Black Samurai aka Asshole Samurai aka The Violent Delusions of an Un-medicated Psychopath

It's Jim Kelly week here at Exploitation Movie Review and after the sad news of his passing, I wanted to honour the man's life and legacy by taking a look over his small but awesome body of work (yeah, you'll probably find that the next few weeks are all Jim Kelly movies. You're just going to have to find a way to cope with that). We'll start with 'Black Samurai'...

In this movie, Jim Kelly plays Sands, an agent of D.R.A.G.O.N but we never find out what this is an acronym for, code named Black Samurai but his character is a complete asshole and quite possibly schizophrenic. He’s not an asshole like Sonny Chiba’s character in The Street Fighter because he’s never really set up as anything other than an asshole but this Sands guy is just a fucking tool. You’ll read about the reasons later but I invite you to have your own asshole/insanity points tally as we go through. He’s also not really a Samurai because he only uses a Katana, like, twice in this whole fucking movie. I was sort of suckered into buying this because the front cover of my DVD has some decent pictures of Jim Kelly looking tough and it says ‘Star of Enter the Dragon’ so I guess I should have known that it was going to be pretty liberal with the truth anyway.

The movie starts with these guys cruising in a car and they’re following this woman called Toki, who’s the daughter of this Japanese Minister for something. You don’t really find out. The guy in the back of the car looks like the biggest piece of shit of the three. He’s called Chavez and he kind of looks like Lee Van Cleef. You later find out that he IS a real piece of shit because his hobby is rape and woman punching. 

'Man, I sure do love rape and woman punching'

They follow this girl back to this big house with a pool and everything and she settles down to get her bronze on. These car assholes creep into the back yard and they beat up the pool boys but then shoot them anyway which seems a bit stupid considering they could have done that right away. Maybe they’ve got a point to prove or something. They kidnap Toki and bundle her into their car. This leads into the title sequence but this is pretty much full of lies too because it shows Kelly using a Samurai sword like it’s his main weapon and the only people it shows you him beating down are the midgets from later on in the movie (there are an uncomfortable amount of midgets in this shit). This kinda makes him look like a bit of an asshole but because it’s only the title sequence, we’ll mention it but we won’t count it against him.

Jim Kelly is on vacation when we get to meet him. Kelly is playing Tennis with some girl when these two dudes interrupt his game and probably fuck up his average or whatever it is they have in Tennis. One of them is called Farnsworth which is really typical stuffy white guy name and the other is called Pines who shows up later as his contact in California (I'm assuming it's California. I don't think they mention it, it just looks like California). They show him a bunch of photos which include pictures of Chavez and this guy called Janicot who Farnsworth says is into all this black magic and voodoo and shit as well as drugs, prostitution etc. He also likes having midgets around but that apparently isn’t in Farnsworth’s dossier so Kelly has to find that out for himself. He’s been getting some shit from Toki’s dad so he’s kidnapped Toki to send a message to this guy to suck his balls and to get some cash from him. They also show Kelly a picture of this other chick called Synne. Kelly seems pretty interested in her but Farnsworth and Pines tell him that she’s a real nasty piece of work and his boner goes away. Kelly isn’t interested because he’d much rather be playing Tennis and swimming and even though they try to appeal to his basic humanity by telling him that all the dudes in these pictures are total fucking douche nozzles, he seriously doesn’t give two shits. When reason and logic fail, they show him a picture of him and Toki kissing. This is where we find out that Kelly and Toki are seeing one another. You can tell that they’re in love because we get to see a flashback and they’re walking in this garden and she’s pointing at things. 

'I feel so comfortable pointing at things when we're together'

When they kiss, it looks like Kelly’s into it but she doesn’t look too taken with the situation if you ask me. Maybe she’s just a really bad actress or maybe the character is supposed to be a bit reserved. She seemed into him a minute ago when she was pointing at stuff. I don’t know. Anyway, the fact that she’s been kidnapped pisses Kelly off and he tells them that he’ll look into it. He tells these guys to make sure his car is there waiting for him when he arrives in California or wherever it’s supposed to be.

