American Samurai
American Samurai is a martial-arts action film directed by Sam Firstenberg, starring David Bradley and Mark Dacascos, and produced by Cannon Films. Filmed in Turkey, it was released in the United States in 1992.Plot
master Tatsuya Sanga adopts a baby named Andrew Collins who is the only survivor of a plane crash in the Japanese mountains. Andrew and the samurai's son, Kenjiro, are trained in the warrior’s way. Andrew excels and soon surpasses his stepbrother. Kenjiro leaves his father’s home and joins the Yakuza, swearing revenge on his stepbrother. Ten years later, Andrew works in L.A. as a journalist. He and a female photographer track down an opium-smuggling operation in Turkey. The drug dealers kidnap the girl, forcing Andrew to enter a deadly, illegal weapons based martial-arts tournament whose champion is the lethal Kenjiro.Cast
Home media and alternate versions
The DVD is available in Region 1, based on the edited R-rated cut. This version has subtitles added to the days of the tournament Additionally, many scenes of violence or injury are zoomed in on, poorly cropped, or deleted altogether to avoid explicit details. The unrated cut has different dialogue in some scenes, no subtitles, and all of the violence is onscreen and considerably more graphic. This version is not available in the United States but can be found in other regions. There is an uncut Belgian bootleg DVD and the British version has approximately one second of footage cut.Reception
The film was described as a ”brainless action movie”, whose uncut version is somewhat more enjoyable. It was also compared unfavorably to Die Hard.