Samurai Cop

Plot synopsis:
When a renegade Japanese gang known as the Katana take control of the cocaine trade in Los Angeles, the LAPD transfer in a Samurai Cop from the SDPD to help tackle the problem. Joe Marshall has been trained by the masters in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese, but dresses like a commoner.
An attempted bust meets with failure after a bizarre car chase leads to multiple deaths and the only witness burned and unable to testify. Katana boss Fuj Fujiyama orders the injured Katana member to be executed and his head displayed on a piano to remind all functioning Katana members of their code of silence. Joe and his partner Frank confront the Katana at the Carlos'n Charlie's restaurant on Sunset Boulevard and attempt to reprimand them into obeying the law. When that fails, Fujiyama's right-hand man Yamashita wages war in the parking lot, executing his own men who fail to subdue Joe and Frank, thus maintaining the code of silence.
Joe then stalks Fujiyama's girlfriend Jennifer and seduces her. They have sexual relations while several of his police comrades are tortured and killed by the Katana gang who are looking for him. Unable to contain his anger any longer, commanding officer Captain Rohmer sanctions an assassination of every single Katana gang member. Joe and Frank head to Fujiyama's compound and gun down every living person and a final sword battle between Joe and Yamashita ends the reign of terror. To celebrate, Joe and Jennifer once again have relations.

Tags: comedy, murder, adult comedy, violence, absurd, revenge, sadist

Review:
Basically, if you ever saw a terrifically bad movie, and liked it, you will bow down to the awesome power of Amir Shervan's cinematic genius.Smaurai Cop spares no expense.
It gives you what you really want: Boobs, Racial Comments, Excessive Groping of Handgun by a Lacky, Fight scene with obvious continuity issues, Pimp Van in fast motion chase scene, Disturbingly Effeminate Waiter, 4 different samurai wigs, Matt Hannon acting, and too many other priceless moments to recount.I am not sure how Amir got Robert Z'Dar and Gerald Okamura on this film (considering their "star power"), but thank God he did.
Robert Z'Dar, sporting a beard and referred to as a Japanese hit-man (!), is relatively subdued when compared to his work in the same year's TANGO & CASH (has anyone tagged both ends of the film-making spectrum like that in one year?).
From the initial car chase, to the slow motion katana duel between Matt Hannon and Robert Z'Dar, this movie screams cheese.
Its aborted plot revolves around the titular character, Joe Marshall, the "samurai" cop (played by Matt Hannon), who has been transferred from San Diego to Los Angeles in order to assist the LAPD in taking down the troublesome Katana gang.
With far more brawn than brain, it is pretty clear from the get-go that Marshall won't be thinking his way through this flick.It is a film that defies all reason and good taste.
Simply put, Samurai Cop's willingness to forgo all sense and sensitivity for the sake of reproducing brainless actioner fantasies ranks high on the list of B-movies.Samurai Cop is edited in chop shop fashion; the director Amir Shervan rarely bothers to establish shots, jumping from place to place, moment to moment, without any regard whatsoever for something like "continuity." The action accomplishes the amazing feat of never once being engaging.
As for its score, it consists of a series of uninspired Casio-produced tunes repeated mercilessly that either color the film with cliché 80s sounds, or fissure a given scene with music that simply does not correspond with the actions of the characters.
A womanizing super samurai cop and his black side-kick go after the Yakuza.This film is bad..REALLY bad, it's also pretty damn funny.
Matt Hannon stars as the samurai cop who looks more like a gay poolboy in the best movie of his long varied career of one film.
Robert Z'dar (Maniac Cop) is the right-hand man of the bad guy.
You know you're getting awfully close to the absolute nadir of b-movie cinema, to that horrifying point of no return beyond all shame and therefore beyond reproach, when your name is Amir Shervan and you go on to follow up your cheapo Lethal Weapon cash-in called 'Hollywood Cop' with a cash-in on Maniac Cop by casting Robert Z'dar in a movie called 'Samurai Cop', a no-budget action crime flick where Z'dar is neither samurai nor cop (not even a maniac for that matter), where even protagonist Matt Hannon, actor in the broadest sense of the term, looks more like a poolboy instead of a samurai.
