Samurai Shodown: The Motion Picture

Samurai Shodown: The Motion Picture (Japanese: SAMURAI SPIRITS 〜破天降魔の章〜, Hepburn: Samurai Spirits: Haten Gōma no Shō) is an action OVA based on the video game Samurai Shodown by SNK. It was animated by Studio Comet and Studio Gazelle and produced by NAS. This is the fourth collaboration between Studio Comet, NAS, and SNK following Art of Fighting released one year prior. It was directed by Hiroshi Ishiodori and written by Nobuaki Kishima. It aired on Fuji TV on September 8, 1994 with an English dub being released by ADV Films on May 23, 1995.

Plot
Six holy warriors consisting of Haohmaru, Charlotte, Wan-Fu, Nakoruru, Tam Tam, and Galford fight Shiro Tokisada Amakusa who betrayed her vows as one of the holy warriors by resurrecting the dark god Ambrosia by breaking the seal. Amakusa successfully kills the holy warriors, but is unable to capture their souls.

One century later, the holy warriors are reincarnated and five of the holy warriors search for Haohmaru to stop Amakusa from causing more destruction with the help of Ambrosia. However, Haohmaru doesn't remember his past life as a holy warrior like the rest of them do. Nevertheless he helps them for his own desires due to his village and its citizens including his foster mother being killed under the orders of Amakusa who he is hellbent on getting his revenge on.

Why It Sucks

 * 1) The movie isn't faithful to Samurai Shodown:
 * 2) * Amakusa, who is based on the historical character of the same name and wields a magical sphere as a weapon in the game, is changed to a woman that uses a sword. His reason for resurrecting Ambrosia is also completely changed from spreading the world in darkness due to being killed for leading a rebellion of Roman Catholics against the Tokugawa Shogunate, to wanting to get revenge on being killed by her own general.
 * 3) *There is no such thing as the seven holy warriors which makes the movie feel more like Power Rangers/Super Sentai.
 * 4) *Most of the characters have little to no personalities compared to the game such as Nakoruru's love of nature missing and Earthquake and Genan being protrayed as goons that serve Amakusa.
 * 5) The English dub is terrible:
 * 6) * The voice acting is very poor with no effort on having the voices matching the character's lips. Some characters even speak incoherently which require having subtitles on.
 * 7) * Haohmaru's name is mispronounced as “How-maroo” instead of "Ha-oh-maroo".
 * 8) * Tiffany Grant does an awful-sounding French accent for Charlotte.
 * 9) * All the characters sound like they are calling Galford's dog Poppy "Puppy".
 * 10) *They misspell the word Ambrosia as "Anbroja".
 * 11) In the beginning of the film when an earthquake is felt around the world, the holy warriors who are in different parts of the world such as Galford in San Francisco and Tam Tam in South America are somehow able to arrive to Japan to assist Haohmaru in stopping Amakusa from resurrecting Ambroisa. Keep in mind that this was in the 17th century so how did they travel around the world if planes haven't been invented yet? To be fair, in the source material the fighters all gather in Japan from around the world to fight each other.
 * 12) Nakaruru, a fan favorite character from the games barely does anything in the film alongside Wan-Fu, Tam Tam, and Galford. Charlotte ends up taking more screentime with Haohmaru when she isn't nearly as popular as Nakaruru. In fact, on the Japanese cover she's shown alongside Haohmaru and Amakusa which makes you think that she would be a major character in the film. They also don't do much when fighting Amakusa and later Ambrosia when Charlotte helps Haohmaru regain his memories as a holy warrior and Haohmaru being the one to defeat Amakusa and Ambrosia.
 * 13) When the holy warriors are reincarnated, they look exactly the same and wear the same clothes they wore when Amakusa killed them, so when they find Haohmaru, who also looks and dresses the same as 100 years ago, they don't think that it's him at first only because his skills as a samurai are poor. It is later pointed out by Nakoruru that he's one of the holy warriors due to the sword he has, which they saw him using at a dojo where they originally came to the conclusion that he isn't a holy warrior.
 * 14) There's a subplot about Hanzo, Jubei, and Kyoshiro wanting to overthrow Amakusa's reign on the world by rallying the farmers and peasants to stand up to her army and finding the six holy warriors. It barely affects the main plot until near the end of the OVA and even then the six holy warriors were going to stop Amakusa regardless of their help and they have no issues fighting against her army on their own.
 * 15) Haohmaru not having his memory as a holy warrior is never explained.
 * 16) Most of the blood is censored when the game itself and later entries all show blood when characters get hit by weapons. The OVA recolors the blood white but there's a couple instances where the blood isn't censored.
 * 17) The locations are generic and bland when in the game the locations are varied and interesting. It doesn't help that the colors look washed out. The animation isn't very good either when the games are known for having great animation.
 * 18) While Haohmaru is unconscious due to having an inner conflict with Ambrosia, it's revealed that he's been out of commission for a week. This means that Wan-Fu, Nakoruru, Tam Tam, and Galford were all trapped at Amakusa's castle for that long which begs the question: why didn't she kill them while they were defenseless? She knows that all of the holy warriors gathered would be a big threat to her, and yet she lets them stay alive.
 * 19) There are plenty of deus ex machina moments:
 * 20) *While Wan-Fu, Nakoruru, Tam Tam, and Galford are captured by Amakusa, they summon a portal to let Charlotte and Haohmaru escape before Amakusa is able to kill them both.
 * 21) *Haohmaru and Charlotte are able to fly for some reason to go back to Amakusa's castle to rescue the remaining holy warriors.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) There are references to the original game such as characters using their special moves, a hint of a relationship between Haohmaru and Charlotte, and Haohmaru using rage mode.
 * 2) Some fight scenes are decent.

Reception
Samurai Shodown: The Motion Picture has received negative reviews from critics and fans alike. In their review, EGM2 called it a ridiculously overblown anime, noting that "the story is as believable as some of the more ludicrous moves pulled off by the characters. In their Samurai Shodown retrospective, Hardcore Gaming 101 calls it a quick cash-in on the Samurai Shodown phenomenon, with no regard for quality or canon. It currently has a user rating of 4.6 on IMDB and a user score of 2.7 on letterboxd.

Full Movie
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Reviews
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