Five hundred years ago, a samurai summoned the demon Kodeni (Santi Sudaros) to save his clan, but afterwards, the demon entered his daughter to be born as a superhuman. Now, Kodeni needs a new body, so chooses Akemi (Maï Anh Le), the daughter of Commissioner Fujiwara (Yasuaki Kurata) to be his mother. Fujiwara is visited by the ghost of the samurai who tells him he must kill his daughter. He travels to France to do that, but she is now protected by Marco (Cyril Mourali) and his irritating sidekick Nadir (Saïd Serrari). There is also a video game that… OK, there is no way to make any sense of the video game.
Samouraïs is a cinematic argument for the French and Japanese never working together. Both cultures have a tendency toward annoying sidekicks that are supposed to be funny, but never even reach childishly stupid. Put the two together, and they can create a character that will rot your brain, not to mention destroy any film. The character in this case is Nadir, and he may be the most unpleasant person to watch that’s ever appeared on celluloid. He’s a jive-talking, cowardly white dude that swears a lot, but I can’t say why. Nor can I explain most of his dialog except to speculate that a random word generator was involved. I’ve been told he is a less-subtle version of Screech from Saved by the Bell, a statement that makes me very happy I never watched Saved by the Bell.
Minus Nadir, there are the makings of an entertaining action film here, although having the parts doesn’t mean they are put together correctly, nor that there aren’t a few items that don’t belong. The fights, and they are numerous, are above average for Japanese martial arts flicks. The villains’ abilities are inconsistent (sometimes managing impressive wire-kicks, and sometimes acting as average thugs), but that’s par for the genre. Santi Sudaros is an impressive-looking adversary, towering over his opponents and bringing new meaning to “buff.” I can’t say I’m a big fan of faux-teen, pretty-boy martial artists that have been appearing in more and more films, but Cyril Mourali is a notch above the norm. His acting isn’t painful to watch, and he has the moves. Maï Anh Le (as the pretty-girl martial artist) is more to my tastes and looks good knocking anonymous demon henchman into walls. Unfortunately, she doesn’t do enough of that due to her demonic pregnancy, spending a substantial portion of the picture huffing and puffing and holding her suddenly enlarged stomach. The most exciting scenes belong to Yasuaki Kurata, who brings classic style to the proceedings. His night stick versus katana smash’em up in an airport washroom is the high point of the movie. With all the punches, kicks, and sword swings, the filmmakers forgot this was a supernatural film. I would have liked some less mundane combat. For a movie with a demon, there’s too many human against human moments.
In between fights, when Nadir isn’t onscreen, it’s a mixed bag. The romance is believable, but is too abrupt. Fujiwara shows genuine concern for his daughter and the situation, but is convinced to murder his child rather easily. In order to make sense of anything (and allow large chunks of time for embarrassing Nadir moments), everyone is far too enthusiastic about explaining things. The demon tells his own followers information they would already know (but we don’t), and goes out of his way to point out to the Commissioner that he is a demon and is going to be reborn in his daughter. If he’d just kept his mouth shut, he would have won without a struggle.
The ending brings in Cyberpunk video game moments that have nothing to do with the rest of the film. It’s as if two scripts were merged, taking the climax of a bad, preteen, science fiction flick and pasting it on an action fantasy.
The one laugh is unintentional, and due to ratings and censorship that are a plague everywhere in the world. Here, they cause a woman to give birth to a demon that’s wearing pants. They are little leather pants, but pants none-the-less, and they grow as he does. Later, the demon has sex with Akemi, and he’s still wearing those pants. I guess the true power of a demon is to shoot through tight, black shorts.
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