SIX STRING SAMURAI (1998)

 

DIRECTED by Lance Mungia

SCREENPLAY by Jeffrey Falcon & Lance Mungia

STARRING - Jeffrey Falcon as Buddy 

Justin McGuire as the Kid

Stephane Gauger as Death with Lex Lang as the voice of Death.

PLOT - In the year 1957, World War 3 breaks out, Russia launches a Nuclear attack on the USA. The apocalypse is here...

A few years later and America is a nuclear wasteland. The only area of civilization left is the city of Lost Vegas ruled over by King Elvis.

However, the King has recently died and now Lost Vegas needs a new king. Enter the man called Buddy - a guitar playing, sword welding master of the martial arts who wants to become the new king.

As he makes his way across the radiation blasted wasteland he encounters a small orphan boy who he rescues and becomes the unwilling guardian of. To add to his problems he's also being stalked by Death himself and his band of sinister henchmen.

Can Buddy survive the perils of the wasteland to fulfill his destiny ?...

PERFORMANCES - Six String Samurai was conceived as a vehicle for Jeffrey Falcon who at that time was a martial arts star best known for playing villainous white henchmen in various Asian martial arts movies.

Falcon wanted the chance to play the good guy male lead for once, and so helped finance and co-write this small independent picture along with then film student Lance Mungia.

Falcon plays Buddy (a man who may or may not be this universe's version of Buddy Holly) as a Clint Eastwood-esque 'man with no name' type. Buddy is a solo traveller (at least to begin with) on a personal mission to find his destiny. He's an expert martial artist equally adept with swords or fists and can also play a mean tune on his guitar. He's a man of few words (mainly terse one-liners growled at the various bandits, mutants and wasteland vagabonds that seem to always cross his path) but beneath his cool facade, we learn, beats a heart of gold.

This comes into effect with his friendship with a small nameless boy (Justin Maguire) who he rescues at the film's beginning. The kid takes a shine to him and proceeds to follow Buddy where ever he goes. At first Buddy is dismissive of the boy but eventually the kid melts his heart and the two become firm friends.

A quick word about the Kid, he's obviously been born post apocalypse and so can't remember the world as it was - when we first meet him he communicates only in grunts and cries but as the story progresses we find that he can actually talk properly, he just prefers not to. 

At first the kid comes over as slightly irritating but (like Buddy) you find yourself warming to him as the film goes on. Maguire was only about six years old when this was made and for a little lad does a VERY good job of bringing the character to life. Maguire and Falcon have a great on-screen chemistry - you totally buy thier friendship and bond that develops over the course of the film. Casting a little kid is always risky - especially in a B-movie - but they got it bang on right in this movie.

So, you've got a cute and engaging kid partnered with a cool as hell badass wandering minstrel/samurai - it just works and you can clearly see this film has been HEAVILY influenced by the Lone Wolf & Cub mythology of Asian cinema and comics (which in turn inspired The Mandalorian in more recent years). It's a solid gold concept and both leads sell it perfectly.

We also got the villain of the piece - none other than Death himself. The grim reaper is played by Stephane Gauger whose lanky physique lends itself well to the cadaverous metal guitar welding raggedy man. Death is voiced by Lex Lang who makes the character sound like a weird hybrid of Darth Vader and Shredder from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - it's cheesy but it works. Needless to say Death is a total badass as well, especially in the end scenes where he duels to the...erm...death with Buddy.

SFX - Apart from what looks like a matte painting of the city of Lost Vegas in the film's closing moments, there's actually very little in the way of effects work. The film is very low budget and most of the effects are achieved via costume alone.

Although there's some nice moments where we see Death's skeletal face, which is clearly a mask but is shot so well it still looks effective.

VIOLENCE - Well, 90 percent of the human race gets wiped out in the opening credits for starters. 

The main violence comes via the beautifully choreographed fight scenes which fully takes advantage of Jeffrey Falcon's martial arts cinema background. Buddy slices, dices, slaps and high kicks a variety of foes into oblivion. Mutants, road gangs, rival musicians, the servants of death and a lost platoon of Russian soldiers who think the war is still going on - all get to feel Buddy's toe-end up thier collective arses...well at least until Buddy comes up against the Grim Reaper himself and gets fatally peppered with arrows. Ah well...he had a good run.

RATING - This film has "1990's independent movie" written all over it...and I mean that in the best possible way. It's basically Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez do Mad Max by way of 2000ad comic.

It's a surreal, action packed and cool as hell post apocalyptic road movie with central characters you'll find yourself rooting for. It's also beautifully shot - the Nevada Desert almost becomes a character in its own right. 

5 wandering Samurai Mariachis out of 5. Well worth a look.

ART - 

There was also (briefly) a spin-off comic series but unfortunately the artwork was done by Rob "I can't draw feet" Liefeld, so if you can find it anywhere - don't expect great things...