Samurai Shodown

I often tend to find that movies such as this made after games are pretty bad. The story lines are usually completely off the game story and somehow all of the characters seem to know each other and are all friends. Now this idea is easier to swallow in a show, but when its based on a fighting game where everyone essentially kicks the crap out of each other, its a little more difficult to accept. That point aside, I have been waiting for Samurai Shodown (Samurai Spirits) to come online for a long time. It is one of those films that I always saw in a movie rental store but never managed to rent. Subsequently, I have been looking for a copy online for years with the English dubbing. To my surprise a copy went up a couple of days ago so I decided now was the time to watch. I was expecting this movie to be a complete waste of time, as the reviews were not the greatest. I was surprised that this wasn't as bad as I had expected. The movie as a whole was not great, but it was still done well.

I have grown up on the Samurai Shodown games so it was a nice change to see some of the characters together in a film. The story is loosely based on the game. For the most part, the story that was put together was not horrible. I really only have two gripes with this film: 1) the "good" characters somehow all managed to be friends out of nowhere (relative to the game), 2) the dubbing for Haohmaru made him sound like an idiot. Every 2 seconds he would laugh like some cheesy hero in an old film. The animation and music was not too bad in this film. If you have seen Battle Arena Toshinden or the Tekken Motion Picture this film is right in line with them in terms of character design and music. I don't know if I would recommend this film to everyone, but anyone who has played (and enjoyed) the first Samurai Shodown  game on SNES, Arcade, Genesis, or NeoGeo should have a look at this movie.