DVD review: Samurai Commando (2005)

To defeat the past, they had to take back the military of the future!

As movie pitches go, the concept of time-travelling samurai is a pretty engaging one. On a purely instinctual level, the idea of combining the bushido blades of Kurosawa with a modern war movie tickles the cult movie taste buds in all the right ways.

Sadly, this remake of Sengoku jieitai, the 1979 Sonny Chiba movie released in the west as GI Samurai (or Time Slip or Time Wars depending on which ex-rental VHS you found), ultimately fumbles the notion and ends up being a frustrating experience...

Following the test firing of an experimental energy shield, Japanese military scientists discover that they've accidentally created a rip in time. The platoon standing under the shield has vanished - along with their tanks and helicopters - and in their place appears a circle of grass, and one very disoriented samurai.

Things start to get weird, and the military brass realise that Matoba, leader of the missing unit, is tinkering with time in the past. They pressgang Matoba's former second-in-command into leading a mission into the past to put right the temporal damage and bring back the rogue technology.

So it's sort of Apocalypse Now meets Back To The Future, set in the warring states period of Japanese history, when the whole country was a feudal battleground. Matoba's plan is to take the place of Lord Nobunaga and use his knowledge of future events, modern science and ruddy big weapons to forge an alternate, militaristic Japanese superpower.

Directed by Masaaki Tezuka, this remake takes full advantage of a bigger budget and better special effects but ultimately blunts the innate fun of the concept by falling foul of the same traps that made his recent Godzilla movies - most notably Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla - such a chore. In other words, the deliciously silly premise is taken far too seriously and the emphasis is on too much dull chatter rather than giving the audience what they've paid to see.

For all the sweeping shots of modern attack helicopters whooshing over the heads of samurai on horseback, the movie never really offers anything more than cool but pointless images of new versus old. The meaty time travel paradoxes that play such a large part in setting up the central storyline are inexplicably dumped, as the heroic survivors from the future show no qualms about gunning down their primitive foes or in romping around the countryside in anachronistic vehicles.

There's a plucky kid, a reluctant hero and all the elements you'd expect from your average cheesy action blockbuster. At least the original had Sonny Chiba, king of all bad-asses and a ton of retro charm. Worst of all, this glossy new version never builds to any sort of crescendo. You hope for an epic climax with hordes of sword-wielding samurai pitted against bazookas and tanks, but it never comes. The expected showdown between modern warfare and ancient warriors is crudely cast aside in favour of a rather dull mano-e-mano duel between Matoba and his former protege.

Buy Samurai Commando from Amazon.co.uk

The original G.I. Samurai is also available on DVD here.