Now, I bring that up because you can tell that a lot of the budget went into this car because there’s a really un-eventful car chase where there’s not even any wheel banging or anything like that. Kelly’s car is tricked out with some James Bond like gadgets because he flips this switch which bursts these other guys’ car tyres and they fall down this ditch and their car explodes for like no reason. When this is over and he’s probably forgotten about it because he’s a sociopath, Kelly pulls up outside his hotel and has the good grace to not just leave his car too many spaces in front of the next parked car like you’d think he would. You can tell by this point that Kelly’s character doesn’t have much respect for authority (or humanity in general) by the way that he spoke to Farnsworth and Pines earlier and the way that he’s a selfish asshole but it’s nice to know that he respects common courtesy amongst drivers. I have to say that at this point, when Kelly is in his room, that this is the only time that we see Kelly doing anything with a Samurai sword until the end of the movie where he uses one to cut a character free from some rope. We also get to see him using some nun-chucks and they use the same sound effects they used in Enter the Dragon when Bruce is using them. When he’s finished his exercises, he starts to meditate but as soon as he does this, a gun barrel appears at his head and there’s this midget and another guy in his room saying they’re going to kill his ass. How the fuck they got into the room, I don’t know but the midget says that he enjoyed watching him practice which is weird. 

'My partner and I enjoyed watching you. Not in a gay way though because fuck you, you can't prove anything'

Kelly takes these dudes out by shooting the midget in the head and throwing the other guy out of a window. Pines shows up as soon as all the fighting’s done and tells him that Janicot is having a party later and he’s got Kelly an invitation. Kelly makes a couple of comments to Pines which suggests that he doesn't trust him too much which doesn’t make any sense.

So then we get to see the party that’s being held at Janicot’s place. It’s kind of weird when you first join the party because there’s a mariachi band playing and there’s a vulture just hanging out on this balcony above them. It looks like it might be some sort of festival at first glance and it’s really difficult to tell that it’s a party because everyone there is dressed differently. All the guests are wearing all these different styles of clothes and some of them don’t look like the kind of people this asshole would associate with. Some of them just look like tourists and it’s not until Janicot and Chavez show up that you realise that this is his party and he’ll vulture mariachi if he wants to. I don’t know why there’s a mariachi band at the party. Maybe they were part of a package deal with the vulture. 

I guess he's like security or something

When the mariachi band has stopped playing, this chick starts dancing for everyone and taking her clothes off but she never gets naked. She’s wearing like two pairs of pants and two bras and she seems really out of place, like this guy couldn’t afford to have a girl dancing on every table. It’s just really awkward and I can’t imagine that I’d have stuck around for much longer if I was at that party. Plus, the room looks really small. Like it’s being held in a wine cellar or something. Anyway, Kelly turns up and is immediately accosted at the door by one of the guys from the car at the start of the movie. This guy has a Village People moustache and is wearing the same vest that he had on earlier. Chavez is wearing a suit now but still hasn’t washed his hair and the other guy from the car at the start (called Bone) has come dressed as a Buccaneer. Kelly twists this dude's arm and shows him his invitation before letting him go and mingling with the other party guests. At this point, that Synne woman starts chatting to Kelly and flirting with him. Kelly introduces himself as Joe somebody or other and plays up to all the flirting. When Synne tries to introduce him to Janicot, this dude already knows that he’s an agent for D.R.A.G.O.N because he calls him by his code name and everything. This all seems a bit stupid and it’s like those moments in a Bond movie where everyone knows who he really is and you wonder why he bothered with a fake name in the first place. Kelly tries to leave but Janicot tells Buccaneer Bone to stop him. There’s a rooftop fight with more fucking midgets and some other guys and Kelly gets away. Jim Kelly really likes punching people in the dick which I can’t deny is effective but seems odd. He takes out at least five people in this movie by punching them in the dick and he even calls one of them a ‘whiny faggot’ which seems harsh.

'DICK PUNCH, SUCKAAAAA!!!'

Janicot is seriously pissed with his guys for letting Kelly get away and he makes Buccaneer Bone and Village People throw this guy who just had the misfortune of turning up to the de-briefing into a cell to make an example of him. You don’t know what’s in there until the end but during this scene it doesn't sound too cool. Right after this, Janicot accuses Synne of being attracted to Kelly which is weird but then tells her that he’s looking forward to a good game of cat and mouse with him so you’re left wondering why he throws that guy in the cell in the first place.

