Samurai Zombie

Looking at the names involved in Samurai Zombie, you should know what to expect. Written by Ryuhei Kitamura (the writer/director of Versus and the director of The Midnight Meat Train) and directed by Tak Sakaguchi, who is best known as a fight choreographer and who worked on Tokyo Gore Police and Vampire Girl Vs. Frankenstein Girl - two films that were light on plot but heavy on action and gore. So, when these two get together, you can fairly accurately predict that the film will be one that isn't too reliant on dialogue, internal logic or a strong narrative, instead relying on well orchestrated action sequences, gore and a sense of the surreal to make it something worth watching.

Knowing what I knew, I settled down to watch Samurai Zombie knowing I could really put my brain on standby and just enjoy the ride. It was clear from the opening 10 minutes that this was a film that would be a lot of fun but not exactly the most accomplished movie ever committed to celluloid. A family, travelling to their holiday destination, is driving along an empty road in a wooded area by Eight Spears Village when they come across a man pointing a pistol at them. Without enough time to slow down, let alone stop, the car slams into the man, sending him flying over the bonnet and landing in a heap in the asphalt.

Thinking they've just killed someone, the family's mood changes rather abruptly when the man gets back up. If this wasn't bad enough, a couple emerge from the woods and shoot the man before taking the family hostage and carjacking them. It seems that this holiday was almost destined not to happen as, shortly after taking in their two 'guests', one of the tyres suffers a puncture and the father is sent off to find a spare, leaving his wife and two children with their armed companions.

Bizarrely, the father starts digging and, taking the knife that he has found, cuts his head off. It seems as if he was compelled to do this as the fountain of blood that comes spraying out of his body and several metres into the air soaks into the ground and awakens an ancient Samurai warrior. Meanwhile, his family and the two captors are busy being harangued by an old hag who tells them that they are doomed with the fairly definitive statement "You're all going to die!"

Initially sceptical of what this decrepit old woman is saying, the group suddenly realise that she is onto something when the sword-wielding undead warrior appears, looking to shake off a bit of 'ring rust' and get back into the beheadingbusiness.


What follows is basically what you'd expect: a couple of heavily armed warriors doing battle with an undead Samurai and, when the police are called, they show up with weaponry but it's just a question of whether a gun is any good against something that seemingly can't die and just wants to slice and dice his way through as many people as possible.

Samurai Zombie managed to live up to my expectations, disappoint me and exceed my expectations all at the same time which is quite a feat for a film! In terms of living up to expectations, it did pretty much exactly what I expected it to do in terms of delivering well orchestrated action set pieces whilst not really developing the characters too much or delivering exceptional dialogue. In terms of disappointing me, it wasn't as much fun as I was hoping and certainly wasn't as off the wall and wacky as something like Versus but, when it comes to exceeding expectations, there were some neat little plot twists that I wasn't expecting and certainly wasn't anticipating.

It is a film that fans of the new wave of Japanese splatter films will enjoy as, if you like blood to spurt several metres rather than just a couple of feet, heads to fly way up in the air rather than just fall off the body and a woman to get her own back on the man who has raped her and is demanding fellatio by biting off one of his testicles, then this is the sort of film for you.

The Disc

The Picture
In a word: disappointing. Although just about the entire film takes place at night, I did expect a great deal of colour from the blood and for the blacks to be inky rather than grey and for the picture to be anamorphic rather than letterboxed. It is also extremely muddy, with poor definition and plenty of interlacing artefacts. Putting all this aside, the film is extremely well choreographed with some good sites and location shooting and, as I mentioned above, there is an extremely wince inducing scene in which a man's testicle is bitten off and spat across the room. As this clearly isn't a movie for the fainthearted or squeamish, you should expect a bit of 'up close and personal' violence!

The Sound
A perfectly clear Dolby Digital 2.0 Japanese soundtrack with clear and easy to read burnt in English subtitles. It's a pity there isn't a 5.1 option that would have helped the action sequences to come alive and compliment the visuals but, ho-hum, you have to take what you can get a look at the positives. The track is clear with fairly crisp dialogue and the fight sequences, whilst not brilliant, are still extremely well worked at come across well.


Final Thoughts
Such is the outlandish nature of the action sequences and the design of the titular undead warrior, Samurai Zombie is almost a live-action cartoon. If you're looking for sophisticated plot developments, well rounded characters who you really care about and clever, witty dialogue then you have come to the wrong place. This movie has none of those as it sets out to be an over the top, slightly silly but fairly enjoyable action/horror movie and it delivers on all counts.

It is a shame that the muddy picture is letterboxed, rather than anamorphic and that there are absolutely no extra features (aside from a selection of trailers) as interviews with members of the cast and crew wouldn't go amiss, but this is well worth a rental for those of you who enjoyed Tokyo Gore Police, Versus or Vampire Girl Vs. Frankenstein Girl.