The 1979 Sonny Chiba flick G. I. SAMURAI is one of my favourite films of all time. I never get tired of watching its modern-soldiers-vs-samurai premise, so when I heard about this semi-sequel I was delighted. Now, let's get one thing cleared up: this isn't a straight sequel at all. I won't spoil the events of the original film, but this film poses things differently, a 'what if?' scenario instead of the concrete ending of the initial movie. It then subsequently focuses on another squad of soldiers sent into the past on a special rescue mission.SAMURAI COMMANDO has nowhere near the quality of the first film. If the 1979 movie was an action film through and through, this one's pure science fiction as it looks at the morals and consequences of tampering with history. It's also more squarely B-movie style, with lots of cheesy and explosive special effects and emoting. It has a cast giving the film their all, and in the second half particularly it picks up the pace and runs with it, delivering an effective race-against-the-clock climax. It may not be high art, but it is entertaining.

This movie is at best a good pastime. Its script is commonplace and everything is par for the course. It won't take long before you know the whole plot. But who cares if all you want is a mere pastime during holiday. Still, team spirit and personal sacrifice are pervasive(some are quite unnecessary). That couldn't draw a lot of tears, though. The back-to-the-past scenes are by no means hi-tech; they are tacky ---- just some flashes, smoke, and twisted faces of the actors. And here they are: the year 1594!! That said, the message ---Why at war if we can be at peace?--- is still the crux , which we are unable to achieve even nowadays. Maybe ,we are less barbaric than before, but that hunger for power and dominance is still deep-seated in the minds of die-hard aggressors.

Having been a fan of the original 1979 "Sengoku Jieitai" for many years, I was elated to hear about the remake and eagerly chomping the bit to see the remake. What a disappointment.The original film was not great by any standard, but its campiness and over-the-top black humor made the film quite enjoyable and satisfying. The concept was new and original at the time - the image of the modern Self Defense Force attack helicopter popping up over the ridge and machine gunning an army of samurai warriors on horseback was superbly entertaining. In the end, of course, the medieval warriors were victorious, as the modern-day soldiers caught up in the time warp ran out of ammo and succumbed to arrows, spears, and other nasty weapons.The remake is based on the original plot but changes it drastically. In this version, a group of Self Defense Force soldiers artificially recreates the time warp on a mission to rescue and bring back the first group. While commander Iba in the original film realizes at the very end that he was in fact the Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga, in the remake, Iba tells his would-be rescuers that he in fact killed Nobunaga and assumed his identity in a bid to change history. It's a classic notion - the lost leader gets caught up in his new surroundings and decides to use his knowledge for evil purposes (think Apocolyse Now or The Island of Doctor Moreau). In this case, Iba has even managed to somehow develop a nuclear weapon, which he plans to use on his enemies in a bid to take over all of medieval Japan. Of course, his "rescuers" conclude that this madman must be stopped.This was not a BAD movie, but I went into it thinking it would be like the original, only updated. I was wrong. The story was completely different, and that was the real source of my disappointment. And while the original film was fun, this one got tedious and boring real fast.If you've never seen the original, you might want to check this out. Yes, the plot and circumstances are completely absurd. They were in the original version also, and yet I found it charming - but not this one.

Sengoku jieitai 1549 (a.k.a. "Samurai Commando Mission 1549") is a rewriting of the 1979 piece starring "Sonny Chiba" and produced by the same Kadokawa company. An SDF (Self-Defense Force) unit is blown back to 1549, the age of warring states, where its leader Matoba (Takeshi Kaga) decides to live as warrior. Two years later, SDF finds out what happened, and sends a rescue team consisting of Kashima (Yosuke Eguchi), Matoba's ex- lieutenant and now retired, joining the team as "observer", and Kanzaki (Ms. Kyoka Suzuki) who was responsible for that accident. Black holes are erupting. They have only 74 hours to "do something" about Matoba who they found out had feigned himself as Nobunaga (a historical figure who came close to unifying Japan) who wanted to "change future" with his SDF technology. Defeated, Kashima's group finds an ally in a kid called Tosuke, who was later to become the historical figure who unified Japan, and the real Nobunaga who had been with them from 2005. Compared to the 1979 Sengoku, where the SDF unit's only course was "fight to death", the 2005 Sengoku is quite positive in approach. It depicts how the characters did their best in living instead of dying and this includes Matoba despite his sinister scheme. Yosuke Eguchi, very tall, has starred in TV dramas playing wide- ranging roles. Veterans Takeshi Kaga and Kyoka Suzuki provide solid acting. The film marks departure from conventional jidaigeki (films set in samurai days). The cast is an example; another example is non-use of the Kyoto theatrical combatants. These have succeeded in making the film a pure entertainment piece, without the traditional fetters and samurai BS like "dying to live". Notes & explanations (added 6/30/'05)1) "Sengoku jieitai 1549" is going to be one of the "trilogy" (or more) based on novels written by Harutoshi Fukui, with the other two being "Lorelei: The Witch of the Pacific Ocean" (2005) and the upcoming "AEGIS", though these three films were directed, produced and distributed by different entities. It is not a remake of the 1979 Sengoku but more Fukui's original, inspired, perhaps, by the 1979 movie. 2) "Kyoto theatrical combatants": These are a group of stunt men called "ta'te" who belong to (Toei Company's) Kyoto studio. They are experts at getting killed in jidaigeki samurai dramas. Most jidaigeki dramas and films rely on them to save choreography time and money. But the result is that you always see the same people getting killed in different dramas and movies. By the time "Sonny" (Shin'ichi) Chiba starred in the 1979 "Sengoku", he disliked this idea, and had formed JAC (Japan Action Club). The principal members then included Etsuko Shihomi, who's starred in some "Hissatsu ken / Sister Street Fighter" series (1974-1975)(and also in "Shanhai bansukingu" (1984) and "Nidaime wa Christian" (1985) in which she doesn't kick anybody). I suppose the producers of "Sengoku jieitai 1549" agreed with Chiba in not using these stunt men. Using them would've made the film "another of those jidaigeki".