samuel smith

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MAD LORD: SAMURAI OF 1000 DEATHS Review: A Worthwhile Love Letter To Auteurs Of Yesteryear And Today

I’ve only ever seen a sizeable handful of classic chambara and jidaigeki films in my lifetime – imaginably there’s still a world of cinema out there I want to explore, but if there’s one thing I’m thankful for, it’s the inspiration of others. Independent filmmaker Samuel Smith has his – drawn directly into his latest short period drama, Mad Lord: Samurai Of 1000 Deaths, and with none other than legendary auteur Akira Kurosawa as a key reference to venture into his own take on Shakespeare’s classic Macbeth tale. The film takes an immediate entry into the foreboding millieu of the encampment of the Black Samurai Army whose warlord (Kristofer Kamiyasu) envisions himself being murdered in his own house by a warrior from the Red Samurai Army. Fearing the lord’s mental state is deteriorating, Sokushitsu (Gana Bayarsaikhan), his loyal geisha, treats him regularly with a serving of a kind of tea […]

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MAD LORD: SAMURAI OF 1000 DEATHS Depicts Eight Images Of Madness In These Stills From Samuel Smith’s New Short [Exclusive]

Lee B. Golden III

It’s been a few years since filmmaker Samuel Smith stirred the festival crowds with short duration epics and thrillers like Tengu, Birdmen of the Mountains and I Am Not The Devil. He’s back and in tow with a longer feat of action and drama from his Imageclever Films banner with Mad Lord: Samurai of 1000 Deaths, and he’s also obliging our site with a raft of exclusive stills which you can take a gander at above. When a great samurai Lord’s mind is infected by devils, his loving Sokushitsu comes to his aid. Knowing of this weakness, the neighbouring Red Samurai seek to deliver the final blow that will end the Black Samurai once and for all. Sokushitsu demands that General Ekei travel to the borders of the Shoguns palace to collect some illegally acquired medicine to aid the ailing Lord. The General returns from his mission with more than […]

FOLKLORE AND FU: A Word With Filmmaker Samuel Smith

Lee B. Golden III

It’s been a bit of a banner year for filmmaker Samuel Smith, freshly into his fledgling career in film with two completed shorts and current feature film script developments now in tow. I had the chance to interview him in the past month or so in the wake of his run at the Iron Dragon TV Action Fest and this month’s Fighting Spirit Film Festival launch in the U.K.. He delves a bit on one of his shorts, expanding amply on his vision for what reads like a surefire thriller of a TV series. It’s the kind of thinking that I believe producers would be keen on given the proliferation of action-packed television in recent years. Having had the chance to check out both shorts – Tengu: Birdmen Of The Mountains and I Am Not The Devil, I can certainly divulge that Smith is well on the way to making […]

Shortfilm Review: I AM NOT THE DEVIL (2017)

Lee B. Golden III

Director Samuel Smith only has two shortfilms to his credit. Both have been making the festival rounds including the new supernatual thriller, I Am Not The Devil, which I think wins with its title and artwork alone while presenting a feasible concept in shortform that provides a stable medium for action, drama and mild fantasy. Featured is actor and martial artist David Cheung, currently a busy man with work to be done on his in-production spy comedy, The Real Target, debuting at the helm with lead actress and filmmaker Yolanda Lynes. Here, Cheung plays a thief raiding an underground auction where a woman, seemingly corrupted by Satan, is held captive and contained by two devil whisperers. Smith and his crew shot this particular project in a period just shy of 24 hours, not always a preferred time frame but provenly doable for a director who knows how to shoot and […]