Pretty Good

Best movie ever!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

A muddled but amiable international adventure yarn, taking in Japan, Spain, and Morocco along the way, never the sum of its parts. The problem with this movie is that it literally tries to throw in elements of all genres - there's romantic intrigue, action and adventure, war, historical drama, and plenty more besides. The film is episodic in feel, sometimes contrived, and the story never feels anything less than shallow. But despite all this, the cast of familiar faces is nice - despite the fact that all actors merely go through the motions, aside from David Essex - the action sequences are well-staged and exciting, and the characters interesting.The budget is used to the film's advantage, with some fine locations and backdrops for the plot to play out on. The action ranges from cool ship battles to one-on-one sword fights to scenes of war, with a definite feel of Indiana Jones to them. There are some nice stunts but things never get too bloody, this being a PG-13 film and all, so there's an element of unrealism there. There are about three climaxes in the film, each more exciting than the last, even if all are predictable sword-fighting stuff. Gordon Hessler's direction is capable but never fantastic, and there's always a distance between the audience and actors.Sho Kosugi re-teams with son Kane after BLACK EAGLE and the pair are pretty good as the Shogun warriors, whose pride comes before everything. Be sure to check out the supporting cast, which includes Norman Lloyd as a crooked man of the cloth; David Essex (who overacts completely) as a wicked Spanish Duke; Christopher Lee (in what amounts to a cameo appearance) as the King of Spain; John Rhys-Davies as the crooked El Zaiden, of Morocco; Ronald Pickup as a pirate; Toshiro Mifune (another cameo) as a Japanese warlord, and finally the lovely Polly Walker as Cecilia, the film's romantic interest. SHOGUN WARRIOR is a watchable, entertaining movie, nothing you won't have seen before, but at least it looks good.

I must admit that I have been a sucker for Samurai flicks since I can remember. I used to watch rather indiscriminate, be it "elitist" works like The Seven Samurai or the bloody comic-book variation like Lone Wolf and Cub. I also liked US-/Japanese "Crossovers" like The Bushido Blade. And of course everything containing Sonny Chiba and Hiroyuki Sanada. And I've virtually watched every Samurai at least twice. But not Kabuto.In 1993 I first watched Kabuto on video, that even Samurai films can be boring. In the beginning I was looking forward to Mayeda reaching Europe and the confrontations that would come from that but by the time he actually reached Spain, I really didn't care so much for the movie anymore.It wouldn't do the film justice to call it "bad". Technically it's a clean entry into the genre. But there is simply never quiet enough. Sho Kosugi has limited skills as both director and actor and has only a fraction of above mentioned Japanese actors charisma. And speaking of Sho Kosugis son Kane, who appears in almost all Sho Kosugi films as Shos son: he has inherited little-to-none of his fathers limited acting skills. Adding to the minus-points is the absence of the blood and gore that until then was a trademark of all Samurai film. This was obviously intended for a younger US- / European audience.Lets just say that it's a so-so film for the average historic-action-adventure fan but a bore for hardened fans of Samurai cinema. Fans who are into the "Samurai meets …"-genre, should rather go and watch Red Sun (1971), featuring Charles Bronson as cowboy who has to team up with Samurai Toshiro Mifume to retrieve a samurai sword from bad-guy Alan Delon. It pretty much how to do it right and where Kabuto went wrong.So, even though the film is a mere 100 minutes, it seems like a much longer film.The reason I gave this a honourable 4/10 points instead of 3/10: First time I saw this film, I saw it in the German synchronized version. In this version, Kosugi can actually be understood. I must admit that his 'Engrish' is at times funny but gets tiresome after about 30 minutes.

It tries to be the epic adventure of the century. And with a cast like Shô Kasugi, Christopher Lee and John-Rhys Davies it really is the perfect B-adventure of all time. It's actually is a pretty fun, swashbuckling adventure that, even with it's flaws, captures your interest. It must have felt as the biggest movie ever for the people who made it. Even if it's made in the 90s, it doesn't have a modern feel. It more has the same feeling that a old Errol Flynn movie had. Big adventure movie are again the big thing in Hollywood but I'm afraid that the feeling in them will never be the same as these old movies had. This on the other hand, just has the real feeling. You just can't hate it. I think it's an okay adventure movie. And I really love the soundtrack. Damn, I want the theme song.

This was a really cool movie. It just goes to prove that you don't need silly litle things like continuity and scripts to make a movie. It traverses continents in seconds, people get shot and nothing happens to them, swords set on fire, samuari fight on sinking galleons, David Essex is the epitome of slimey villainy and John Rhys Davies is just the dude. I enjoyed this movie but I like s**t movies, this is the perfect example of a very s**t movie that just KICKS ASS. If you like Battlefield Earth you'll love this film, its swashbuckling, its fast, its silly, its samuaraitastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!It also looks as if it was made in 1972