Hirokin: The Last Samurai (2011)

Space samurai on a distant planet says you? Yes please says I. The villain played by the dastardly devilish looking Julian Sands?? Oh my! This sounds great! Wes Bentley says you? Hmm OK not bad, not bad, but I've gone slightly soft now.

Plus points...the film looks pretty sweet, its basic with obvious sets and errr...a handful of bad guys, villagers and good guys used over and over but the location work looks nice. Set on the distant desert planet of Aradius you can see straight away certain similarities to many other sci-fi/fantasy films, need I list them? So everything looks very familiar yet admittedly rather nice with use of sunsets, twilight, dusk, early morning etc...the colours and hues are gorgeous at times.

Apart from that the film is your standard by the numbers chosen one styled plot line. A lone warrior saves a small tribe of people (aliens that look exactly like humans) from a tyrant human played by Sands naturally. All the bad guys look like Imperial guards from 'RotJ' and Sands looks suspiciously like Sting in 'Dune'.

Its all very cliched and run of the mill stuff, yet the whole point is lost on me, I have no real clue what's in it for the evil Julian Sands to do what he does. Angus Macfadyen is the Yoda-like Master, the all powerful leader, warrior and rebel who must train the eager Hirokin, cue lots of training montages set against facial close-ups and with many shadows and silhouettes.

There seems to be a lot more style over substance really, very arty and nice to look at but behind that its pretty crappy stuff really. Doesn't really make much sense, why would a distant planet in the future (or so I assume) utilize the ancient Japanese samurai way of life, war and culture? Where do they get their fuel, water and food from? etc...I could go on but I won't.

Shame the people/aliens of this poor village seem to totally outnumber the bad guys (but why would they even stay in this village? The area offers nothing...leeeeave it!!). Oh and this alien race are called Arids. You see what they have done there? Arids...Arabs? or maybe because the planet they live on is arid? Ah beats the shit outta me.

Its a nice slice of B-movie sci-fi hokum that will please some fans of the genre. Its fun harmless stuff and Bentley does look the part I admit. May I suggest a better choice, if you like sci-fi hokum then I recommend 'Hunter Prey' which is a much better ride.

4/10