Amazon.com There's cheese-ball fun to this 1979 misfire, an American-Japanese coproduction made to cash in on Shogun-mania. Richard Boone (in his last role) plays the real-life Commodore Perry, who ended centuries of Japanese isolation by signing a treaty with a resolute shogun (Toshiro Mifune) in 1854. Against the historical backdrop is the fictional adventure of a Yankee officer (a stiff and stilted Frank Converse) who pits American gumption against samurai swordsmanship to recover the sacred Bushido Blade. Sonny Chiba's dynamic presence as a warrior prince helps energize the rudimentary fight choreography and the low budget shows through in undernourished set pieces. But the pace never lets up, and helping distract from Converse's crippling lack of charisma are the solid supporting cast, among them half-Japanese female samurai Laura Gemser, imprisoned sailor James Earl Jones, and Mike Starr as the burly bosun who bonds with a sumo wrestler in a tussle that bridges cultural and verbal barriers. --Sean Axmaker From the Back Cover In 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry anchored his fleet in the shadow of Mount Fuji in Yokohama Bay. His arrival awoke Japan from a sleep of centuries. In a feudal society torn between those who wish to move into the modern world and the rebel clans sworn to the "old ways," Perry pushes for a treaty to open the country, which the Shogun agrees to sign. But before the signing can take place, a fanatical group of samurai abducts a gift from the Shogun intended for the U.S. President. It is a national treasure of sacred significance to the Japanese--the great sword known as the Bushido Blade. The treaty cannot be signed until the Blade is recovered. It is an urgent and dangerous quest.
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