Samurai Cop is a terrible movie. It may not be quite as catastrophically awful as The Room, but as a Lethal Weapon ripoff about, yes, a samurai cop, it’s a strong contender.
Samurai Cop basically sank without trace until the mid-2000s, when it found new life as a so-bad-it’s-good cult movie. Now, the lead actors are back with a Kickstarter to launch Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance.
The sequel is aiming for a similar tone to the original, with actor Matt Hannon even miraculously retaining the same ‘90s haircut and ripped body that he had when Samurai Cop was filmed 25 years ago. He’ll be joined George Lazenby, several of his co-stars from Samurai Cop, and a host of B-movie actors with previous credits along the lines of Amateur Porn Star Killer and Mad Cowgirl.
One of the more bizarre aspects of the Samurai Cop mythos is that Matt Hannon came back from the dead. As he explains in an interview with Vice, the rumor that he had died first emerged when an actor with the same name passed away in 2012. Hannon, who at this point was aware of the cult following for Samurai Cop, was happy enough to let the rumor lie. That is, until fans started looking for the other actor’s family, and Hannon’s daughter persuaded him to come forward.
The Samurai Cop 2 Kickstarter is now $39,000 into a $50,000 campaign, with nine days left to go. In other words, this film is probably going to happen. The big question is whether it will live up to the original, since Hannon and the filmmakers are all very well aware of how bad Samurai Cop actually was.
Part of the appeal of this type of movie is its innocence. It’s obviously abysmal, but in a way that could only ever happen by accident. The sequel looks like it will be more along the lines of a tongue-in-cheek grindhouse movie, which isn’t really the same thing. Still, that’s the wonder of crowdfunding: If people want a 21st-century sequel to Samurai Cop, then a sequel they shall have.
Photo via Kickstarter