Review: Samurai Cop (1991)

Let me take you back to the late 80s and early 90s in a very specific place—that of Eastern Europe transitioning away from Marxist-Leninist mire, specifically Poland. With Party authority collapsing, this is also signified a flood of newly discoverable western culture in the form of good ol’ VHS. Enough that there were songs about it. Oh, and we’re not just talking the likes of Star Wars—there was a lot of more questionable stuff that made its way into a new market all too happy to embrace this side of capitalism. We had schlock like Nightbeast, Maniac Cop, and, er, also Samurai Cop, our topic for today!

Yes, this film stands out for its only real release back in the early 90s being on Polish VHS, surfacing to the cult glory it enjoys now thanks to rediscovery on Youtube. It was to the extent that people seemed unsure whether star Matt Hannon was even alive, but fortunately for all, he too has embraced the hilariously poorly executed way of the samurai! 

The plot is nothing too special, and not what we’re here for—it’s the usual eighties cop thing, of there being a big bad drug gang with a gimmick, and only our two heroic rule-breaking constables can take them down by utterly ignoring the Bill of Rights! No, our tone is set right from the opening scene, where we’re introduced to our bad guy (Robert D'Zar), sporting the most desperate middle-aged mullet imaginable. Fear him, for his barber has no regard for human sanctity! And then not long after we have a henchman who inexplicably sounds like a robot thanks to bad sound mixing. All of this, played so gloriously straight, and that’s how we’re guaranteed a positively gourmet serving of cheesy movie glory!

"I have combined the mustache of Tom Selleck with the Top Gun shades--that means none can resist my coolness, right?" 

Our hero is Joe Marshall, a cop whose barber also perhaps needs to reign himself in as we’ll get to—he supposedly speaks fluent Japanese as he demonstrates by butchering it completely, and in a stunning display of originality, is a cop who doesn’t play by the rules, man! His sidekick is Mark Frazer as Frank, who, er, well pretty much embraces the fact that he’s ‘the black sidekick’ and not much else, but at least seems to be having fun with the proceedings. 

We of course don’t waste time before we go into haphazardly edited car chases that teleport across Southern California, perhaps because Marshall is able to use his authentic Zen mastery to bend space and time itself, or something. And then we have a memorable scene that also subverts expectations when we get to a hospital, where of course a sexy nurse hits on her hero—but, amazingly, rejects him due to, erm, the inadequate length of his katana let’s say! That’s how you know you’re in a masterful trend-bucking film like this, that might even question traditional masculinity for about two seconds!

In fact there’s a lot of little touches like that which add a bit of flair—such as our police chief, who initially seems like a complete stereotype yelling to our heroes about such trivial pettiness like obeying regulations and not causing sixty million dollars of damage every other day. Then after they leave he breaks out laughing—you might think it’s sloppy editing, but I say it’s a deep character moment signifying that he indeed knows he’s just playing into what feels like a predictable mould!

The peak of course comes when our heroes break into the house of one of the main henchmen—operating by giving bad guys a picosecond of warning before ventilating them with bullets, which, well, that part they got right about the LAPD. Still, we have the only film of this type where our bad guy has to run around in a speedo, before confronting our hero for a good old sword duel. And then, not only do both magically teleport from a garden to a random hilltop, but the deviousness of Marshall’s hairdresser strikes when his mane suddenly turns into a very bad wig! At this point, you’re either wholly on board this fantastic voyage of silliness, or you’re shutting off the VHS player!

None shall stand before neither his sword nor his sunburn!

And, bless him, Mark Hannon is trying, somewhat, despite living in a world where the basic plane of reality is completely flexible. Oh sure he may look like he’s constipated with fifty kilos of lettuce in his bowels when trying to look tough, and being vaguely bored during our oh so tender love scenes that show off his speedos…but…well he’s not really trying, but inexplicably it’s all the better for that lack of effort! It’s that performance that doesn’t sink into total disinterest, but rises to entertain us anyway.

This is when selfies go so bad you can't help but weep like this guy.

So, at the end, our heroes realize that there’s no point in even pretending they care about the law, and simply decide to murder the enemy gang because that’s how justice works. Everything you want from our proceedings is here—and it’s all delivered with the skill of a fourteen year old handed a semblance of budget, and is trying to make the kewlest baddest film ever with like sword cops and sexy girls and guns and stuff while hopped up on a deranged cocktail of Red Bull and sugar-flavored sugar. 

And it’s that mentality which resurrected this film from the dark forgotten dungeons of VHS collections tossed aside to desperately wish for a revival to grace them like vinyl (and who knows, perhaps if the digital world does in fact sink into a morass of AI and government idiocy, that might just happen yet). When people say ‘glorious crap’, this is what they mean. Get some friends, get some booze, you can’t go wrong with this on the screen, I promise.