''American Samurai'' is a martial-arts

action film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as D ...

directed by

Sam Firstenberg Sam Firstenberg (born Shmulik Firstenberg on March 13, 1950) is an Israeli-American film director. He is best known for having made low-budget B-movies most of his career, among them the first two films in the American Ninja series, ''American Ni ...

and starring David Bradley and

Mark Dacascos Mark Alan Dacascos (born February 26, 1964) is an American actor, martial artist and television personality. A 4th-degree black belt in Kajukenbo#Wun Hop Kuen Do, Wun Hop Kuen Do, he is known for his roles in Action film, action films, including ...

and produced by

Cannon Films The Cannon Group, Inc. was an American group of companies, including Cannon Films, which produced films from 1967 to 1994. The extensive group also owned, amongst others, a large international cinema chain and a video film company that investe ...

. Filmed in Turkey, it was released in the United States in 1992.

Plot

After a plane crash in the Japanese mountains, its only survivor—a baby named Andrew Collins—is adopted by Tatsuya Sanga, a

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

master. Andrew, along with the samurai's son, Kenjiro, are trained in the warrior’s way. Andrew excels in his training and soon surpasses his stepbrother’s skills. Kenjiro's jealousy pushes him to join the

Yakuza , also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media (by request of the police) call them , while the yakuza call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ''yak ...

, where he takes the Yakuza oath and forsakes the moral values of the samurai’s code. He leaves his father’s home, swearing to one day take revenge on his brother. Ten years later, Andrew works in L.A. as a journalist. He and a female photographer track down an

opium Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed Capsule (fruit), capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid mor ...

-smuggling operation in Turkey. Soon, the drug dealers kidnapped the girl, forcing Andrew to enter a deadly weapons based martial-arts tournament ruled by illegal gamblers whose greatest champion is the lethal Kenjiro.

Cast

Home media and alternate versions

The DVD is available in Region 1. However, it is based on the edited R-rated cut. This version has subtitles added to the days of the tournament (i.e. "Day 2", "Day 3", etc.) Additionally, many scenes of violence or injury are zoomed in on, poorly cropped, or deleted altogether to avoid explicit details. The unrated cut has different dialogue in some scenes, no subtitles, and all of the violence is onscreen and considerably more graphic. This version is not available in the United States but can be found in other regions. There is an uncut Belgian bootleg DVD and the British version has approximately one second of footage cut.

Reception

The film was described as a ”brainless action movie”, whose uncut version is somewhat more enjoyable. Another commentator compared it unfavorably to ''Die Hard''.

References

External links