Badmovies.org Forum

WOW... what an outstanding movie!  My friend and I rented it and were blown away.  I tried to like it.. I really did, but having to squint to tell characters apart is not cool.  I was shocked to see the quality of frame grabs you got, doesn't look anything like the copy we rented... me and my friend both agreed it might be a better movie if we were on LSD.

There's a scene where, after the "time slip," the movie's still photographer can be seen crouching and running around snapping pictures, assuming that he's out of camera range--then, when he realizes he's in the shot, he stands up and tries to act as though he belongs there. This isn't some look-quick-or-you'll-miss-it thing; he's in the foreground for a full minute! Wow! The entire film appears to have been edited by drunks. Other things to bear in mind if you ever get sent back in time: helicopters have an endless supply of fuel so you can keep airborne to entertain friends; choppers can sneak up on an entire castle without a peep (pre-Blue Thunder technology, mind you); don't keep your helicopter stationary five feet off the ground when enemy troops are swarming around you; a pilotless, out-of-control chopper will steady itself long enough for you to bail out safely.  

this is one of the worst films i´ve ever seen.
The only reason I watched this crap again, was that my friend (movie-fan too) wanted to see how bad it was. This is compared only with gargantua(1998)with it´s badness.

i watched this today and crapped in my pants. it deserved two skulls.

Bought this on eBay a little while ago after reading this review, just so I could experience its bad-ness.  Didn't cost much, so why not, right?  Anyway...it's bad.  Oh yes.  Bad.  We're just sorta catapulted into the movie and..well..some stuff happens.  Not overly interesting stuff, mind you...but stuff.  I couldn't watch it all the way through the first time, though I was close.  I got to the ending sequence, just after Iba is shot, and the bad song came on.  I thought, "Okay..bad end theme.  Should be over in a few seconds."  A couple of minutes later, I was shouting "End, damn you!  Eeeeend!" and was forced to stop the tape.  Definitely worth the bad movie XP.  It'll put hair on your arse.

Eee-yah! All gods bear witness to this accursed waste of celluloid!
For years after reading about this film in the '80's I thought, "Hey, that sounds like a fun premise", and I wondered why I never heard any more about it.
Now I know why!
Oh, well... if I had a nickel for every cool premise that never got mde into a movie, or worse, got made into a movie that blows chunks... well, I'd have a s**tload of nickels!
Oh, and by the way... when you put bowstrings from that era in a river they are good for one, maybe two shots. After that, you would do better throwing the arrows and...
Oh what's the point? When that luckless bastard who took an arrow in the throat asked "Why me?", well golly, he was speaking for everyone who had the misfortune to suffer through this dog on either side of the camera.
MAN, that clip was frighteningly egregious!
Hawatana Donjae

You know what? I have been dying to see this great movie

Actually.. I saw this film when I was a kid back in the 70s hehehe.. It was that particular time when I tried to sneak out of my place and pretended I know how to watch a movie by my own. hahaha.. anyway.. during those days.. i found this movie quite interesting.. considering that Star Wars wasnt done yet.. and a couple of seconds of Time Warp sequence would be a feasible treat to watch. Another funny thing is that in the Philippines.. (my hometown), the film was titled "Time Slip" and since that day.. I have been trying to look for the film of this title.  Guys.. dont be too rough on the film. Despite of its poor quality as compared to the blockbusters we have today, It basically has a little bit of creativity considering the lack of resources they have during those days.

Time Slip is ace - I remember watching it years ago, when I was around 12. For the next few weeks play fights with my mate and brother were no longer based on Monkey but on Time Slip. Love the scene when the samurai bring down the Chinook helicopter. Tops.

Did you know that Lt. Iba is played by none other than martial arts master Sonny Chiba. Cool idea for a film, not half bad either.

I watched this film sometime at the end of the seventies when I was a kid as well and for all its awfulness the time slip sequence on the beach has stayed with me. Not until I descovered mushrooms a few years later did I find visuals like it. Someone should clean it up and issue it on DVD. I'd buy it. Oh yea it was called Timeslip in the UK as well.

You idiot!! How could you have missed it!  Lt. Ilba is played by Sonny Chiba!  really, it's true!  I'm not making this s**t up!

Just so some of naysayers on this film know, GI Samurai is what happens when low rent video distributior gets a hold of what probably was a great film.  The film was originally called "Time Slip" all you do is cut out about half the film
(thus rendering any coherent story), poor dub it, and then do a lousy transfer in EP mode and you have GI Samurai.

