Shira: The Vampire Samurai (2005 Video) User Reviews

Over the hill playboy model plays vampire/samurai chick

[JoeB131 · 3/10 · 25 December 2007]

Badly edited, badly acted, and a plot that made little sense, and they resurrected Adrian Zmed of TJ Hooker fame as a Vampire. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, quite a lot, actually.

Shira is a Samurai babe from 16th century Japan who gets turned into a vampire, but commits seppuku before the transformation is complete. That allows them to train her to be a vampire huntress. The action keeps switching back and forth from 16th century Japan to 21st century LA.

Now don't get me wrong, the lead actress, Chona Jason, looks pretty good for a woman in her forties. Except when they do close ups of her face, that is. She gathers a bad of barely competent vampire hunters to do the exposition for her and keep her mangled lines of dialog to a minimum. (Chona, honey, when you make the transition from Playboy Model to actress, it usually helps to take acting lessons).

Intersplice some badly choreographed fight scenes, gratuitous nude scenes with a beefcake with even less acting ability. "Why can't we be together?" "I wouldn't want to put you through hell." HEY, try watching this movie, that's hell!)

The idea is that Adrien wants to impregnate Shira so he can give birth to a race of "Daywalkers" to help vampires take over the world. This ends in a final scene where the last of the inept vampire hunters and vampires wipe each other out, and Shira survives to fret about the possibility of being the only one stuck in the sequel.

An embarrassing bore

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 13 April 2017]

SHIRA: THE VAMPIRE SAMURAI is a no budget action movie shot in a wooded location. It looks like the director and his mates got hold of some plastic props and a suit of samurai armour and decided to shoot a movie with it, making up the story and dialogue as they went along. The film is chock full of low rent and disappointing action sequences centred around the film's protagonist, a half-vampire woman with cool contact lenses. There's very little to say about this silly production other than that it's an embarrassing bore.

Makes Full Moon look like Dimension

[daniel-mannouch · 3/10 · 6 December 2018]

Not to say i was expecting much from the man who brought us Zombie Gang Bangers, but Vampire Shadows is the very definition of a poor man's Underworld with some chop socky thrown in just for the lols.

Vampire Shadows is an atypical Los Angeles low budget exploitation film at it displays a technical competency with robotic amateur performances from those who simply cannot wait to get that paycheck in their hands.

This is film looks ok for being shot on digital video, but the lighting and composition is rudimentary and only serves to tell the threadbare plot and not add style to the proceedings which was sorely in need of it.

Vampire Shadows has fight scenes that are elaborate, but does not go beyond a direct to video Seagal film. The gore is non existent as is the atmosphere and the whole thing just feels very cheap.

The storytelling is pedestrian. It's just lot of clowns in an empty warehouse or nightclub talking some half assed vampire lore. It's boring! What the hell was the mid 2000's? Leatherwave? Matrixpunk? Damned if i know. This was the weird transitional period when Hollywood abandoned star vehicles for mythology before settling with mining nostalgia and everyone just followed suit. This is some weak ass low-fi action filmmaking right here. Godfrey Ho would be ashamed. Shame on you! Lame ass vampire film. Shame on you!

Vampire Shadows is mediocre shot on video action horror that only adds more evidence to the theory that nostalgia will truly end with the 90's. This is a meandering Underworld cash in that does the impossible in making you appreciate Underworld for what it was. Legit D grade garbage.

Worst. Movie. Ever.

[obloco · 1/10 · 20 April 2008]

I love bad movies. You know the phrase "so bad it's good", well in this case it isn't. It is just plain bad.

I couldn't finish watching it bad.

I didn't have any clue that the Japanese scenes were supposed to be 16th century until I read it elsewhere. The casting is terrible. The costumes suck. The "effects" are horrid, worst fake blood I've seen in quite some time. The acting is bad, but not bad enough to have camp value. Worst fight choreography I've seen anywhere. No continuity between many of the scenes, they just jump to what they want to show next without any tie-in to plot or previous action. Even the T&A, which would have been this flicks only redeeming virtue, was done poorly.

Worst. Movie. Ever.

I think this would be a fine candidate for the 100 worst movies, except it will probably never get enough votes to make the list - which is a good thing, because it will mean many folks never saw it and were spared intense suffering.

the loco

Toothless.

[noisecandy · 1/10 · 1 July 2012]

Unbelievably bad acting almost makes this abysmal film amusing. However the pathetic storyline,cretinous direction, horrible amateur cinematography and a female lead that needs to go back to working in a call centre manage to stifle the laughs in favour of groans. Why is there some idiot from TJ HOOKER in this? Surely he cant be that broke. Even a deranged dwarf wearing flip-flops who gropes everything he can get his hands on cannot save this. The fangs are joke-shop hilarious. Plastic swords, fake sneers and ridiculously moody glares abound. The dreadful soundtrack compounds the misery of watching this. If it's tits and raspberry sauce you want, this is the film for you. Dire, droll and dismal. "Shira, we need you to serve humanity one last time " - indeed we do, kill the director for us. THIS IS AWFUL - DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME WATCHING IT.

A special kind of bad

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 1 January 2013]

Feisty half-human, half-vampire samurai warrior Shira (woodenly played by tasty brunette knockout Chona Jason) must stop evil vampire warlord Kristof (an outrageously hammy portrayal by Adrian Zmed) from populating the world with a new breed of bloodsuckers who can exist in the daytime. Boy, does this uproariously awful clunker strike out something rotten in every possible way: Jeff Centauri's clumsy (mis)direction, the cruddy CGI effects, William Joseph Hill's shamelessly derivative script (the central premise blatantly copies "Blade"!), the ineptly staged fight scenes, several ham-fisted attempts at pathos (poor Shira can't fully commit herself to her human lover -- boo hoo!), the tacky gore, the crude cinematography, the lousy make-up (the vampires look like they're wearing plastic fangs that were purchased at the local dollar store!), Hal Oppenheimer's overbearing thunderous score, and, most of all, the terrible acting from the lame no-name cast -- Lamar Knight easily cops the top thespic dishonors with his supremely irritating performance as obnoxious wisecracking hipster Fingers ("Believe that!") -- all ensure that this hopelessly horrible stinker delivers a wealth of gut-busting unintentional belly laughs. As a nice added bonus, the buxom Mrs. Jason bares her beautifully bountiful breasts a few times. An absolute schlocky hoot.

Stupid but fun...

[The_Flashing_Blade · 6/10 · 13 August 2006]

In order to fully appreciate the greatness of a movie like Shira you need a kind of cinematic masochism. The kind of thing where something really really bad somehow becomes something wonderful. Luckily, my friends and I are exactly those types of masochists. If you are also a member of this somewhat dubious breed then you will love Shira. There is just so much to choose from; the (apparently ex-porno) cast, the thoroughly incoherent script, the made up pseudo Japanese words and fight choreography that must have Bruce Lee spinning elegantly in his grave.

I would summarise the plot but I am unconvinced that there really is one. Suffice to say that it is a little from column Blade, a little from column Buffy and a little from column Highlander. If you find yourself beginning to prefer $50,000 straight to video shlockfests to $500 million A- list epics then you should run out to your local movie store and get yourself a copy of Shira. Seriously, you will be glad you did.