Black Samurai
Posted on October 27, 2005
This review turned into a really long summary with some running commentary because this movie had some of the most classically hilarious scenes in it I think I have ever experienced. Crotches were kicked. Midgets were vanquished. Whitey was hated on. Some things I couldn’t put into words, but I wanted to communicate the sheer ridiculousness of this movie, and frankly it took quite a few words to do that. So settle in and let the Black Samurai take you away to a world of mystery, excitement and Blaxploitation.
The 70′s was a turbulent time for America. Racial boundaries were falling all around us, including those in the previously closed old boy’s club of samurai-dom. Jim Kelly blazed a trail brighter than the sun with his blockbuster film Black Samurai, setting a precedent for all minority samurai that were to follow. His afro shone like a beacon in the night, reminding us all that we were not alone, and that the white voodoo practitioners of the world were officially on notice.
To say that this movie has some confused racial stereotypes is a bit of an exaggeration. The samurai is black. The voodoo priest is white. Everyone else is Mexican. We’ll get to all that later, for now we open on a black man, a greasy Hispanic man and someone with perhaps the finest mustache ever crafted. They tail an asian woman through the streets of California’s Chinatown and swoop in on her poolside at her mansion. They kung fu one bodyguard to death and shoot the others, causing packs of red paint to pop in the fanny packs that they clearly have under their bulging white shirts. Did I mention everyone is dubbed? They were clearly speaking English when they filmed originally, but I just assume they were all so amazingly inept at delivering their lines that they had to be re-done in post production.
We cut to Jim Kelly, who is playing tennis against a heavy chested nubian woman. Two of the squarest looking white men in suits walk up and attempt to interrupt the game. It doesn’t work. We get to watch Jim play tennis for about 10 minutes while the men whine to get his attention. Brilliant filmmaking. They have a conversation that I couldn’t follow because I was distracted by Jim’s glorious afro. It is a prefect sphere perched on his skull, slicing through the wind. My attention is brought back to the story when his superiors at D.R.A.G.O.N. tell Jim he needs to hunt down a voodoo warlock who “digs being worshipped, power and all that.” He was behind the asian woman’s kidnapping, who apparently was Jim’s sweet asian honey named Toki. Toki’s father is apparently a “minister of the samurai code” and won’t give in to the demands of black magic and the like. Jim is on the case!
We fly out to the west siiiiide and Jim cruises around in his groovy purple car. Some guys try to run him off the road, but Jim flips a switch and a gun comes out of the bottom of the car, shoots the bad guys and causes them to drive slowly off the side of the road and Xplode like Toonses the driving cat on SNL. Back at Jim’s slick pad he assaults the camera with a samurai sword, nunchaku and something that looks like a bad impression of Jackie Chan’s snake style kung fu. He apparently also provided the sound effects for this scene by making whooshing sounds with his mouth. Then he sits down for some meditation because he’s a samurai and all that. A midget comes out of nowhere (this is a continuing theme) and sticks an elephant gun in Jim’s meditating face. “Too bad your fists aren’t faster than bullets,” he says. Then his fists are exactly that, disarming and killing the midget in one fantastically ridiculous blow.
Jim’s partner, who I will call Whitey Partner Man gives him a tip that there will be a party at the bad guy’s voodoo pad and he should infiltrate. The party features a mariachi with the most comedically huge guitar, a vulture and the swingingest crushed blue velvet suit and ruffled pirate shirt wearing voodoo warlock I’ve ever seen. A ridiculous strip tease is performed by a woman who’s makeup looks like it must have been applied with a shotgun, showing off some of the high quality editing techniques used in this film. Jim meets the warlock’s high priestess who’s name is Synne. “So that must mean you’re free.” What does that mean? How does a name that is just a misspelling of the word sin mean that you’re free? The warlock lets on that he knows who Jim is and lets loose with perhaps the best line in the film. “As the spider said to the fly, welcome to my den.
NO HE DIDN’T. Parlor. Step into my parlor said the spider to the fly. Jim knows better than to argue this point and runs off, double stabbing two whiteys in the crotch (this is another continuing theme) on his way out.
