‘Snow White and the Seven Samurai’ Review
Stars: Fiona Dorn, Eric Roberts, Gina Vitori, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, Sunny Tellone | Written by Jacob David Smith | Directed by Michael Su
Long before Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, The Asylum was updating and repurposing myths and fairy tales into films like The 7 Adventures of Sinbad, 3 Musketeers, Avengers Grimm and the absolutely bizarre King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Here, they’ve taken the legend of Snow White and thrown in a name check of Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai to give us Snow White and the Seven Samurai.
Anya Voight (Fiona Dorn; Tangled Ties & Tipsy Vows, The Swan Princess: A Fairytale Is Born) wants her father (Eric Roberts; Slice 2! Children of the Course, Night of the Caregiver) to consider a change of careers. Considering he’s one of the biggest cocaine kingpins in the country, that’s not an easy thing to do. But she’s adamant, not only is it dangerous, but because of what he does, people keep calling her Snow White.
Their heart-to-heart chat is interrupted by a hooded assassin, who kills him as she watches, horrified. Several months later, at the reading of his will, it’s Amya’s stepmother Quinn (Gina Vitori; Blood, Beach, Betrayal, The Red Tide Massacre) who is horrified. She gets a mere twenty million dollars, while Anya gets the rest of his empire, on the condition she actually goes legit.
It isn’t long until Anya, like the name’s original bearer, finds herself left for dead by her evil stepmother’s henchman (Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson; Mojave Diamonds, Midnight Meat Train), though not in the woods but in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles. And like her, she’s rescued, not by seven dwarves but by Luna (Sunny Tellone; Raze, Ruthless Realtor) and her team of female fighters.
Since it was from The Asylum, my expectations for Snow White and the Seven Samurai were fairly low. But it was directed by Michael Su (Night of the Tommyknockers, The Twisters) who while an uneven director can deliver with the right material. And he is a skilled cinematographer, so I knew the film would at least look good. The script on the other hand was by Jacob David Smith, who co-wrote Prepare to Die, which another of The Asylum’s better directors, Jose Montesinos, couldn’t save.
Here, though, he leans into the silliness of it all, with mega-million dollar drug cartels that can’t seem to afford much in the way of hired guns and the leaders getting up close and personal to the dirty work sans a squad of bodyguards. And then there’s the whole idea that the last female samurai, or Onna-musha, seem to be a bunch of mostly white-looking fitness models who can turn Anya into a lethal killer in the space of an afternoon.
The result doesn’t make a bit of sense, but it has enough fights, shootings and training scenes to keep the viewer’s attention as it heads towards the storming of Quinn’s mansion which seems to be guarded by a handful of stuntmen, masked of course, so they can be sent out to die repeatedly.
While Eric Roberts is, as expected, barely in the film, Quinton Jackson gives one of his best performances, mostly because the film gives him little to say and concentrates on his imposing size and fighting skills. That makes a nice contrast to Gina Vitori’s over-the-top performance as his employer. Stunt coordinator Shaun Charney (Avenged, Bad Impulse) gives them, and the rest of the cast, fight scenes that are a cut above what we usually get from The Asylum. Combined with a couple of clever last-minute revelations, it makes Snow White and the Seven Samurai an unexpectedly fun watch.
Snow White and the Seven Samurai is still an Asylum film, so you still need to keep your expectations in check. But if you can do that, this is one of their films that will give you a good afternoon’s watch, rather than leave you feeling like you just ate a poisoned apple.
***½ 3.5/5
Snow White and the Seven Samurai is available on Digital Platforms now.
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