Of course when you make an entire movie for no other reason than to cash-in on the larger-than-frame persona of an actor who made a career playing such refined characters as Igor, Mongoose, Brutis, Cobra Khan, Bongo and of course let's not forget the aptly descriptive Face (!) in Tango and Cash, it's not so much a question of good or bad, but whether it's going to be "this makes even Battlefield Earth seem watchable" bad or "break out the beers - Lady Terminator" bad.Thankfully you don't need to get any further than the opening 15 minutes to know the answer to the above question; a staggeringly amazing prologue of b-movie awesomeness which, among other things, serves to introduce the Katana Gang, which counts within its ranks a red-haired chick whose entire contribution to the gang is announcing the entrance of the boss ("The boss is here"), the samurai cop and his mandatory black sidekick indulging in a little sex talk with the blonde helicopter operator bimbette in the middle of a drug bust, sped-up chases followed by amazing dialogue ("shoot", "faster", "shoot", "go faster") and a sex scene with underwear on (hey, it's low budget) between blonde bimbette and lovable hunk Matt Hannon.What else do you need?
I've seen quite a few no-budget schlockfests in my time but Samurai Cop stands tall among such venerable classics as Werewolf, Timechasers and American Commando - Angel's Blood Mission 2 as one of the most triumphant displays of unintentionally hilarious genius.
If you like Corny Movies, You will LOVE Samurai Cop!!!.
Samurai Cop is a movie that is bad on so many levels that it's difficult to know where to begin.
The worst part about the movie is that the director forgot to shoot some important scenes and asked the different actors to come together again to finish the film about four months after it had already been finished.
The problem here is that our static lead actor Mathew Karedas cut his long hair after the movie had been completed and had to wear a wig to avoid continuity errors.
The problem is that this wig looks extremely fake and is even pulled off his head in a fight Scene if you watch closely which is the cherry on the cake of this goofy b-movie.You might wonder why this film still deserved a generous five out of ten points.
A nice drinking game invented by two German comedians specifically for this movie consists of drinking a shot of alcohol each time the main character's wig is visible.To be fair though, it's a quite entertaining movie with a lot of car chases and fight scenes with bare hands, pistols, swords and improvised weapons.
The movie also includes several soft porn scenes and a shallow love story that gives us a break from all the action.
Most action movies these days either bore with complicated background stories, endless dialogues and take themselves way too serious or are filled with exchangeable CGI effects and enormous plot holes in unnecessary sequels.
From that point of view, Samurai Cop is almost refreshingly grounded and unpretentious.Fans of old-school action b-movies could be very well entertained by Samurai Cop and can give this film a shot if they are open to have some fun.
Despite its numerous obvious flaws, Samurai Cop is still overall an average movie and not among the worst films I have ever watched like so many other people claim..
You can watch Samurai Cop tell a horny nurse, "I love what I see," a hundred times and never cease to laugh at how bad it is.
All the woman in this film seems like acting in a porn movie.
I have seen a myriad of terrible movies and while some come close to the excellence of Samurai Cop (Miami Connection, Bolero, Deadly Prey etc.) nothing can ever top it.
It's quite sad but I believe that no matter how many bad films I watch, nothing will ever come close to how amazing Samurai Cop is.
I have seen all the other Amir Shervan movies he's made in America and whilst all of them exhibit some qualities that made Samurai Cop great, none of them are even half as good.
SAMURAI COP is another hilariously inept action B-movie from the guy who brought us Killing American Style.
I think Amir Shervan's earlier film has the edge in terms of out-and-out cheese and comedy, but SAMURAI COP comes a close second.
The title's a misnomer, brought about because there are a couple of samurai swords in the film; otherwise this is the usual cops and robbers stuff as upstanding heroes battle gun-toting criminal gang members.This film is so much like Killing American Style it feels like they were shot back to back: the movies share cast members and look and feel exactly the same in terms of staging, fight scenes, etc.
The main actor, Mathew Karedas, has a long hair style that swaps from being real to a woman's wig and back again as the story goes on (the story is that he had his hair cut short halfway through the production so had to wear a wig for the rest of the filming).SAMURAI COP is a film that nobody can take seriously, so the best thing to do is to sit back and laugh at it.
