Feb 25 2009
B+ Movie Review: Six-String Samurai
Some movies start off looking like they are going to be normal and then twist into something strange and wonderful, like Fight Club. Some movies start off weird and then become something more approachable, like Moulin Rouge. Still others start off weird and just keep going with it.
It is in the third category I place the 1998 cult film, Six-String Samurai.
The film starts in a setting that is one part alternate history and one part allegory: In the fifties, the Russians bombed the United States leaving it a desolate, barren landscape full of warring gangs and the desicated husk of the American Dream. To the west lies the Kingdom of Elvis, and as the movie begins Elvis has left the building died. Hopefuls from all over the country converge on Vegas to be crowned the next King of Rock and Roll.
Enter Buddy, as in Holly (horned rimed glasses and all), who is said to be able to “kill over a hundred men and play a mean six string at the same time”. With katana and Les Paul in hand, he heads towards Vegas to make his bid, but along the way meets a orphaned kid who Buddy reluctantly takes into his protection. As he walks on towards his destiny, Buddy will face suburban zombies, rock star wannabes, the Red Army and even Death himself.
Once you’ve accepted that this isn’t the history they taught you in school, Six-String Samurai is fun movie. While I’m calling it Sci-Fi, it has elements of a martial arts film, a western, post-apocalyptic action and modern fantasy. The movie’s sword fights and bluesy guitar riffs are edged with comedy and thickly coated with symbols of an America that never really existed save on glossy magazine pages and black and white TV screens. The film uses rock and roll as a metaphor, representing what is best and fine in the culture of the US as well as what fuels the dreams of those who start off humble but hope to make something grand of themselves by the end of the story.
Six-String Samurai was made on a shoestring budget but that in no way hurts the movie. What does hurt the movie is that the fights get a little repetitive and that the strangeness of things like a guitar duel with Death threaten to alienate the less dedicated viewer. This movie looks at it’s subject matter like a kid with a pinhole camera watching an eclipse, a perspective that makes it interesting but at the same time obscures the film’s impact.
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being a biology class documentary on bees and 10 being a David Lynch film, Six-String Samurai falls at about 8.2 for weirdness. It’s not a film I’d recommend just for background noise, but more if you’re willing to let yourself get sucked in to a movie and also willing to hang with it when the allure wears thin for a scene or two. In my more usual ranking system, that means Six-String Samurai gets a B.
But I don’t expect this movie to care that it didn’t get my top honors. It’s just too cool for that.
