions of some drama and plot that I really couldn't care about. The movie overall tried to hard to resemble films like John Carter and Prince of Persia, but both are miles better.

This film must have been made on the cheap. It sports okay, but never exceptional, photography and editing. Acting and writing are serviceable at times, but they are often marred with certain levels of cheese, amateurism, or plainness. This production uses a limited amount of sets, props, and costumes. Music is very generic too.

1/5 (Entertainment: Poor | Story: Very Poor | Film: Very Poor)

Hirokin did have a good idea going for it, unfortunately it now joins the already quite big pile of movies that badly executed their good ideas. The best thing about it is some exotic scenery, but that's it. And even then you can't really enjoy it because the camera work and editing is so lazy and amateurish. The special effects are also rather unfinished looking and like they were shoe-horned in pretty much last minute, and the choreography and fight scenes have no energy or momentum, just clumsily done all round. The music is at best generic, it can be annoying also and it doesn't sound as though it entirely fits with everything else. Hearing the dialogue, I got the impression that the writers didn't bother to make sure that what they wrote actually made any kind of sense, it just rambles on, sounds awkward and often doesn't seem to really mean anything. The story aside from being highly derivative is dull, lacking in any thrills or fun and so predictable to the extent that you are constantly correctly guessing what happens next. There is nothing interesting or likable about the characters here, they are little more than severely underwritten archetypes, especially the villains that are among the most laughable of any movie. The acting is terrible especially the bland and wholly unheroic lead(he has the looks but not the acting chops), even Julian Sands, most likely the most well-known actor in the cast, manages to give a flat and really quite insipid performance. Angus Macfadyen likewise. Overall, Hirokin did have good potential that is wasted by really bad execution. Not the worst I've ever seen, but you'd be hard pressed to find anything redeeming regarding the movie. 1/10 Bethany Cox

My summary line is the title the movie received when it was released in Germany. You've got to admit, that makes it sound intriguing and interesting. But the movie itself, that tries to copy quite a lot of Sci-Fi movies (some of them have copied other formulas of course, so there is nothing wrong with that idea), never quite gets there. It starts with the dialog and continues with just above the average (sometimes) fight scenes.

Don't get it twisted, it's not completely awful (I've seen worse FX and worse stories). The stoic acting of Wes Bentley will make you wonder if he has lost or never had any acting abilities. A fantasy tale that tries to be epic and does look good (colors on Blu Ray), but is it enough?

I must say that Sci-Fi B movies is not all in the toe crunching class. But this movie is really terrible; I know that the budget was low but come-on! If you can't make a decent CGI in the year 2011 don't even attempt to do it. In the 80'ties there were a lot of movies in the "atomic wasteland Mad Max" category, this one will fit nicely in the row of movies that failed to get past the firing ramp. I watched the movie in 1080p and it didn't help much, so if you love Sci-Fi B movies you can give it a try on day, if nothing else come to your mind.

The scenery was great, and the fighting scenes were "sort of" OK, but everything else didn't deliver the silver screen magic at all. If you decide to watch this one don't expect anything, then you wont be disappointed.

This movie reminds me of John Carter; a very poor version of it.

LET'S TALK ABOUT THE BAD THINGS: First, I'd like to point out that the title is misleading - there are no Samurais in the film including the character "Hirokin". Most of the swordsmanship in the film were from Kendo, not Kenjutsu. Second, all CGI were obvious and some were even incomplete. There was even a shot of a floating ship where the top was not aligned with the screen's edge. I know the film is low-budget so I can't fault them for that but alignment should be simple enough and free of charge. Third, there were some "comedic" scenes that were out of place and should've just been excluded from the film - they were probably from "The Lord of the Rings". Fourth, the outline of the story is common and the plot is too narrow to be worthy of being a great film; they could have done so much better in ALL areas. Finally, some dialogs were amateurish and the set extras/actors were not properly directed; in some scenes, they were simply all over the place.

NOW, THE GOOD THINGS: The locations were amazing except the viceroy's base. The main stars' acting were excellent. I could spot that some of their dialogs were improvised from whatever was originally on the script. The framing and scene composition were all good and professional and the lighting was superb.

CONCLUSION: It's a good watch when there's nothing better lying around.