American Samurai (1992)

Wonderfully offbeat film!

A different way of telling a story

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

After a plane crash in the Japanese mountains, a baby named Andrew - the lone survivor - is adopted by a samurai master (John Fujioka). Andrew trains in the ways of the samurai alongside the samurai's own son, Kenjiro. Grown up, Andrew (David Bradley) is bestowed the family sword, an act that angers the now Yakuza Kenjiro (Mark Dacascos). Years later Andrew works as a journalist and the sword is stolen from him. He and his photographer Janet (Valarie Trapp) head to Turkey to investigate a sword killing of a Sheik. Naturally, this means they are kidnapped and Andrew is forced to enter a deadly martial-arts tournament where the reigning champion is Kenjiro. One of the last of the Cannon productions, you can see them grasping at anything to make them money as this is basically a violent remake of their last hit BLOODSPORT (1988). You get all of the same stuff (right down to the bearded American fighter friend), but minus all the "plot" that the Van Damme film had. This is actually the first Bradley film I've seen and he does quite well in the lead. Of course, anyone would look good opposite the bug-eyed performance by Dacascos as the villain. Man, he is hilariously bad. I'm glad he kept working as he is a talented martial artist, but thank goodness someone told him to turn it down in his future roles. Director Sam Firstenberg delivers solid action and if you are going to see the film, make sure to seek out the unrated version as the US version removes a lot of the violence. Yes, there is gore on display (bullet removal, arm severing, beheading) that seems to be more befitting of a horror movie from that era.

Although I guess David Bradley is a highly skilled martial artist, I don't think he was that good in the three "American Ninja"-movies he took part in. "American Ninja 3" was OK, but the 4th and 5th installment of the series were just terrible. This movie is much better. It's an arena-fighting movie, and it's well performed. They managed to throw in a lot of different fighting styles from many places, and it was really interesting. Several of the styles were new to me. Another great thing is the introduction of Marc Dacascos into the world of martial arts movies. He's a great fighter, and here he made a convincing and extremely evil villain. The fight scenes in this movie are good, and they're also extremely brutal (even more brutal than "Shootfighter"). If you like martial arts action, you'll definitely like this movie.

This is an excellent movie in my opinion. Good plot, amazing fighting scenes, and great effects. David Bradley does a great job, and so does Mark Dacascos. However, if you really want to enjoy this movie, don't get the US VHS version, because it is heavily cut. The UK VHS, although it is PAL, has only 1 second missing, and it's a part where a man pulls out a knife in a disco. The reason they cut this out is to prevent kids from imitating this (yeah I know it sounds funny). However, EVERYTHING else has been left intact. Since it is PAL, you would have to convert it to NTSC, but it is much much better than watching the heavily edited US tape.The French DVD titled "American Samourai" is completely uncut, and also has the one second missing from the UK tape. The bad thing is that this french DVD does not have English sound, only french.Anyway, this movie is an excellent martial arts movie!

David Bradley must retrieve a sword which was stolen from him, and is forced to enter an illegal tournament to fight to the death. there he meaes up with his step-brother. Some of the scenes are laughable. fight scenes were ok i guess but not much flair really. But hey, at least Dacascos is good!