There’s a so-bad-it’s-good film called Samurai Cop (1990) you may well have heard about. Heck, we did a review of it back in 2017!

Recently, it’s piqued our interest again. Once more we’re laughing ourselves stupid at its bizarre dialogue, hammy acting, and disastrous continuity errors.

However, it’s all bolstered by its lead actor (Matthew Keradas) being such a charming, self-deprecating SOB. His willingness to discuss the production makes this one of the most rewarding cult classics to fall in love with.

The Therapeutic Powers of Samurai Cop’s Unintentional Humour

There are three films that top the league of best bad movies ever (in no particular order):

• Samurai Cop (1990)
• The Room (2003)
• Troll 2 (1990)

Previously we reviewed the documentary Best Worst Movie (2009), which was surprisingly profound and moving. However, it launched before Samurai Cop arrived on the scene! It really began kicking off in 2010 and, for us, Amir Shervan’s badness masterpiece tops the list of the best worst movie.

The thing that unites these sorts of films? They were all B movies with low budgets, a lot of heart, but a lack of money/talent/sanity.

Below you’ll see what we’re on about here, as this is your best starting point with Samurai Cop lore. WARNING! Bad B movie acting be ahead.

Now, in isolation that just looks like someone who can’t act delivering some oddball dialogue.

Thankfully, Matt Hannon has provided a great deal of context to the above scene. His frustrations and, by then, strained relationship with the director were boiling over.

In the above scene the actor wasn’t in the same room as the people he was supposed to be delivering the lines to. It was months after that particular bit had been shot and, instead, he was in Shervan’s office delivering lines at a wall.

These oddities are in such overflowing abundance across the whole film, it genuinely made it difficult to know where to start with our podcast. But here’s a lovely little mini-summary of some of the best bits.

Yeah! Fantastic, eh? A lot of this was down to inexperienced actors with nothing but a dream giving it a go. And at least they tried! But with a tiny budget, director Amir Shervan’s bizarre dialogue, and various other issues, all that was left was for comedy gold.

Definite highlights across the film for us include:

• Matt Hannon’s wig (which goes unexplained in the film and no one questions it).
• Matt Hannon’s monotonous monologue.
• The many bizarre, sudden, scenery changes that make no sense.
• The grunt Joe Marshall makes at the 1 hour 22 minutes 52 seconds mark during a samurai sword battle.

Seriously, that grunt (obviously dubbed in over the top of whatever Hannon did for the scene) amuses us enormously.

Yeah, so we just waited to voice our reasons for loving this mess of a film. But you can watch the below mini-documentary by Bad Movie Bible for insights on Samurai Cop’s bizarre production.

As highlighted there, for a long time Samurai Cop was lost to the world. The film didn’t receive any kind of real premiere and had a limited early ’90s run on VHS.

A straight to video type of film, then, and that’s always a damning assessment.

But it was filmmaker Gregory Hatanaka who stumbled across one of those old VHS tapes in an old LA studio. The film began having screenings and by 2013 people were going wild for it.

To Matt Hannon’s initial dismay, this meant people were now looking for him over 30 years after the film wrapped. Long after he’d moved on with his life. And, well, let’s hear what he made of it all.

Matt Hannon’s Best Charisma Overload Moment

On our full review of the film we’ve provided a bunch of these, but our favourite interview is his 2015 candid time with Red Letter Media.

If you’ve got a spare 30 minutes that’s well worth a watch.

One of the surprising things, if you watch Samurai Cop, is you’d sort of expect the actor to be as blundering and blockheaded as Joe Marshall. Instead, Hannon (Matthew Keradas) is very charismatic and funny. Every interview we’ve seen him in he’s been brilliant.

Although frustrated with the outcome of the film back in 1991, he’s since moved on with his life and embraced his cult status with cool aplomb.

It’s his acceptance of all that we find endearing.

No bitterness and burning resentment, just a calm-headed appreciation of what it now means and his part in its bizarre success story. Life lessons learned and on with the rest of his life, kind of deal.

Watch All of Samurai Cop, You Crazy Damn Fool!

Okay, we appreciate this isn’t going to be for everyone. But if you’re of this type of persuasion and need a bit of a lift or giggle right now… give it a watch.

It’s all there. Above on that video, kindly uploaded by Movie Central for free.