Six-String Samurai is an awesome combination of two of my favorite things: martial arts and post-apocalyptic stories. It takes place in a world where the US has been nuked and taken over by Russia, with the last free city being Las Vegas, Nevada, where Elvis ruled as king until his death. After his death, Buddy, a.k.a. the Six-String Samurai makes it his mission to travel to Vegas and become the new king.
Along the way Buddy unintentionally gains a child follower that he grows attached to after several unsuccessful attempts to dump him off on other groups they come into contact with. The kid barely has any lines throughout the movie, making the interactions between the two more entertaining, and manages to make himself useful on several occasions. It ends up coming across more like a cooperative AI companion, rather than an annoying escort mission.
The movie doesn’t take itself seriously at any point and delivers awesome one-liners throughout. My personal favorite (that I may or may not have used in a real-life conversation) comes after a bad guy tells Buddy “If I were you, I’d run,” to which Buddy replies, “If you were me, you’d be good looking,” with “Nice tuxedo. Nice tuxedo to die in!” coming in at a close second.
The action scenes are pretty great, with Jeffrey Falcon (Buddy) doing all of his own stunts. His form is a beautiful thing to behold and his classical good looks make me wish the rumored Six-String Samurai trilogy was real. There’s very little blood, despite several deaths, and the fight scenes are peppered with humor (think Kung Fu Hustle without the Looney Tunes influence). The final action scene is silly in an amazing, memorable way, at one point revolving around a battle of the bands style guitar fight between Buddy and Death.
If your post-apocalyptic desires haven’t been fulfilled since the days of Fallout 4, let Six-String Samurai whisk you off your feet for the next 1 hour, 31 minutes.
1h 31min | 1998
Director: Lance Mungia
Writers: Jeffrey Falcon, Lance Mungia
Links:
Review by
