# Six-String Samurai (1998)

### reviewed by
Richard Scheib

    SIX-STRING SAMURAI

USA. 1998. Director - Lance Mungia, Screenplay - Mungia & Jeffrey Falcon, Producers - Michael Burns & Leanna Creel, Photography - Kristian Bernier, Music - Brian Tyler, Songs -The Red Elvises, Visual Effects - Jason Dunn, Production Design - Falcon. Production Company - HSX Films. Jeffrey Falcon (Buddy), Justin McGuire (The Kid), Stephane Gauger (Death), Lex Lang (Voice of Death), John Sakisian (Russian General)

Plot: In 1957 the USA was devastated by a Russian nuclear strike. In Lost Vegas, Elvis was proclaimed the king. But now with the death of Elvis, the guitar and samurai-sword wielding Buddy seeks to become the new king. Reluctantly allowing himself to be accompanied by an orphan child that he saves, Buddy makes his way across the post-apocalyptic Nevada Desert, fighting off crazies, while pursued by Death who wants to usurp rock'n'roll with heavy metal.

It is not long into 'Six-String Samurai' when you wonder what on Earth it is you have sat down to watch. The opening moments feature a samurai sword-waving Buddy Holly lookalike (in the midst of what the opening credits tell us is a post-holocaust alternate world) despatching Neanderthal mutants and trio of bowlers who hide blades inside their bowling pins, while a group of mariachi Elvis-impersonators play on from the sideline. Subsequent encounters include brushes with a strange cannibal family and a Spinach Monster which, in what appears to be an attempt to parody bad sf movies, is represented by an eye on a corrugated pipe, with the rock'n'roll samurai hero all the while being pursued by a heavy metal-playing Death.

It rapidly becomes apparent that 'Six-String Samurai' is an offbeat indie experiment in cinematic textural meldings. It reads as a conflation of rock'n'roll mythology crossbred with Japanese samurai films, a parody of the whole 'Mad Max' post-holocaust genre and an attempt to be a bad sf movie. And it all gets pretty silly - the scenes with the moronic mutants conducting a 'Mad Max' style chase at about five miles per hour is quite inane.

But oddly enough all the silliness eventually develops a certain panache of sorts. Director Mungia manages all the action poses with a reasonable degree of style - the film and its low-budget chutzpah ends up reminding one to a lesser extent of Robert Rodriguez and what he set out to do in his 1993 debut 'El Mariachi'. Mungia's stroke of luck is his lead actor (also his co-writer and production designer) Jeffrey Falcon. Besides bearing an uncanny resemblance to Buddy Holly, Falcon pulls off the potentially absurd image of a bespectacled, bedraggled sword-wielding Buddy Holly with thorough conviction. Falcon also delivers the cod rock'n'roll dialogue with a wonderfully thin-lipped mealy pout and proves surprisingly lithe when it comes to all the fight poses. Ultimately the film proves an oddity that leaves one scratching their head in puzzlement, but not an unenjoyable one.

    Copyright Richard Scheib 1998

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