According to director Ryuhei Kitamura, he first met Tak Sakaguchi after witnessing him beat some guy up in a street fight. Since Kitamura didn’t really know any real actors at the time, he offered Sakaguchi a role in Versus—the frenetically-paced action film that would launch both their careers as well as the career of his co-star, Hideo Sakaki. Given his humble beginnings, the idea that less than decade later Sakaguchi would be directing veteran actors like Akaji Maro and Shun Sugata in his own movie is frankly hard to believe. Even so, the final product of his directorial debut: Samurai School, ended up being both absurdly funny and oddly charming.

Based on an Akira Miyashita manga serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1985-1991, the story of Samurai School revolves around events at an ultra strict high school called Otokojuku where young juvenile delinquents are molded into tough, manly men using ancient samurai training tactics. 

In contrast to most of the students at Otokojuku, pompadoured first-year student Hidemaro Gokukoji (Hiroyuki Onoue) has no interest in proving his manliness, and is only there due to pressure from his mother who desperately wants to preserve their family’s elite samurai lineage. However, first-year student leader Momotaro Tsurugi (Sakaguchi) offers him both quiet wisdom and protection right from the start, allowing him to fit in without getting killed by upperclassmen or their short-tempered, club-wielding drillmaster/math teacher Onihige (Shun Sugata).

Hidemaro also quickly befriends an ugly brute in their class named Genji Togashi (Show-a), who steals much of the comic glory in the film—acting like some sort of jacked up Street Fighter II reject one minute and the next minute getting his surprisingly fragile heart ripped out of his chest by a cute school girl named Erika (Kaoru Hirata).  When Hidemaro secretly sneaks Genji an answer in math class (2x2=4), Genji repays him by taking the blame for a pair of bunny rabbit underwear Hidemaro was hiding in his locker in place of his requisite loincloth and subsequently gets boiled in oil as punishment. Hidemaro feels so guilty about the incident that he runs away from school with the help of Momotaro, but eventually returns after a lecture from his mom and an inspirational street performance by Tsuji Ayano whose inclusion rendered me completely biased ♥.

As a result of his insubordination and Momotaro’s help they’re both punished, but end up earning the respect of drillmaster Onihige for enduring their sentence. Soon the school is attacked by students from rival school Kanto Gogakuren, led by disgraced former Otokojuku student Omito Date (Hideo Sakaki). Before his army is able to take over the school, however, Otokojuku’s sonic-voiced principal Heihachi Edajima (Akaji Maro) suggests each side choose 3 representatives to face off in an “amazing triple-death battle”. I won’t get into the details here, but suffice it to say there’s a whole lot of fighting left—some purposely silly, some actually pretty cool. Fanboys (of which I am admittedly one) should appreciate the extended fight scene between Sakaguchi and Sakaki; picking up where they left off in Versus and, to a lesser extent, Alive.

The general obsession with grit and the over-the-top lengths students will go to prove their machismo at the risk of death is a source of much, if not most of this film’s humor. In other words, don’t expect a constant stream of individual gags and clever dialogue à la Cromartie High. This one is more of a straight spoof, mixing aspects of manga-style samurai with delinquent high school brawler clichés and WWII-era Japanese nationalism—all to exaggerated levels.

The cinematography of Shinichi Fujita (Death Trance) is particularly impressive throughout; although his love of production still-worthy close-up shots does tend to get a little claustrophobic in some action scenes. All things considered it’s a fairly minor criticism of what ended up being a really well-shot movie that makes everyone in it look really good.

The rap on Tak Sakaguchi has always been that he’s kind of dense, enigmatic, and doesn’t put forth much effort as an actor unless he has a starring role. Well I guess all he needed was a little more responsibility heaped on his shoulders, because if this film is any indication of things to come, he may have found his calling as a director. The man may not be capable of emoting, but he sure makes a mean absurd comedy.

Related Entries:

Tags: akaji maro, hideo sakaki, hiroyuki onoue, samurai school, shigeru chiba, shintaro yamada, shonen manga, show a, shun sugata, tak sakaguchi, taketarino yamaguchi, tsuji ayano, yoshiaki yoza