Review: Based on a book by Ryo Hanmura (and recently remade as SENGOKU JIETAI 1549) G.I. SAMURAI is the unlikely time-travelling story of a group of soldiers who find themselves thrown back in time by four hundred years. G. I. SAMURAI takes this bizarre time-travel idea and totally goes to town with it. If the central idea of the film sounds lame to you and you‘re not a fan of inventive but also fairly ludicrous action stories - then stay away. If, on the other hand, you like the idea of a war film that is so wildly off-beat that it bypasses being bad and instead comes close to genius, then give this a look - it’s pretty mad. In a good way.

G.I. SAMURAI’s plot is secondary to it’s central concept and luckily little time is spent trying to explain how this, frankly unexplainable, situation has occurred - with the exception of the desperate conclusions made by the men themselves. Director Kosei Saito displays little interest in explaining how and why this has happened and ploughs into the story with confidence so that only fifteen minutes in the ‘how and why‘ doesn’t really matter. G.I. SAMURAI delights in exploring the comparisons between two societies which in reality should be separated by four hundred years, and there’s certainly a lot of fun to be had in its unique action scenes.

Heading the modern day army is Lieutenant Iba, played by Sonny Chiba who is - as usual - excellent. Chiba’s performance helps to quickly warm us to Iba and his men, and considering the large size of the group they manage to establish themselves as individuals quite well. There is the exception of a handful of the men in the group, a few who don‘t manage to establish an individual identity - but then when the action kicks off they‘re also the first to be wiped out. The group of soldiers manage to adapt to their new found situation in different ways, some make initially themselves comfortable while others desperately just want to get home. Thanks to a good script and convincing performances from everyone involved, the film slowly builds it’s momentum and confidently moves us into fairly uncomfortable territory in its second half when it forces us to reflect on some of the moral implications of the actions of the soldiers. Lieutenant Iba is not your straightforward hero - his motivations are simultaneously admirable and despicable, but then neither is he exactly an anti-hero. He is revealed as a complex man driven by his own ambitions, but who displays an increasingly ambiguous moral ground. Iba proves to be an interesting character for Chiba to get his acting teeth into, with a decent attempt to create a lead with some depth, which is refreshing for a film that is primarily appealing for its action. And there’s loads of action.

Chiba’s stunt team are on top form with G.I. SAMURAI, managing to make the most of the mix of guns, swords, horses, tanks and any number of modern and historical tools on hand. The stunt-work ranges from large battle scenes to smaller but nonetheless impressive moments: picture Chiba swinging from beneath a helicopter firing a machine gun in an attempt to hit his enemies who are in the middle of the ocean on a boat. It’s fantastic stuff.

G.I. SAMURAI has a cheesy seventies soundtrack which is at times pushed to the forefront for several music montages. Sometimes the ‘musical montage’ can be a lazy tool to show the passing of time and can slow the pacing of a film, but in G.I. SAMURAI they’re used well and create the sense that the men have been stuck in this alien time period for a long while. Just don’t expect to enjoy the songs themselves a whole lot, they pretty bad. Another effective technique the film utilises to give some depth to the members of the large cast is in switching between time-periods - there’s some sudden cuts when scenes from the modern-day time period (which illustrate the men’s absence from their normal lives) are juxtaposed against their lives in feudal Japan.

G.I. SAMURAI is a highly entertaining film that is both accessible for new-comers to Sonny Chiba’s work, and a must-see for fans. Its two hours and twenty minutes running time fly by with barely a dull moment - although the musical soundtrack may have you reaching for the volume button on occasion. The film has its share of laughable moments - some of them intentional and a few of them not - but it still proves to be a fairly fulfilling action film with some really quite inspired imagery. Simply put, in placing modern day soldiers both against and alongside various Samurai and their own armies, G.I. SAMURAI has its moments of pure cinematic brilliance.