Although we covered The Room (2003) recently with our book review of The Disaster Artist, we’re not sure it’s the best bad movie ever. Why? There’s some semblance of coherence in the script (just about).

In comparison, that’s something Samurai Cop (1991) most certainly doesn’t have. This fantastically idiotic production is filled with so many bizarre and ridiculous errors it’s a joy to behold.

An ultra-low-budget Lethal Weapon rip-off that didn’t make it into cinemas, it was plucked from obscurity thanks to our old friend the internet. Now it’s turned into a bad movie cult classic. Hurray!

The Best Bad Movie of All Time? Samurai Cop Offers Jaw-Dropping Amusement on a Cosmic Scale

The film is about two detectives on the hunt to stop a ruthless Japanese drug gang in LA. Our heroes are Joe Marshall (Matt Hannon) and Frank Washington (Mark Frazer). 

Marshall is an “expert” in martial arts (apt surname then, eh?) and is also “fluent” in Japanese. The problem there is these claims aren’t backed up very well in the film. At all.

In fact, Marshall largely comes across as a blockheaded moron who is sexist, hapless, and mentally unstable—such is the nature of the script.

Bad acting is the name of the game here. But director Amir Shervan (1929-2006) also pulled out all the punches to deliver a spectacularly uneven film.

It was shot in its entirety during daylight hours as he couldn’t afford lighting equipment for an evening shoot.

And the treasure trove of low-budget B flick facts continues long into the day, as there’s an endless amount of other strange occurrences.

And that’s why Samurai Cop has turned into a film buff’s heaven. Spotting all of the continuity errors, and quoting the strange dialogue, is great fun.

There’s one inconsistency we particularly love: Samurai Cop’s hairdo. Without explanation, there are highly distracting differences throughout the film.

It took a long while for the truth to come out. Believing shooting for the film to be complete, Hannon went and got a haircut.

Shervan then called him back into the studio and was dismayed to find Samurai Cop now with short hair. The only solution, apparently, was to get a wig, which Hannon believed would work with long distance shots.

The problem was, Shervan still had a lot of the film left to shoot (kind of highlighting the communication problems going around on set).

The result is there are some really strange shifts from scene to scene where Hannon has real hair… and then a woman’s wig. But as the tone of the film is so straight-faced the jarring shift is awe-inspiring.

The wig even comes off during one fight scene, but as Shervan insisted on only having one take per scene (presumably due to the low budget) all these weird errors are left in.

But even that doesn’t accommodate for extraordinary moments like this.

That’s one of the most popular segments with fans due to the strangely flat nature of the delivery (Matt Hannon, decades later, would explain why he was so negative).

One of our favourite lines, though, is this underrated gem he delivers:

“If Okamura is here then we’ll arrest him and we’ll have a solid case against the Katana gang for hiring four assassins to kill a policeman. On the other hand, if it’s the wrong house then we’ll apologise to the owner.”

Just absolute classic material there. We understand Shervan was trying to be sincere with all this, but that sort of line is one in a million.

Much like the film as a whole!

Quite the gem that, for us, tops the list of so-bag-it’s-good movies. And whilst the film is sexist, dumb, and often makes no sense, the comedic value of the thing is off the charts.

It’s captivating. Bad films capture what an alternate reality could be like, one where people don’t function properly and a man’s hairdo can radically change from scene to scene without anyone batting an eyelid.

And for the viewer, it’s an escapist treat that the most competent Hollywood productions can’t match. Samurai Cop offers inexplicable silliness we can pour over and enjoy. For that, we will always love it.

Matt Hannon (Keradas) Speaks! Glorious Red Letter Media Interview Ahoy

Due to the sudden (and rather unexpected) success of the film, Samurai Cop star Matt Hannon emerged from obscurity to provide a candid interview to Red Letter Media.

Wouldn’t you know it? He turns out to be super charming and self-deprecating. Wonderful! It’s a great interview and features a manspread of the century from the Hannon legend, but when you’re that charming you can get away with it, eh?

He has got a lot of charisma, which shows how his youthful inexperience (and a terrible script) held him up back in 1990.

In part two of the interview, Hannon revealed he had hoped the film would pave the way for other acting opportunities in action films. Sadly, it didn’t work out for him and for decades was left ashamed of Samurai Cop.

There’s also another interview from 2014. Below he provides extra insights on the filming process with director Shervan. It’s interesting to note his reasons why he repeated the dialogue written for the film, because of course you would in your first film.

Once the film was picked up online by an increasing army of fans, efforts were made to find Hannon who was, initially, dismayed by it all. It even said on his IMDb page that he was dead (something he didn’t want to rectify, at first).

To his credit, he’s now embraced it all and can laugh about the experience, which we think is a big credit to the man. Bravo, sir!

Mark Frazer Speaks!

Mention must also go to Mark Frazer, who stars as Frank Washington in Samurai Cop.  He’s consistently hilarious throughout the film.

What we know now, thanks to all the interviews the cast have provided, is it was due to Shervan’s direction. Frazer would follow the director’s cues with little knowledge of how the footage would be put to use.

Shervan then jammed these strange reaction shots into the film.

The weird thing about some of them is Frazer was looking directly into the camera. It’s genuinely fourth-wall breaking stuff—as with everything else, that was unintentional. But it does add another layer to the film’s humour.

Also of note is Frank Washington’s understated “Damn!” in response to his partner chopping a guy’s arm off and watching the bloke bleed to death.

It’s certainly great to hear Frazer’s memories of all this, too.

And the thing is, he and Hannon do make a good acting duo together. They riff off each other well, so it was marvellous to see them reunite with Samurai Cop 2 (more on that further below).

Bad Movie Bible’s Samurai Cop Overview

Over the last 10 years or so, a lot of content creators have waded into the whole Samurai Cop hilarity (including us, of course). Whilst it’s great the film has gained this cult following, most of the times we can just repeat the hits.

What does katana mean? And all that jazz.

That’s why we’re flagging up Rob Hill’s take on the film for his glorious B Movie channel Bad Movie Bible.

He’s the undisputed master of terrible movies and has compiled some incredible documentaries on rip-off films and the like. Do give his channel a follow! It’s unfair he doesn’t have a bigger following.

Also, we do think his take on the Samurai Cop story has been the best we’ve seen so far. He has an earnest, deadpan reviewing style we like that lends itself well to these failed film productions.

As the story of this film has a certain poignancy behind it all. Matt Hannon, for example, was trying to make it big and thought this would be his breakout film. Only to get mired down and embittered by his on-set experiences.

All makes for amusing anecdotes now, but it’s a reminder not everyone ends up on Sylvester Stallone’s level.

Samurai Cop 2 and When Bad Movies Are Enforced

Such is the interest in the first film, a sequel was Kickstarted online. Hannon agreed to reprise his role decades after first putting on his Joe Marshall wig.

Samurai Cop 2 was released in 2015 and met with slightly better reviews than the first effort. However, the problem with a film like this is it loses the lightning in a bottle element of trying to make a good film.

Shervan genuinely seemed to think he was doing a decent job of it, but where he went wrong was his strange take on American culture merged alongside his Iranian understanding of audience desires.

We kind of feet it a bit sweet what he was doing… even if the films he made are weird.

The result is Samurai Cop 2 doesn’t have much of the charm of the first outing and is very forced. However, it was still a welcome project and included much of the original cast (in cameos or otherwise).