After some really uncomfortable scenes with Chavez trying to get his rape on with Toki, Kelly confronts Pines, saying that he’s been set up and that Janicot has a someone on the inside helping him out because he was expecting Kelly at the party. Pines literally hasn't a fucking clue what Kelly is talking about and it doesn't even occur to Kelly that Village People knew he was coming to the party because he was the guy that escaped from the hotel room earlier on but Pines acts pretty cool about it all. He doesn't lose his shit with Kelly or anything but when you're dealing with a dangerous lunatic like Kelly is in this movie, it's probably the best thing to do. Kelly basically tells him that he’s going to get to the bottom of this bullshit and drives off towards Chavez's house. Then, a load of other guys try to run him off the road in his car and he beats them down. There are no midgets in this fight but it’s pretty cool anyway. Next, Kelly calls D.R.A.G.O.N and tells them that he needs to get to Chavez’s house and he needs a boat and a jet pack which is the most ostentatious, dick headed mode of transport he could think of seen as though driving there went so horribly wrong the first time. When Kelly’s on the boat, he’s talking to someone but you never see anyone else on the boat so this could all just be voices in his clearly disturbed and aggressive mind. He lands somewhere near the grounds and is confronted by ANOTHER fucking midget who’s wearing a ten-gallon hat and who tells him that he’s under orders to bring Kelly in. Suddenly, Kelly is attacked by Zulu warriors and he gets into a fight with them.  Kelly manages to kick a couple to the ground but he throws one of the Zulu’s into this pond and because he’s a violent, schizophrenic nut box, homicidal rage over takes him and he drops a fucking huge rock on the guy’s head. For the briefest moment, you can see in Kelly’s eyes that he’s pondering the same question that’s going through your head; ‘why the fuck did you just throw a rock at that dude’s head? You have serious fucking problems, pal’

...yeah

We return to Kelly in his car and it’s night time so he’s probably been driving for a long time and not giving a shit about the fact that he’s just murdered a guy for no reason. He uses his car-phone to call Pines but he thinks it’s all a crock of shit and this guy is definitely setting him up for a fall. Kelly’s really condescending and clearly suffering from paranoid delusions because he genuinely has no reason to be this suspicious of Pines. What you find out is that Chavez, Village People and Buccaneer Bone have a gun to Pines’ head and they’re making him tell Kelly to come to Janicot’s place so they can fuck him up. Kelly gets a call from D.R.A.G.O.N telling him that the local authorities want to know what the fuck happened at Chavez’s villa and why there’s a dead Zulu floating belly up in a pond. Kelly doesn't give a shit. Like, not even the tiniest nugget of a shit. He even says ‘So what?’ with all this fucking attitude in his voice and D.R.A.G.O.N just back off probably thinking that it’s better to have a psychopath like this on-side rather than not and tell him that they’ll handle it.

So, while all this is going on, Janicot has decided that he doesn't care for Chavez’s attitude anymore (don’t look to me for answers because I haven’t a fucking clue) and has decided to kill his ass. Janicot is holding some sort of satanic ritual back at his place and the vulture shows up again so it’s obvious now that he didn’t just order that vulture for the party and that this is his own, personal vulture. There’s all this tribal dancing going on with dudes in masks and then this white chick comes out and starts dancing. I don’t think it’s the party stripper from earlier because she has different coloured hair. However, Janicot did say earlier that the party stripper girl can earn up to $500 a night so I guess he’s getting his money’s worth if all she did before was dance a bit and take off two pairs of lingerie before all hell broke loose. She probably had to provide her own hair dye, though. Kelly sees what’s going on and decides to come in through the building. Next, we see Chavez walking into Synne’s room while she’s getting ready for bed and just like earlier on, he’s trying to get laid in the stupidest way possible. Kelly catches him doing this and beats the shit out of him while Chavez holds a flick knife in one hand and his jacket in the other, like it has his phone and his keys in and shit and he doesn’t want to lose them during a fight which he’s not confident he can win. Either that or it’s a loaner and he doesn't want to get it creased. Synne is really grateful that Kelly’s helped her out and offers to repay him in titties. Kelly isn't interested; he just wants to know where his girlfriend is.

 'Do you accept Vag-isa?'