Although plagued with nonsensical writing, bad acting, non-existent direction, hack-job editing and video-game level musical score, Samurai Cop is actually a hilarious entertainment experience, unlike the even worse action/exploitation flick also made by an Iranian immigrant, the diabolical Dangerous Men. Where Dangerous Men is filthy, difficult to watch and depressing as hell, Samurai Cop is rollicking, goofy and insane.
Lead actor Hannon wears a cheap ladies' wig through much of the film as he had gone off during a break and cut his hair short (to be fair, Shervan told him the film was done and called him to come back for more shooting about six months later).
A pretty-boy/bad actor name Mathew Karedas, I feel I have to make mention of his "beautiful flowing locks", and the fact that he looks so profoundly out of place in this type of movie.
I swear I saw that goofy-looking wig shift noticeably a time or two.Released in 1991, they simply DO NOT make made-for-TV movies like THIS anymore.
Samurai Cop delivers in just about every possible way a bad action movie can deliver.
Joe Marshall (goofy beefcake actor Matt Hannon) is a detective trained in the ways of the samurai, and together with his affable partner Frank Washington (Mark Frazer), he goes after the many goons and thugs working for big time Japanese mobster Mr. Fujiyama.That's about it for plot in this knowingly cheesy, sloppy, and silly martial arts action movie mess, written and directed by Amir Shervan.
Often, "Samurai Cop" offers plenty of bad movie charm, as it clunks along from one inept sequence to another.
Robert Z'Dar is great fun as Yamashita, the primary henchman.Marshall dispenses with inept bad guys left, right and centre; ultimately, the movie isn't always terribly funny, and gets a little tiresome, but it's still amusing enough to make it pleasant if not uproarious fare.
It could have used some better pacing, but still delivers enough laughs for those B cinema enthusiasts looking to have a night of bad movies and beers.Six out of 10..
Bad guys are slaughtered like the nameless extras they are, followed by imitation sex between Marshall and his cop / Barbie girlfriend.
And they explain so much on how and why the movie is so ridiculous, you'll love it.So in the end, this is not intentionally made ridiculous as it's the case of Black Dynamite (which I loved, by the way...), and I can't really qualify this high, it would be unfair for good film makers, but I still RECOMMEND TO WATCH IT as it's so much fun!!
He looks more like a GQ model.Aside from these two though, the best actor of the whole cast was in fact Robert Z'Dar. An underrated thespian in general, Z'Dar may not be in too many big hit films, but he did have way more than the two stars mentioned before.
Police station promiscuity totally out in the open, a cop who trained by the masters in Japan to become a Samurai does not know the difference between Aikido or Idaho, casual racist jokes, random nudity and sex scenes...
Some of the extras here are among the worst in the history of filmmaking, but the director seems to be fine with their performances, if you can call them that.I will not start listing the faults of this film, because literally every scene has several things wrong with it, from screen writing to camera-work to lighting to set design to acting to directing to editing...
I should admit that acting in this movie is not so good except for Robert Z'Dar. But it feels that actors all had fun time to make this exciting action movie.
Los Angeles is terrorized by infamous Japanese The Katana Gang which is involved in gambling,drug smuggling and violent murders.Joe Marshall(Matt Hannon)nicknamed Samurai Cop is an expert in Japanese culture and martial arts.LA Police hire him to stop The Katana Gang led by Fujiyama.Joe with the help of black cop Frank Washington begins bloody battle with Fujiyama,Yamashita(Robert Z'Dar) and their cohorts of muscled criminals."Samurai Cop" is a hilariously inept action flick that really has to be seen to be believed.Chock full of cheesy violence and hilarious action scenes.The dialogue is badly written and there are some silly plot holes.Still the action never lets up and some one-liners are endlessly quotable.There is also plenty of naked female flesh,so I can't complain.8 Katana swords out of 10.Watch it on pair with "Deadly Prey" or "The Stabilizer"..
It was so difficult to take the actor playing the samurai cop, Mathew Karedas, serious with that hair of his.This is the type of movie you watch once and never again.
One of the best good-bad movies of all time.
The scene were Samurai Cop is trying to pick up a nurse, it keeps flipping back and forth to the black guy and his expressions are funnier than the admittedly funny and ad-libbed scene before him.The women in it are all beautiful and honestly look like porn stars.
