Who Wants Some Funky 70's Martial Arts Justice?

What do you get when Blaxploitation meets Bruceplotation meets a secret agent movie? You get Black Samurai: Agent for Dragon; this month’s Guilty Pleasure review! While at a comic con last fall, Jonny Prophet and I were buying various cult classic films from a vendor. With the “buy 3 get 1 free” deal, we settled on this little gem as the bonus pick… and what a great pick it was! 

Right off the bat I have to explain that Bruceploitation is a loose term applied to films released after the death of martial arts legend Bruce Lee that are made to cash in off of his legacy. These movies, often very low budget and quality, may use old footage of Bruce Lee, have Bruce Lee look-a-likes, feature his image on the box or just use the word ‘dragon’ somewhere in the title. Essentially anything that can connect the legend of Bruce Lee to the project, even in the minutest way. And just in case you’re a jive turkey, Blaxploitation films were a movie genre in the 1970’s featuring African-American heroes and often a white man as the villain. These movies also tended to be really low budget and pretty campy, but really have their own hilarious charm to them.

                                                      Real men use katanas to trim their afros.

This brings us to Jim Kelly, the star of Black Samurai. You might remember him from Bruce Lee’s final and most successful film Enter the Dragon. (Jim Kelly was the black martial artist with the afro in case you are completely in the dark.) Being an accomplished martial artist in his own right, Jim Kelly built a movie career in the 1970’s from that role, mostly in the Blaxploitation genre. The reason I say Black Samurai has a level of Bruceploitation is because of the “Agent for Dragon” part, which I suspect was added to try to cash in off the Bruce Lee thing as it really has little to do with the story. (It’s actually an acronym for Defense Reserve Agency Guardian Of Nations… which really sounds like they were stretching to fill out the word dragon.) To be fair, out of everyone to take advantage of Bruce Lee’s legacy, I will say Jim Kelly has a pretty decent claim since he was a big part of Enter the Dragon. The only one who I think has more of a claim would be Chuck Norris, but he really went his own way of making more explosive American action films but with a martial arts twist.  But I am getting off subject.   

          After breaking his opponent's arms, Jim Kelly was always nice enough to provide the card of a good surgeon.

So what makes Black Samurai so awesome? First off I must again address our hero Robert Sand, played by Jim Kelly in all his smooth, funky bad ass Seventies style complete with his trademark afro. If you ain’t down with that, you must be some kinda sucka!

                                     Scientific Fact: Cat fights between two foxy ladies can only improve a movie.

Second, the plot is insane! How insane? The daughter of an ambassador is kidnapped and help ransom for top secret information toward building a new weapon called a “freeze bomb.” However the kidnapped victim just happens to be the girlfriend of Robert Sand, sending the secret agent on a mission to rescue her and defeat the evil organization that is holding her… an evil organization run by a white guy who calls himself a ‘Warlock’ and practices voodoo black magic rituals.

                                                            This poor guy just forgot a line. May he rest in peace.

Still not sold? The third reason is that the movie has midgets! That’s right, the evil organization has employed several dwarves to battle Robert Sand. Jim Kelly has to use his martial art skills to fight evil midgets! You should be going on Amazon right now to get a copy.

    Little known fact: Jim Kelly never used pick up lines. He just stared determinedly at the woman until she left with him.

I do want to share one of my favorite scenes to convey just how insanely hilariously awesome this movie is. So Jim Kelly is driving his pimp ass purple convertible and calls HQ, telling them to prepare his boat. He shows up at the dock, opens his trunk and removes a jetpack. He gets onto the boat, puts on the jetpack and flies away. Now the immediate question is “Why did he need the boat?” But wait, it gets better. As he is flying around for what seems like twenty minutes, it cuts back and forth between close ups of Jim Kelly controlling the jetpack and shots of a someone who is totally not a white guy flying with the jetpack. So eventually Jim Kelly lands in a wooded area where he has to fight a midget with a whip and two African tribal warriors that look more like rejects from an old Jonny Quest carton. Don’t worry, my telling you this part won’t spoil the movie or anything. This scene has little to nothing to do with the plot! (I’m not even kidding!)

                                                         This guy was also Cousin Itt and Twiki from Buck Rogers!

If you want a movie to just riff to pieces MST3K style and have a good laugh, or are a fan of Blaxploitation flicks like Superfly, Dolomite, or the absolutely brilliant Black Dynamite, I highly recommend checking out Black Samurai. On the Guilty Pleasure scale of 0 to 4, I give Black Samurai: Agent for Dragon the full 4 out of 4 afros.