I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A Brilliant Conflict

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The comical tale of a wandering warrior in the post-apocalyptic world of Nevada. While not an extremely deep film the rock and roll falls nicely in place with the martial arts making a surprisingly good action comedy. A lot of influence from Akira Kurosawa and Chinese action which surprised me the first time I saw this American film. The acting is fresh and fits nicely with the overall tone. Altogether Six-String Samurai accomplishes more than the average action and sticks out among the throng of post-apocalyptic movies. It has some beautiful images too. Six-String Samurai is worth watching for anybody looking for a fresh comical approach to Chinese/Japanese style martial arts.

A post-apocalyptic, spaghetti western, rock-n-roll Samurai film? Yep. That pretty much sums up SIX STRING SAMURAI. It's quirky. It's B-movie all the way. It's wonderful.What we have here is a film shot on weekends on a minuscule budget in and around Death Valley, California. It also pays homage to many films; every Clint Eastwood spaghetti western ever made, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Night of the Living Dead and, of course, The Wizard of Oz, just to name a few.The movie was dubbed giving it a hokey spaghetti western feel that matched the production values perfectly (very low). "The Kid" in the film was a complete carbon-copy of the mangy little guy that follows Mel Gibson around in Beyond Thunderdome. There's a family of cannibals and "The Windmillers" who represent the slow brain functions from Night of the Living Dead. And then there are the multiple references to The Wizard of Oz ("Just follow the yellow brick road").The story's focus is on Buddy (Jeffrey Falcon), a six string carrying, Samurai sword wielding bad ass who wants to be the new "King" of "Lost Vegas." But first he has to get there. Traveling across the desert wasteland of the post-apocalyptic world, Buddy (who looks remarkably like Buddy Holly) has to slash, punch, and scratch his way toward The Emerald City (another Wizard of Oz reference that we see, Lost Vegas looking very much like the gateway to Oz's hometown). Along the way Buddy picks up "The Kid", a young boy who's mother was killed by humans resembling troglodytes. The Kid doesn't speak (initially) and only screams/moans whenever he wants Buddy's attention. But The Kid is good with mechanical objects (cars, motorcycles, bicycles) and the two form a grudging relationship as they travel together. The only issue between them is Buddy's priceless guitar which he nurtures more than The Kid ...in the beginning. But Buddy can play his six string as potently as he can don his sword, giving him a good shot at becoming the King of Lost Vegas.On Buddy and The Kids' tail, however, is Death (represented as the four horseman of the apocalypse ...but without their horses). Death wants to be/remain the King and kills anyone who gets in his way, leaving a lot of rock-n-roll wannabes as corpses. And in front of Buddy and The Kid is the Russian Army (Oh! Did I forget to mention that the USSR took over the U.S. after it nuked us in 1957?) After much bloodletting, Death and Buddy have their day on the sand. First comes a guitar duel (Death wields a wickedly good six string himself!), then the sword. But what will happen if Buddy wins? Can he be a true father-figure to The Kid? And what would happen to The Kid if Buddy died? Would Death take the little tike, too? There are A LOT of well choreographed fight sequences (perhaps one or two too many). The camera work was done with an eye toward professionalism, never being herky-jerky or under -over exposed. The acting was okay. And the story was so ridiculous that suspending disbelief was quite fun. The dialogue often set the tone for the entire production, giving us some great bits like...Death: "You have failed me for the last...hey, nice shoes." Then we watch Death kill the men wearing the shoes and walk away with new footwear.The musical score is also pulled off well. The Red Elvises leant their music and themselves for the production (they are the ones with the nice shoes mentioned above). Their musical numbers reminded me very much of The Stray Cats (a band I liked).If you don't mind low production standards but enjoy spoofs with a good, if somewhat ridiculous, script, then slip this little B-flick into your DVD player and bask in its foolishness. You won't be disappointed.

I really can not believe that no one has drawn the "Wizard of Oz" reference here. "Follow the yellow brick road, homey." ??? A journey from what some might refer to as "Kansas" to Lost Vegas? Did anyone actually see this film? Or, should i ask, has anyone watched an American movie in the last century? The last scene alone was a reference to anyone who couldn't catch it- the kid (as an wannabe adult Buddy) carrying his guitar down a path reminiscent of the yellow brick road, to a look-a-like emerald city. I would also like to add that the "city" was also an obvious back drop, such as used by the big Hollywood studios of that era. One of the more blatant movie rip-offs since Quentin Tarentino appeared in the cinema scene, it is still plagiarized in a fresh and enthusiastically new perspective. Isn't that what cinema is, nowadays? Overall, if you like kung-fu flicks, surfabilly, and a wistfully innocent by-gotten era, do it up! This movie just might be what you haven't been waiting for.

***Warning: Contains mild spoilers***Well, what can you say about this picture? Does it have good acting? Certainly not. Does it have a good story? No. Is it watchable? Strangely, it is (once anyways).The micro-formula for the movie can be reduced to this: Hero finds kid and tries to get rid of him. Kid is thereby brought into a position where he will be in danger from random weirdly dressed group. Kid screams. Hero returns and dispatches group with repeated (and repetitive) sword action. Hero wants to leave. Kid screams. Kid finds some random form of transportation, fixes it and is taken along by hero. Cut to 'Death' group, that chases our hero, killing some random guy.Rinse. Repeat. (Ad nauseam)So why did I not turn it off after the third or fourth repetition? Simply because I wanted to find out what weirdly dressed up group would enter next.The music is strange. Swordfighting to boogie or polka feels...weird. The music used in Quentin Tarantino flicks for similar scenes is 'fitting' by comparison. The dialog (what little there mercifully is of it) isn't worth listening to. Some of it even doesn't make sense given the 'history' they had set up in the opening credits. The kid, thank god, only screams and doesn't talk too much else.Not to spoil the climax or anything, but did anybody else think the resolution to the final fight was bizarre? At that point I might have suspected that the movie was supposed to be a spoof - if it had been funny at any other time prior to that.So I'll give it a 4/10. You can rent and watch it once. The movie will probably be -barely- worth the fee for you.