There seems to be no other purpose for them.And the final scene between Samurai Cop and B-movie legend Robert Z'Dar is beautiful.
Thus, Samurai Cop is chock full of non-actors giving hilarious line readings, absurd dubbing, and hacksaw editing consisting of various scenes of strange-looking people attempting to communicate with each other in ways human beings have not yet seen.This is probably pointless, but here's the plot: the evil Katana gang is causing all sorts of trouble in the L.A. Area.
Peggy (Moore, who apparently has taken this film off her resume) is a female cop helping them out, because Yamashita (the non-Japanese Z'Dar), Fujiyama (Rescober), and Gerald Okamura as...wait for it...OKAMURA are a serious gang to be reckoned with Back at the police station, the angry chief to end all angry chiefs is Captain Roma, the apoplectic but somehow lovable boss.This movie is absolutely hilarious.
Supposedly found languishing in a vault in Italy and brought to light by Italian cinephiles which led to its eventual DVD release on Media Blasters (complete with a funny Joe Bob Briggs commentary track), Samurai Cop stands alone in its charming, winning, violence-and-nudity-packed ineptitude.But top honors must go, not to stalwarts Robert Z'Dar and Gerald Okamura, but to American hero Matt Hannon.
(Nor does the quasi-nudity of Z'Dar and Okamura, but it is balanced nicely with some softcore porn-type scenes that pad out the inexplicable 96-minute running time).Perhaps director Shervan was going for a Lethal Weapon/Miami Vice sort of thing, but the stunning lack of continuity or any sort of pacing make the movie seem like a complete absurdity, almost a surrealist film.
While watching the movie, you can't help but ask yourself "where did they find these people?" Apparently it was named Samurai Cop to cash in on the whole Z'Dar-Maniac Cop connection - but just ignore the misleading box art.
Naturally it all ends in the time-honored "final field fight" after Frank and Joe have killed all the mulleted goons around.An awesome, one-of-a-kind movie that seems like it was made on another planet, Samurai Cop is a classic for the ages..
However, as bad as Samurai Cop is, that doesn't change the fact that I was entertained.
If you do an internet search for a movie that's "so bad, it's good" (God, do I hate that phrase), a picture of Samurai Cop should immediately pop-up on your screen.
It is the embodiment of what a "so bad, it's good" movie is.So just how bad is Samurai Cop?
With a name like Samurai Cop, I expected to see some martial arts type action with a lot of hand-to-hand fighting.
Samurai CopThis film is ridiculous.I mean in one scene a Chinese guy gets shot in the stomach groans, then a cut to him punching and elbowing some guy without any problems.
Scene ends by a quick transition to our main characters saying "Let's go catch us some bad guys." They drive a few feet then stop and say "Let's call the helicopter."This is only 5 minutes into the film and I'm already questioning whether or not this was a good idea.
The cop in charge of watching the burn victim seriously had a case of the what- do-I-do-with-my-hands.I found myself smiling and laughing at how badly the film was written and the acting was almost intentionally horrible.
Following Matt Hannon's announcement, interest for the movie grew and people finally got to see it, like myself.
This action thriller movie tells the story of Officer Joe Marshall (Matt Hannon AKA Matt Karedas) & his partner, the street wise Officer Frank Washington (Mark Frazier) on their journey to take down, a fearsome Japanese crime syndicated known as the Katana.
I like how the wig kept, falling off, during the low budget poorly choreograph sped up fight scenes with the very white, Robert Z'Dar's supposedly Japanese character, Yamashita.
If you thought Kate Maras wig in Fant4stic was poor, she has nothing on this hairpiece.When extras get shot, they fall in the most wonderful way, and if that wasn't enough, there is the campest waiter trying to chameleon a Bronson Pinchot vibe from Beverly Hills Cop, and exceeds it.It's a terrible film, but by George, it's one of the most entertaining things I've seen since this Friday nights back between 1988-1983.The perfect Bad Movie.....
The two main characters, Samurai Cop and his buddy, look a lot like the duo from Lethal Weapon, and I mean a lot.
The film makers knew it, it'll become obvious within the final 20 minutes of the movie; it's like the director said " You know what?