x97 GHOST WARRIOR (3/27/98)

MOVIE
One thing can be said for Ghost Warrior: running time, not that long at all. The story, such as it is, revolves around a samurai (maybe bushi is actually a better term) who is frozen in ice by falling off a cliff (don't ask me, I wasn't paying attention). Thawed out by Dirk McEvil and the corporation who controls supplies for blue pigmentation throughout the First World, the aforementioned "ghost warrior" is befriended by Kim Catrall, who plays against type as an Asian Studies major who actually doesn't know all that much Japanese. The predictable escape and "fish out of water" scenes rival parts: the clonus horror in their sheer banality and disregard for the audience. Befriended by Asian Wormy Guy #2 and Black Character Actor #3, Yoshi the samurai takes his war to the streets, and asks the musical question: "Did I fire six shuriken or only five?" Eventually Yoshi is killed, in an ending so clichéd, it defies description.

I've just been told that the shuriken is in fact a ninja weapon, not a samurai weapon. Bite me.

THE SACRED TEA CEREMONY
BryanL> Hey, Kev. How come the frame rate here's not as good as Bushido Blade.
andre> Why, this is a veritable Samurai Shodown. Wait, too easy.
KevinL> You know what they say about a samurai with a big topknot.
Ironf> 400 years ago a samurai fell into an ice cravass. Some explorers found him and thawed him out. Be has since become a awyer. These are the tales of the Unforzen Samurai Lawyer
andre> Why couldn't all the virtual pets get frozen for hundreds of years instead?
BryanL> They're living out Brannon Braga's "giant woman" fantasies.
andre> One of those doctors is actually Rowan Atkinson.
BryanL> Because, you know, bringing the dead back to life is always easiest on 400 year old frozen samurai with swords through them.
andre> Ah! Ben Murphy is turning invisible!
KevinL> This guy, after being stabbed and dead 400 years, has a steadier cardiac rhythm than I do.
andre> Sonny Chiba's brief Death metal period.
Ironf> We need a hot oil treatment STAT!
mgrasso> a guy with that figure should *not* wear a sundress
Bice> Diarhea is like a samari sword raging inside him.
Merlynn> Translation:Your my new Saturday night thing.
KevinL> No, I wanted a -Suzuki- Katana, 600cc, 0-60 in 2 seconds. Stupid bitch.
KevinL> Here, sake. And later, we'll go to a sushi bar, and the to an anime festival. It'll be just like you remember.
BryanL> Ah, yes. The game of Concentration.
Merlynn> She's reading his Tarot.
andre> Ah, the Prince of Swords.
cthulhu> No! There playing Magic The Gathering!
BryanL> She's trying to see if he's a Suppressive Person or not.
mgrasso> memory. the game for kids aged 6-unfrozen samurai
cthulhu> And now it time for Samuari Law Enforcment!
BryanL> Oh, man, he got bowel everywhere.
andre> I'll get the sawdust.
andre> ladies and gentlemen.. RATT!
Ironf> rockout unfrozen samurai warrior
KevinL> You know, as much as it would suck to be an unfrozen 400 year old samurai, being unfrozen in the middle of Winger's heyday would suck even worse.
mgrasso> meanwhile, veronica from archie comics stalks the streets
BryanL> You know, if he could only find a room with five candles in it, he could sit and be pissed off for the rest of the movie.
Bice> Hey, was that Ross Hagen?
BryanL> Oh, no! Scatman Crothers' game of Kick the Can has gone horribly wrong!
BryanL> The Streets of Fire gang is about to get samuraied.
BryanL> THis must be LA. Nobody else in the US had sushi bars in the 70's.
cthulhu> Ahhhhh! Saki Geniune Draft.
mgrasso> they kill the avuncular black guy
andre> Ok, I take back my earlier comment on liking this movie. At least temporarily.
mgrasso> it's 70 minutes of talking and 5 minutes of "fights"
BryanL> This is actually a pilot for a series. Him and her would travel from town to town, one step ahead of the law, helping people they came across and having wacky misunderstandings.
BryanL> Hey, it's a Nerdly guy!
mgrasso> or is that andy warhol in the uncrdited cameo appearance
andre> that wig isn't nearly glamorous enough.
Ironf> I now remember that they gave a cameo to the winner of the Steven Hawking look-a-like contest.
mgrasso> the california institute of the sciences: professor emeritus, ben murphy
KevinL> This world frightens and confuses me, what with your "television", your "automobile", your "cellular phone", your booty call". I just can't make sense of it.
andre> wow, this was an early screen appearance by the TAZER.
BryanL> Stunned? If you hadn't nailed him to the north pole, he'd be pushin' up the daisies!
* BillBear reels at combined Monty Python/Glory & Honor riff...
andre> 3M! Merging quality vans with big business. Working harder to provide you with blue office buildings.
BillBear> Yeah, no coronor ever notices things like needle entry points, collapsed veins, unexplained embolisms...
andre> This would never have happened if Detective Burger was on the job.
Merlynn> Except for the unknown plot,bad actors,and over all 80ness this isn't a bad movie.
BryanL> Gee, you don't think that maybe someone's drawing parallels between his previous life and this one?
BryanL> I bet there's gonna be a cliff and everything.
andre> bingo.
shred> I've seen school kids in Arkansas who are better shots than that!
mgrasso> he died as he lived: incomprehensible
BryanL> He died like he died. THe same way he died.
shred> And thus the Hideki Irabu era ends with a Yankee Stadium seppuku
BillBear> Next, we'll see him being hauled out of the lake in 1000 years along with King Arthur and Billy the Kid.
BryanL> So, did we actually learn anything?
Ironf> I learned that you can't go wrong with a movie about a unfrozen in today's time.

STUPID 80s HAIKUS
"Revenge is sweet, saith the Lord."
"Toshiro Mifune?" "I told you this place was hot..."
"Get that bastard!"
"I will be back soon."
"Looks like they're headed for the cliff!"
"Banzai!"

GET USED TO THIS GUY

Fun movie fact: This man, Sensei Soke Toshishiro Obata, was the samurai technical advisor on the set of Ghost Warrior, a.k.a. Swordkill. He's met and mingled with such Hollywood luminaries as Sylvester Stallone and Donatello Turtle. But it's reassuring to see that Sensei Obata is proudest of Ghost Warrior, the movie that dared to show the harsh and bitchy world of the modern samurai.