For some reason lives of the cult B-movie actors tend to be shrouded in mystery. Often it takes years of investigation just to track them down and get them to do even a simple interview. On the other hand I would say that it’s almost always worth it. From the ongoing search for “Trash” Mark Gregoryto the “Samurai Cop”Matt Hannon aka Karedas seemingly coming back from the dead the search is as fascinating as the people themselves.
Now, after decades of questions we finally have a teaser trailer for the Scott Pearlman‘s documentary Finding Freeman.
Synopsis:
“In 1987, a young actor named Eric Freeman starred in one of the most infamous films ever made, “Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2.” His loveably over-the-top performance made him a cult sensation, and the advent of YouTube turned him into a phenomenon. Scenes of his raucous performance have garnered millions of views, while hundreds of parody videos and memes were created in his honor.
Over the years, Eric’s face would be adorned on t-shirts and a fanbase was growing by the day. There was just one problem: Eric had vanished off the face of the Earth. With an acting career that came to a screeching halt in 1992, and no social media presence or digital footprint to boot, Eric Freeman the person had been erased from public consciousness. All that remained was his alter ego, Ricky Caldwell from “Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2.” With his whereabouts a complete mystery, fans got curious.
In 2008, a small group of fans from different corners of the globe banded together to create Finding Freeman, a Facebook page dedicated to tracking down the elusive actor. They searched diligently for five years, and when Eric finally resurfaced, the real story began.
Finding Freeman is a new documentary that examines the effects of fandom in the digital age, and how technology has the power to preserve the past, and change lives.”
Retrospectively looking at it I am not one bit surprised by the soundtrack choice for the trailer (also sprach Zarathustra aka Space Oddysey theme) because the (second) coming of Matt Hannon is just as EPIC! Samurai Cop is back to hack away the bad guys and charm the ladies like he has never stopped. And stylish production with recognizable names like Bai Ling, Robert Z’Dar, Mindy Robinson, Lexi Belle and gloriously OVER THE TOP TommyWissou in Kato outfit are just icing on the cake.
Now without further ado- enjoy the trailer… and keep it warm!
Things are obviously moving along quite nicely as Matt Hannon and Mindy Robinson go trough the rigorous fight training. Matt’s Samurai chops look better than ever and he even found the time to hang out with the UFC Hall of Famer and Expendablesfranchise alumni Randy “The Natural” Couture.
The Ultimate Friends!
And if this is not enough for you, here’s Matt’s personal update on the movie, and we can expect shooting to start very, very soon (December 14 to be precise).
After a shocking revelation that Matt Hannon the actor behind the Joe Marshall aka Samurai Cop is still alive (link) we finally have the official confirmation of the sequel Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance! Not only that but there’s also a chance to participate in the making of the film with Kickstarter campaign that just started. Matt Hannon (Joe Marshall) and Mark Frazer (Frank Washington) alongside Melissa Moore (Peggy) and Gerald Okamura (Okamura) reprise their roles from the original and we also get some fun addition in the form of former James Bond George Lazenby, playmate and adult actress Lexy Belle and Mindy Robinson from Pain & Gain and V/H/S/2 .
Legendary Matt Hannon the star of Samurai Cop and antagonist of American Revenge long presumed dead finally found the time to speak up and clear the air. Matt Hannon is in fact alive and well, living under the assumed name and looking good as ever. He hit the web and officially refuted reports of his death (accepted as a fact for more than a few years) one week ago and now he’s back with some more killer stuff. There’s even some steam brewing’ on a possible follow-up(Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengence ). Anyway, we want to thank the Daughter of the Samurai- Courtney. She heroically convinced her father to come clean and let us know that Samurai is still kicking ass and all our lives are richer because of it. Now, we’re eagerly awaiting further development.
The main selling point of this film is Robert Z’Dar, star of a cult feature The Maniac Cop (and it’s two sequels) but for some reason he stars here as Japanese (!!!) Yakuza enforcer Yamashita. On the contrary the lead here is stone faced, one- time Stallone’s bodyguard of the name Matt Hannon.He was so dedicated to this film, his first (and last) feature that he decided to cut off his long hair during the filming of the movie and was forced to wear ridiculous female wig for more than half of the filming!
There’s something terribly wrong with this picture!
Movie starts with Frank Washington, epitome of 80es black police-man who gets a new partner from San Diego incredible Joe “Samurai” Marshall, long haired California dude, supposedly fantastic martial artist and even better cop. He joins Frank to take down L.A. based Yakuza organization with incredibly retarded name- Katana Gang.Also more that 2/3 of gangsters are not even Japanese (although Z’Darr pretends to be one). After … chase scene and Marshall yelling “s-shot them” Frank succeeds and the van explodes (two times). The driver escapes, unfortunately in flames but Marshall and Frank pull out the security blanket (?) and fire extinguisher and save his life.
Also after completing their mission Marshall points to the female cop piloting a helicopter and says “see you tonight” With a trick of rushed editing it’s already tonight and we are treated with soft- soft- soft core sex scene of Marshall and a blond cop lady. Strangely none of the two feels any need to remove their pants during the whole scene which unfortunately seems to last ages.
Cop Lady, proficient in riding a helicopter… and Matt Hannon!