This next scene deserves its own paragraph. Jim is still on his way out of the complex and is still kicking asses. He does some fancy footwork which I guess confuses one guy, and causes him to just have a heart attack and die on the spot because he falls down for no reason. Then Jim clotheslines a midget. Then another midget comes and Jim ducks so the midget trips and goes flying into the pile of humanity. Somehow they’re all vanquished without getting hit at all. That’s called operation intimidation. Jim goes back to regroup a bit and get another bad tip from Whitey Partner Man, leading him to Chavez, the greasy guy from the first scene who has been working with the warlock for whatever reason.
Pure afro on afro violence ensues as Jim goes to Chavez’s place to rescue Toki. I can’t even count how many people get kicked in the crotch, but soon enough Jim is back on the road. He calls ahead to D.R.A.G.O.N. to get a boat ready on the shore for when he gets there. He grabs his scuba equipment out of the trunk of the car and gets on the boat. Wait. That’s not scuba equipment. It’s a JETPACK! He flies off the boat and cruises the friendly skies for entirely too long. Let me tell you, the special effects in the 70′s were some of the greatest in the history of cinema. I’m going to stop for a second here. Why did he call for the boat? Couldn’t he just have flown from the shore to the hideout with the jetpack? He road on the boat for all of 20 seconds. Anyway, in the jungle hideout a vine swinging midget attacks and commands his army of leopard skin wearing African tribesmen to attack. Where exactly did he fly to? As usual Jim kills these cronies in cold blood, including the midget who gets the bbq sauce face treatment after falling 3 feet from a tree.
The Warlock sets a trap using Whitey Partner Man and says “The government trains its agents to be pretty good actors as well.” No my friend, no one who could be even passingly considered a good actor would ever be seen within 50 miles of this pile. A voodoo “ceremony” commences, which probably causes any real voodoo practitioners to spin in their shallow soon to be disturbed graves. Jim beats Chavez down and saves Synne. “I think of you as my white knight come to save me,” she says. “Never the WHITE knight baby.” Of course. Kill whitey. Then she turns on him and Jim, Whitey and Toki all get tied to posts. Synne comes out to kill them all with what else, a samurai sword. Jim breaks out by taking some kind of pseudo-science flare gun out of his sweatpants and cutting his ropes. A catfight of epic proportions breaks out between Toki and Synne, ending when Synne gets s-l-o-w-l-y impaled on her own voodoo knife. A million other absolute tragedies occur in the ensuing “fight scenes” between Jim and the never ending afro squad. Over 75 men’s balls are crushed, midgets get tossed and some stunt men definitely get scared that they are going to fall off ledges before the old stained mattress is in place.
It occurs to me now that Jim Kelly has killed something like 50 people to this point, and all with a self satisfied smirk on his face. Does he not realize that’s kind of bad? I mean, they might be evil, but still, good guys usually don’t painstakingly crush people’s skulls and then pat themselves on the back. After dispensing with about a hundred more afro sporting gentlemen in black shirts Jim faces off with the black guy who hasn’t done anything since the first scene in the movie. The editing goes berserk, with the guys teleporting around the room at will. The “dialogue” in this fight is all added in post production, which to me says that they filmed this entire ten minute fight scene with absolutely no dialogue in mind. What they DO say is some of the worst one liners I’ve ever heard. “Chump. You are a chump!” “Come on muscleman! You punch like a sissy!” Throw into the mix that I’m pretty sure Jim Kelly is doing the voices for both men, and the fact that no one even moves their mouthes and you get a really classy scene.
The warlock gets caught in his underground network of tunnels and thrown into a snake pit of his own making, leading to his bbq sauce covered death. This movie really likes putting bbq sauce on people’s faces. I guess its like when drunk guys write on each other with sharpies when they pass out. Jim then emerges from the catacombs to the loving arms of Toki and the approving gaze of his whitey partner. They’re about to walk off into the sunset when the mustachioed man from the beginning and a few members of the afro squad come out. Jim casually takes a bomb out of his sweatpants and lobs it at the bag guys in possibly the most half hearted action ever. They explode Power Rangers style and Jim proclaims “I guess that’s the end huh?” ROLL CREDITS. I guess that’s the end indeed.
Jim Kelly was trained by Bruce Lee when Bruce was really into training anyone who would help pay his flower print silk shirt bills. If this movie was any indication the lessons were “basic midget tossing” and “crotch destruction.” That makes him a very skillful, if slightly limited martial artist. Fight on Jim Kelly! For the children!