April 25th, 2013 
Justin Proper 
For The Love Of Film is a weekly column from film nerd and lover of all movies Justin Proper. Sometimes you need some help to figure out how to enjoy movies, and we are here to help! No longer will you need to fear movie night because your friends have no taste in film. With this column you will be able to love even the worst gems to ever grace the silver screen.
Every once in a while a film comes along that will be remembered for years. Movies like Star Wars and Jurassic Park will probably live on forever in the minds of all who saw them. Sometimes movies will be forgotten. When was the last time you thought about Mouse Hunt? It’s probably been a while. These films may be entertaining but nothing special or they may be flat out bad. Samurai Cop should be of the latter category but despite its awfulness I doubt I will ever forget it.
This movie walked right out of a SEGA Genesis game.
Samurai Cop is about a cop who is supposedly a samurai. This guy has trained in Japan and has all the credentials of a trained killer without any of the cool samurai armor (or swords for most of the film). He’s been sent to LA to combat a vicious crime group known as The Katana Gang. This group at least has some asian actors in it, but most of it’s members are whiter than Garth Brooks. The film is a 90 minute adventure of badly choreographed gang fights, awkward filler scenes, and some of the funniest sex scenes ever filmed. Oh, and there is no shortage of hilariously cheesy pickup lines.
If you cannot get any pleasure out of a bad film you should just stop reading this now and never watch Samurai Cop. The acting is horrible (save for the always amusing reaction shots from Samurai Cop’s partner) and the movie was not made with the most up to date technology. The sound is one of the worst aspects of the film and it will distract you. It cuts in and out frequently and there is a buzzing noise a lot of the time, and the ADR is so bad it looks like it is a dubbed foreign language film even though it is not. None of that matters, however, because if you watch Samurai Cop you get to see this guy:
He will have your soul.
That glorious guy right there is the titular Samurai Cop, played by Matt Hannon. Now if you are not familiar with Matt Hannon his body of work includes the classics American Revenge and Samurai Cop. No, seriously, that is it. Those are the only films he has been in. Perhaps it is due to his inability to deliver lines convincingly or with any emotion. Maybe it is because he cannot fake a fight scene to save his life. It coud be because when he shoots a prop gun he looks like a child playing cops and robbers. I think he has not gotten any other work because when he does a sex scene it looks like he wants to murder the girl he is fucking. Honestly I think he can only get off on murder because I thought for sure he was about to choke this chick to death after she took her shirt off.
Hide your wives and daughters.
The real draw of this film is it’s absurdity. None of that is intentional, but it is definitely there. People that get shot jump out of moving vehicles instead of just falling out. The fight scenes are faker than my interest in my ex girlfriends cat (what the fuck is the point of a cat anyway?) and the gunshots look like cheap fireworks. All of the people in the movie are totally serious about it though and that makes Samurai Cop a goldmine of comedy. The final (and only) sword duel in the movie is incredibly lame. They used real swords and no stuntmen so it is just sped up footage of the actors doing a fake sword fight like you have done with your friends whenever you encounter some cardboard tubes. This was one of the funniest things in the film because it looked like a Benny Hill sketch except completely serious.
He’s going in dry.
Track down a copy of Samurai Cop next time you have some friends over and want a good laugh. Make sure you have your popcorn and some beer, you probably will enjoy this more if you are not sober. Either way I hope it gives you as much joy as it gave me because I will remember Samurai Cop for the rest of my life for its unintentional hilarity.
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