Samurai Cop – 1991
Back in my youth, we used to call films like Samurai Cop “karate movies”. Well, maybe not really because there are very little martial arts fighting in this movie. Most of the time “karate movies” were Asian flicks with a lot of hand-to-hand fighting in them. Some Chuck Norris flicks qualified under the umbrella and certainly movies with Cynthia Rothrock. But there was usually no samurai in them at all. Ocassianly there were ninjas in them though but basically, all films featuring martial arts as the main ingredient could qualify. Well, maybe not the likes of Karate Kid with Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita.
Moving back to Samurai Cop. This is really a horrible movie. If it weren’t for the fetish of seeing really bad action movies from the ’80s and ’90’s I probably wouldn’t have heard of it. But just based on the storyline about these two cops going after a renegade yakuza gang composed of sadistic killers it falls under the “interesting” category. And before I saw it I hope that the title Samurai Cop would give me some interesting fights. Maybe not with fists but with swords. I would consider Japanese-style sword fighting martial arts too. And, there are a few scenes featuring swords, not too many, but there are a few.
The main thing seems to be to display the main cop, the one they call Samurai, though. When he’s not in the street chasing bad guys he’s often making out with some cute blonde displaying his muscles. He’s got a six back and is very well built there’s no doubt of that. My focus goes to his female counterparts though because every time he makes out with some of them, which is a few different women, they display their breasts. In fact, I think every female character appears topless on at least one occasion in the movie.
The acting is horrible and the plot is so full of holes that a colander would have fewer. I don’t really care. Most of these movies are quite badly acted and the logic to them is “imaginative” at best. But this is really horrible. The characters are so wooden that it’s not even funny. Yet, I find some kind of charm to it that I can’t dismiss it altogether. It has something that attracts me. It probably has something more to do with me than the movie though. I probably won’t see this again but I will see the 2015 sequel if I get a chance. Sometimes they do get it better the second time!