    So why you all bash this film which okay, yeah you have to suspend some disbelief you have to admit the battle scenes and the stuntwork in this film are bloody and spectacular and really great esp considering that this film was made 6 years before John Woo's bloody eastern gun fu classic A Better Tomorrow.

     Why doesnt someone bothering seeking out the full length Japanese language print w/ English subtiles of TIME SLIP and then see what you think of the film.

     At least they actually did engage in battle with modern equipment with warrior from the past unlike in the Hollywood sci-fi letdown The Final Countdown which wimped out at the end of letting some modern jet fighters rip up the japanese squadrons getting to attack Pearl Harbor.


         

Just a reminder, I had a bone to pick with the main review on this website and with most of the posts on here, because just about everyone was basing their review on the horrible Arena or Xenon VHS version which was cut by at least 40 minutes ans sure I had a problem with a third of the film missing, but the action scenes were still pretty damn cool and unlike the Final Countdown, this film delivers on its promise of showing you battle scenes with samurai, ninjas, machine guns, tanks, helicopters, rocket launchers, and high body counts, sprinkled with a bit of gore here and there.


I just bought Ventura's SUBTITLED AND UNCUT VERSION OF GI SAMURAI, and it is far superior to the version that most of the people posting on here saw, it's still no Oscar Winner by any means, but some interesting story threads were missing the VHS version of this like for instance: the deserter trying to find his present day gf, the relationship between Sonny Chiba's Character and a support character who is later revealed to be a real dirtbag, a raunchy sex scene in which 2 characters make aquaintance only to face each other in battle later on, and also some scenes that show the bonding between the Lieutenant (Sonny Chiba) and the warlord he helps.   Its a damn fine entertaining movie which leads to the payoff of a go for broke take no prisoners battle scene.  Again unlike the Final Countdown which teases you the whole movie that you are gonna see modern jet fighters rip through the first wave of Japanese Zeros headed toward Pearl Harbor and then has them return back to the carrier which just happens to get caught in the time warping typhoon right at the crucial moment, GI SAMURAI (aka Time Slip, Sengoku Jieitai) delivers on the promise of modern weaponry and soldiers clashing with samurais in spades.

Also something interesting to note, there was a remake of this film release in Japan 6/28/05 called Sengoku Jieitai 1549 and it looks pretty cool to me.

here is the official website which has 2 trailers
http://www.sengoku1549.com

Timeslip is actually a one of my favorites undubbed subtitled version that is!

This is not a bad movie it doesn't deserve that skull as a rating it deserves 3 stars the version you watch was the idiotic dub tape which cut the film down from 139 mins to 85 mins  It stars sonny chiba as Lt. Iba you can find a subbed dvd of this movie that makes the movie look better and is much better than the dub tape you are wrong about this movie :thumbdown:

Are you saying that I should rate the movie based upon the version I did not see?

When I watched this, I wanted to stab myself in the spleen repeatedly to distract from the pain that was viewing this excruciating disappointment of visual trepidation.

This is coming from a proud owner of "Monsturd", of which has been viewed multiple times by the aforementioned proud owner.  Hell, I even liked "The Being" and purchased it after renting it first.  In sum, if I think a movie is bad (in a bad way), then it's gotta be really bad.

No i think you should just not judge it by video quality and the american dubbing most things that are imported from japan such as movies and anime are hacked up or are give the wrong aspect ratio or made very dark. Some other films have taken the same rap such as kinji fukasaku's samurai reincarnation, virus and legend of the eight samurai it's even true for ninja wars.

Don't beat up on Sengoku Jieitai based on a terrible dub made by subhumans who actually thought the name "G.I. Samurai" was a good idea, beat up on the dub. Seriously.

It's not like Sengoku Jieitai was perfect. Half the background music was hilariously inappropriate, the time travelling SFX cost like maybe 1 yen, and Kagetora & Iba still accidently come as off hot, hot man-lovers. But I'd argue that just makes it unintentionally better. Also, the cinematography's worth mentioning. It's definitely uneven, but there's some of it I honestly consider up there with Kurosawa... The problem is that the film was shot so overly dark it's hard to discern, and for some reason nobody in post production ever bothered to fix it. If you ever watch the real deal, crank up your display's brightness. Way up. Like in the neighboorhood of 80%. 

Bottom line: It's a good, not great, movie that's been saddled with an unfair bad rap thanks to an awful, awful dub.