Have you ever wanted to be a real life film editor? Think you don’t have what it takes? Think again! Take this quick quiz:
1) The police chief is chewing out his star detective when the detective’s partner decides to kiss chief’s bald forehead, instigating a new stream of profanity. When do you cut the scene?
a. Before the profanity
b. After the profanity
c. Thirty seconds after the scene has ended
d. It doesn’t matter
2) Two cops are fighting hand-to-hand with several combatants when a bad guy in the background pulls out a gun. When do you splice in the “applying the handcuffs” moment?
a. Before the shooting
b. After the shooting
c. During the shooting
d. It doesn’t matter
3) This next scene calls for a high speed chase, where do you edit the scene between anticipation and actual pursuit?
a. The moment where the police “wait in ambush”
b. The second moment in which the police “wait in ambush”
c. The third moment in which the police “wait in ambush”
d. It doesn’t matter
If you answered “D” to all of the above, you’re not only qualified to edit Samurai Cop; it’s possible you already have.
If it wasn’t clear by now, Samurai Cop is among the worst films ever to find its way to significant release. Name anything that you hate about an action film and odds are it’s in Samurai Cop. Watching what this film does wrong makes you realize why clichés exist. Well, of course you don’t shoot the boss first …and of course the first meeting doesn’t involve the entire cast of good guys and bad guys …and of course you make the bad guys poor shots … it makes me cry thinking this film was written and directed by the same person (Amir Shervan); any other scenario and you could point fingers and pretend someone else was to blame. Instead, one might ask here why the villain pulls out a wakizashi, gingerly slides it along a neck the way one might play a violin, and emerges from the attack with a severed head and a bloody katana.
Oh, this is not just a terrible film; it’s also gruesome and exploitative.
What passes for plot in this film is that Joe Marshall (Mathew Karedas) has transferred to a new police force to help take down the evil Katana gang. His reputation preceeding him, Joe is known as “Samurai Cop,” because, hmmm, let me guess … he owns a large collection of Akira Kurosawa films on VHS? He often reenacts those John Belushi sketches from early SNL? He frequently speaks of medieval Japan? What?! Because he has master samurai skillz?! No, that can’t be right; that guy would lose a fight to a crackhead.
Lemme put it this way: in a film with “Samurai” in the very title, fight choreography seems not much a concern. If I had to guess, I’d say that fight choreography weren’t a thing in films when this picture was made … but such ignores the fact that the age included both Chuck Norris and Jackie Chan. And I’ll go a step further – if you’re not watching the film for the fights, well, there’s no other reason to watch it. It scores straight Fs in plot, character, drama, story arc, humor, and most anything else one watches films for.
Wait, I can think of one reason to watch this: sex. OK, but even so … four sex scenes with nudity and no erections. Honestly, I don’t know if that’s some sort of record; I mean, even steamy films often hide the male member from the camera so we can’t tell. This one, however, presented four independent cases where a hot woman was about as naked as people can get, was clearly having sex, and her partner emerges from the passion in droopy underwear. Of course, that didn’t stop two separate Speedo scenes where Mathew Karedas seemed to be smuggling a bocce ball in his briefs after emerging from the pool. What’s important here, fellas, is that it looks like you have the goods even if they’re completely useless.
What you have in Samurai Cop is too racy for kids and not hot enough for porn. This is not the place to be.
Samurai Cop is a rifftrax film for good reason. It’s not just terrible. It’s obviously terrible. People who have never seen a film before would walk out on this. In the echelon of bad film that found a reasonable audience, I say this one stops shy of the baseline set by Manos: the Hands of Fate, Birdemic: Shock and Terror, The Room, and anything ever made by Dinesh D’Souza. And yet, I can see where some would claim this awful holds the top spot. I’m not going to argue; it could well be the worst action film ever made.
♪Ronin, ronin, ronin
Cockeyed!
Ronin, ronin, ronin
Samurai we’re trollin
Though it in I’m phonin’
Cockeyed
Tried to make some action
Maybe get some traction
Producers they all told me “denied”
Many things I’m missin’
But among them is not kissing
The rest is cinematic suicide♫
Unrated, 96 Minutes
Director: Amir Shervan
Writer: Amir Shervan
Genre: MST3K less the science
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Masochists
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Samurais, Cops, people who see it
♪Parody Inspired by “Rawhide”
