Genre: Grindhouse/Western/Samurai
"A blind man seeks vengeance on the psychopath who took his sight and slaughtered his wife and daughter. Eight years after the massacre, the man has returned to the desert town as a highly trained swordsman ready to seek justice. But he doesn't know there awaits seven assassins hired by his sworn enemy who want the bounty on his head."
The Grindhouse phenomenon has lead to some interesting films in recent years and I can truthfully say that this is one of the more unusual things I've seen lately.
The best way I can describe Samurai Avenger is this: imagine something that takes elements of Spaghetti Western and the weirder Samurai movies, then sets the result in a parallel world where guns and pickup trucks exist but mobile phones don't, where everybody carries a katana, where go-go dancers co-exist with the Bushido code of old Japan, where some of the villains are straight out of Ninja Scroll and where you can cut somebody's jugular then they still monologue for ten minutes.
As a bonus, if you are a devotee of the Japanese martial art of sheathing swords you're in for a treat because you're going to see a lot of it. Twice every fight-scene, in fact.
The end result is something that is definitely novel but viewers may either come away thinking that this is the best thing ever or -like me- not be as impressed as I might have been.
Copious amounts of blood, sadism and the odd outbreak of boobs do not a great film guarantee. I found myself struggling to get into this movie, which was not helped by the poor acting and the fight scenes being nothing to write home about. And did we really need the narrator popping up at odd moments to explain obscure martial arts techniques?
How much did I pay for this: £2.50.
Was it worth it? Debatable. Novel though it might be, Samurai Avenger failed to deliver. You may disagree.
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