this one might be a little tricky because it only shows a run time of 94 minutes and no other version so I'm not sure if that is the uncut version or if there is a shorter or longer version, in any case I've personally seen 2 versions of this movie, one is a great underground hostel type battle to the death gory hack and slash movie and the other is so watered down that it becomes a cheesy Bloodsport clone with death battles in it but with barely any blood and no gore, this movie is a perfect example of what some good old fashioned latex gore effects can do to increase the overall value of the film, it's a movie that could very easily been done as a PG-13 and yet, they knew what they had was a sub product that was limited by it's budget from the opening bell so they invested well where it could distinguish itself from all those American Ninja Crap movies, don't even get me started on those, to this day I've never understood why there was so many sequels of American Ninja, those and the Madea (A Big Dude In Drag) movies are a real head scratch-er, they were all bad and just got keep getting worse, anyways back to American Samurai uncut, it had really good fight scenes, the acting was good enough for what this is, and the Gore was superb, it's not the kind of Gore that you wouldn't normally see in a rated R movie back then, it's more of the Hard R variety or Unrated equivalent back in 1992 so I can see why there is a cut version of the movie but that version royally sucks, the uncut is really good, you'll know right off the bat what version you are watching with the graphic extraction of a bullet near the beginning, do yourself a favor and watch this gory little gem, it's what Mortal Kombat should be gore wise

I remember watching this movie when it first came out many years ago on video and loved it, basically elimination tournament with weapons. Bloodsport essentially. You have the Samurai character badly and uncomfortably played by David Bradley. I say badly because he is so uptight the entire movie. Maybe he was worried about Mark Dacascos upstaging him, should be he does. Anyways this is more a message about the region 2 DVD, please don't buy it. It is cut to the point of being a PG. Sincerely this movie is poleaxed by the censors. If you want to watch Mark Dacascos in his element acting superbly please watch this otherwise find the uncut version.

I remember this film as a kid because it used to come on the TV station USA about 6 times a year from around 94 to 98. Thought about it recently for some random reason and bought a copy pretty cheap online.American Samurai came out sort of at the tail end of the martial arts arena fighter craze and in my opinion and fallows the usual story line where a martial artist's (insert wife, brother, mother, sister, child, teacher, student, pet dog, pet fish) is seriously injured or killed by some scary psychopathic guy who also is a martial artist either in the ring or out, enters arena combat and then gets revenge. But there's a few twists.This time however, Doug Bradley is going after a sword stolen by Mark Dacascos' thugs who happens to be the son of his guardian who trained them both to be samurai. The first 30 minutes of the film is the usual bull crap with terrible and seemingly pointless dialogue and is fallowed up on by some really good action sequences. This movie is a lot different than your average arena fighter. The combatants employ the use of blades and the body count is much much higher and it's much darker in my opinion than other movies in the genre like Mortal Kombat and Kickboxer.On paper it sounds pretty awesome but it's marred by the use of hokey arena fighters (one is dressed up like Conan the Barbarian for example) and bad editing. There was one scene of monologue in the film that featured a combatant that had just been killed 30 seconds earlier. The acting is bad, but it's better than the likes of Bloodsport (im not dissing Bloodsport, just making a valid statement).The best parts of the film in my personal opinion are Mark Dacascos and the ending itself. Mark does overact, but gives a fine performance for his first film and the ending resolves on a bittersweet and abrupt note that left a lot of loose ends for a sequel that to my knowledge was never made.After growing up and seeing this movie again I have to say that I still like it. But it's very flawed due to bad directing/ editing and it's definitely dated now. It's worth seeing and I think that a good director could remake this film right and come up with a good product.

Having all but exhausted the exploitation of ninjas, what was Cannon to do? Right - exploit samurais instead! As well as recycle elements from their past hit BLOODSPORT, including a big burly guy with a beard as one of the contestants! It's clear the movie was cut for an "R" rating, given how some wounds and killings are not shown as clearly as you would think, but the editing also shows signs of production problems. One lengthy scene seems to have been cut in half, with the subsequent half played much later in the movie. There is also awkward narration and a very long sex scene where you never see the faces of the lovers, furthering the suspicion of frantic efforts to patch together the movie. The production values are pretty good, and Firstenberg does deliver the goods with the fight sequences, which are expertly choreographed. He doesn't do well with the actors however, having Dacascos overact at times and Bradley giving yet another uncharismatic performance.