Meanwhile in the headquarters of the Katana Gang the mullet wearing boss (of crime) Mr. Fujiyama is giving orders.Like any true Japanese traditionalist he wants the head of the driver- so he can place in on top of his piano? Z’Darr, I mean Yamashita doesn’t question that strange request because he is the true Samurai*
*interesting because the status of samurai was abolished in Japan with the Meiji reforms in the late 19th century
Here we can see the effect “Samurai” Marshall has on ladies
Yamashita succeeds in his mission aided by his hot red- headed partner (porn actress Krista Lane- Deep Troath II). In fact she gets him in hospital acting as a janitor (dressed as a nurse) pushing the cloth- cover cart which hides Yamashita inside of it. He demonstrates his knowledge of sword veilding by using probably the sharpest blade ever made as butcher knife! They almost escape without a trace but an idiot cop finally notices that their witness is missing and he sounds the alarm. That complicates things a bit but Yamashita just destroys everyone on his path and they run away.
Samurai and Frank feel the anger of their boss (see bellow) but black partner cheers him up by kissing his bold head. He chase them away but smiles when he’s finally alone. Some old cop got a tip on the location of the gang leader so he informs “The Samurai” He surprises Mr. Fuyita and his underlings in a restaurant delivering a heartfelt speech.*
“…a heartfelt speech”
Also he hits on blond “all- American” girl, the owner of the restaurant because that’s just something that he does. After that Dynamic Duo of Frank and Marshall is faced with tons of goons, none of them match for their skill. Marshall shows his martial art knowledge by swinging a sword wildly with imbecilic face expression. Also he cut off an arm of one of the assailants and the said assailant died from bleeding 10 seconds afterwords. Yamashita is outraged by incompetence of his henchmen so he does what any real samurai would do- takes out an uzi and starts shooting like there’s no tomorrow. Cops survive the bullets somehow but the criminals don’t. After that Yamashita runs away and detectives go too. They don’t try to do reasonable thing like try to arrest him for attacking the officers- NO! That’s not how they do business- they just pretend they have no evidence to book him (lots of bullet holes in their car and a bunch of dead criminals can be ignored it seems).
Dynamic Duo succeeds in finding the locations of only non- mullet wearing villain aka Elvis Fu (see Day of the Warrior by Andy Sidaris) and after a mismatched Kung Fu fight which little man truly tries to make entertaining (even thou he is pared with incompetent loser like Marshall) he ends up dead and they get nowhere.
Why they keep trying to figure out where is the mysterious headquarter of Katana Gang they decide to take the first step. They start torturing and killing police officers who work with “Samurai” trying to get a location of his house. Because the movie is set in 80es they probably should have just dialed information or maybe find an adressbook- everybody was listed in those days. Maybe there’s something in BUSHIDO that forbids them address-books, who knows? They kill the old cop and his wife, then they start torturing whore cop aka blond who drives helicopter (who mysteriously gained something like 20 pounds since we last saw her). The black cop is also on the target list but he somehow survives.
At the same time Marshall is seducing the “all- American” girl by preparing her a fried chicken (which he caught himself, I mean stole from his neighbor), then taking her to a beach which mysteriously morphed into a pool just a few seconds later. Finally he gets into her pants and then does nothing but kiss her while slow jazz music goes on and on in the background…
When mafia finally reaches his house he is prepared. He start offing the one at a time and after his incredible partner joins him (he needs a sidekicks in the background to make funny faces while he is doing all the work or he feels sad) Yamashita yells “you can never run away from me” but 5 seconds later they did just that. Next thing you know Dynamic Duo are in office of police chief and he advices them to kill everyone and then give up on the whole cop thing and they take it to heart.After somehow realizing the location that they were they were not able to find the whole movie they head for final confrontation with Mr. Fujiama and his evil samurai Yamashita!
Unfortunately Fujiama is one step in fron of them- he now has Marshall’s girl and he’s holding her at gunpoint. After stand off he menages to shoot not the girl but the black partner… thankfully he has the west so he quickly recovers and guns him down. He then raves about being the smartest person alive ’cause he remembered to wear a west. After some default kissing and hugging “Samurai” and his black partner start gunning down the rest of the henchmen including the only freakin’ person who could knew how to swing a sword.
Then inevitable happens… and we are treated with the most amazing thing ever, the duel of samurais!!!They stare at echother and suddenly they are transported from the backyard in some kind of desert where we can enjoy western- like cool framing as they approach one another. Then the fighting starts. First thing you notice is that there is aposlutely nothing samurai about this fight- neither of one bothered to take couple kendo lessons and make it at lest little bit believable- they just swing wildly then both lose they swords and start fist fighting- then Z’Dar ends up blind from the eye- chops, then he regains his vision and they somehow end up with swords in their hands- again! Oh, man- terrible editing FTW!Marshall finally stop him by catching his arm and then elbowing his back about million times- and for some reason that seems to hurt him very much.Then he does this strange thing with his neck and it snaps like a twig.
And then Z’Dar is in the dirt and his neck seems fine. After declaring ” You lost… you lost face” Hannon tries to chop of his head but his partner (who was there just watching the whole time) yells “no, you’re a cop” and he has change of heart.Disgraced Yamashita kills himself with a knife, but Marshall lets him do that and forbids Frank from interfering. We see a zoom of Yamashita’s bloodied up face, some Sega music and the movie ends and we are left wondering what the hell did we just saw.
“Let’s see how good you are with the sword samurai supercop!”
Verdict: If some alien civilization received the signals from Earth (including some movies) and then one of the aliens tried to explain concept of “Movies” to another one, and then that one decided to make a film of his own- without actually seeing how they look like- he would probably wind up with the end result not unlike Samurai Cop!
Worsemovies 