A
tremendous surprises this one it turns out to be great despite having a title
and a premise that screams B Movie cheese all over.
Filmed in
Japan in 2005 it tells of a doomed experiment with EMP and solar flares for
military purposes which accidentally sends an entire armoured division,
complete with planes, helicopters and tanks to 1549 where they end up talking
on Feudal warlords and their hordes of Samurai Warriors. A single Samurai comes back through the wormhole
to the present day. We last see them in
pitched battle, ancient V modern hardware, with indications that the modern
forces are not doing as well as they would like. One slight amusement for Star
Wars fans one Samurai warrior is called Yoda.
The Samurai
costumes and settings look stunning. Someone actually threw a budget into
Two years
on from the tragedy, a rescue mission is finally prepared, and not before time,
as a black hole has appeared in Japan swallowing everything and everyone up
slowly where the time meddlers in the past are changing history.
There is a
puzzle for the rescue team the previous commando division would know that the
vortex would open a portal to allow them to come home any time but no one had
returned.
The
rescuers travel back and face a variation of the problem faced by the preceding
army this time though, the Samurai are using elements of modern camouflage,
and some modern day troops are helping them. With half of their force decimated,
the survivors surrender to secure negotiation rights. They quickly discover
that the commander of the first expedition has been busy making use of modern
technology to set himself in good stead with a powerful warlord he has turned
their temple into a vast oil refinery and he is priming a makeshift nuclear bomb
ready to blast Mount Fuji off the map as a demonstration of his power. He is
clearly barking mad in a Captain Kurtz of Apocalypse Now kind of way, and the
heroes realise he must be killed rather than rescued.
The real
star is the Samurai Warlord, who finally comes to his senses after being taken
in by the original military division. In the long silence, wondering if the
armies have clashed, he looks at his wristwatch to check the time. Later, when
someone tries to assassinate him, a flack jacket concealed under his robes
saves him.
Gaining
allies among the Samurai, the heroes fight back, and the destruction of the
temple-refinery is extremely well staged.
The heroes are of course victorious, and the handful of survivors now
goes home through the vortex. If there is a weakness it is the non-surprise
ending you half expect the future to have changed but they arrive home to
find everything is all right for a heroes welcome. A terrific understated little gem of a film that might easily be missed
by anyone assuming it to be nonsense.
Arthur Chappell
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