Eventually, Synne tells him that she’s in the tall tower which seems kind of obvious when you think about it. While this is going on, Chavez has escaped the room. Now, I know what you’re thinking but don’t worry SPOILERS he takes the jacket. Chavez gets into his car and he’s driving away and suddenly his car explodes with him inside. I like to think the bomb was in the jacket and if he’s just left it in Synne’s room, this film could have been over a lot sooner. Kelly finds Toki and they try to make an escape, only to be stopped by a load of Janicot’s men. They’re then tied to these pillars along with Pines and Janicot is planning to make them a sacrifice or something. He tells them that Synne will be executing them and she appears in all this High Priestess regalia but she fucks about too much and it gives Kelly time to get this exploding pen thing out of his trousers to free himself and the others.

How...how have you kept this in your waistband all along?

Toki goes to take on Synne and shows some basic Kung Fu skill but you wonder why she didn't help those pool boys at the start of the movie because she totally could of. I guess she wasn’t interested in coming to the rescue of the help. When she finally kills Synne, Synne sounds like a banshee and it’s pretty creepy. Pines gets to do some fighting as well but he seems to just take over on midget punching duties, leaving the full grown men to Kelly. Although in Kelly’s tortured, labyrinthine mind, they’re probably all manifesting themselves as 6ft tall screaming unicorns with guns for hooves.

During Kelly’s final fight with Buccaneer Bone, the dubbing is really poor and makes the fight really confusing. You’re left thinking that they must be communicating psychically with one another as they exchange generic insults like ‘chump’ and ‘sissy’ because literally, neither of their mouths is moving during the entire fight. Kelly breaks the guys back and casually declares that the guy will never walk again. Kelly's pretty much fought his way through all the henchman they could afford for this movie by this point and his final battle remains to be had with Janicot himself but before he can do this, Janicot unleashes the power of Vultron (that's the vulture) on him. Kelly dispatches Vultron in an uncharacteristic display of leniency by just punching Vultron out. Janicot notices that this avian ace in the hole was probably a really stupid idea and runs off into the tunnels beneath the house. 

Tonight on CBS: 'When Semi-Sentient Satanic Cult Vultures Attack'

After a bit of running around in the tunnels, Janicot tricks Kelly into walking into that cell from earlier on in the film. You find out that all this room has in it are snakes. This is really fucking retarded because the door to this cell isn’t like a solid wood door or steel or anything, it’s a fucking door with bars on it which snakes could easily escape through. You’re left questioning everything once you’ve seen this. Anyway, Kelly kind of puts this one rattlesnake into a trance and then pulls this mini flamethrower gadget from his concealed gadget waistband and he scares the snakes away. Then he burns through the lock to the door and starts chasing after Janicot again. Janicot is hiding around a corner and tries to bury an axe into Kelly but Kelly grabs the axe from him and threatens to kill Janicot with it while punching him in the face. He picks Janicot up and explains to him that, of all the options open to him at this point in time, he’s going to take him to the retarded snake room and lock him in there. If you’re the kind of person who treats death by axe or death by snakes as anything resembling a choice, you should seek professional help. 

'Snake or axe, sucka?! Either way, I just want you to know I am ROCK hard right now'

Kelly does this and just walks away while Janicot’s screams echo through the catacombs (a potent symbol of his own madness? You decide. I’m deciding ‘yes’). Outside of the tunnels, he bumps into Pines and Toki. Pines explains that the rest of Janicot’s men got sick of having their asses handed to them and fucked off. Kelly says ‘Well, I guess that’s it then’ and they leave. Credits roll. Just another day at the office for your average American secret agent psychopath.

So, yeah this movie is pretty fucked up and Kelly’s character really is a complete fucking chode. Some of the action sequences are pretty good and I’d be lying if I said that this wasn't entertaining as shit. It wasn't until I’d watched this movie through a few times that I began thinking to myself that maybe there were no midgets or Zulu warriors. Maybe there was never any mission to retrieve a kidnapped girl. It was all in his mind this entire time. For sure, the plot holes and inconsistencies could be explained off as a result of Kelly’s brain damaged nightmares and it makes sense to think that if I were a Kung Fu obsessed egomaniac who needed constant supervision and professional care, this is the kind of life I’d want for myself, too. So, anyway you can pick this up of Amazon for £9.99 or torrent it. And as for the asshole/insanity points tally, I lost count round about the time he started talking to himself on a boat.

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