American Samurai

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1992 American film

December 22, 1992 (1992-12-22) (Germany)
March 3, 1993 (1993-03-03) (United States)

November 3, 1993 (Japan)

Running time

94 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglish

American Samurai is a martial-arts action film directed by Sam Firstenberg and starring David Bradley and Mark Dacascos and produced by Cannon Films. Filmed in Turkey, it was released in the United States in 1992.^[1]

Premise

After a plane crash in the Japanese mountains, its only survivor—a baby named Andrew Collins—is adopted by Tatsuya Sanga, a samurai master. Andrew, along with the samurai's son, Kenjiro, are trained in the warrior’s way. Andrew excels in his training and soon surpasses his stepbrother’s skills. Kenjiro's jealousy pushes him to join the Yakuza, where he takes the Yakuza oath and forsakes the moral values of the samurai’s code. He leaves his father’s home, swearing to one day take revenge on his brother. Ten years later, Andrew works in L.A. as a journalist. He and a female photographer track down an opium-smuggling operation in Turkey. Soon, the drug dealers kidnapped the girl, forcing Andrew to enter a deadly weapons based martial-arts tournament ruled by illegal gamblers whose greatest champion is the lethal Kenjiro.

Cast

David Bradley as Andrew "Drew" Collins
- Mariano Edelman as Drew Collins As Teenager
- Euthymios Logothetis as Drew Collins As Baby
Mark Dacascos as Kenjiro Sanga
- Tal Akioshi Kitaoka as Kenjiro Sanga As Teenager
Valarie Trapp as Janet Ward
Rex Ryon as Ed Harrison
Melissa Hellman as Samantha
John Fujioka as Tatsuya Sanga
Douvi Cohen as Stephano
Rocky McDonald as Conan
Ron Vreeken as McKinney
Dion Lam as Hsing Yi / Lee
Antony Szeto as Phan-Xu
Melnik Dubroviko as Contestant
Kevin Villis as Contestant
Avi Mamn as Contestant
Vladimir Markov as Contestant
Mark Warren as Turk In Disco / Lars
Koby Azarly as Turk In Disco
Shalom Avitan as Turk In Disco
Baruch Berkin as Hotel Clerk
Arie Moscuna as Announcer
Michael Morim as Police Chief
Misha Gal as Body Guard
John Slater as Body Guard
Sigalit Shiry as Belly Dancer

Home media and alternate versions

The DVD is available in Region 1. However, it is based on the edited R-rated cut. This version has subtitles added to the days of the tournament (i.e. "Day 2", "Day 3", etc.) Additionally, many scenes of violence or injury are zoomed in on, poorly cropped, or deleted altogether to avoid explicit details. The unrated cut has different dialogue in some scenes, no subtitles, and all of the violence is onscreen and considerably more graphic. This version is not available in the United States but can be found in other regions. There is an uncut Belgian bootleg DVD and the British version has approximately one second of footage cut.^[2]