I cannot recall how I stumbled across this film. I read about it on some forum at some point and lucked upon a lone copy on a store shelf. Following my first viewing, some years ago, I realized that I had stumbled across a little known gem. It's a good film that combines many different elements from many different films in an original concoction that seems just as fresh upon multiple viewings as it does that first time. It is one of those films where description defies words and what words do come do little to adequately convey just how odd the film is.

Over the years there have been any number of post-apocalyptic films made. There are all sorts of different types — zombies, gangs, mutated creatures, violent regimes, you name it. All manner of different takes have appeared over the years. Then there are films like Six-String Samurai, which feels like something completely different, like it doesn't belong lumped in with all that had come before it.

This is what you get if you take the editing room trimmings of Mad Max, The Warriors, Wizard of Oz, The Seventh Seal, mixed with any number of other films and topped with the threat of heavy metal overtaking the world of rock and roll. Yes, you read that right. This is an odd film that could have any number of themes read into it. I, however, just enjoy watching it for the quirky oddity that it is. No, that is not a knock against the film or what it may or may not be trying to say. I just look at this film and enjoy it; is that so wrong?

The film opens with a screen crawl setting up this alternate reality. In 1957, the Russians drop the bomb on the United States, turning the nation into a wasteland following a hard-fought war that obviously did not turn out well. The last free city in the country is Las Vegas, renamed Lost Vegas. This last bastion of freedom is ruled by the King. Yes, the King, as in Elvis Presley. Now, forty years out from the dropping of the bomb, Elvis is dead and a new king needs to be crowned. One of those seeking the crown is Buddy, a guitar-slinging samurai making his way across the wasteland that was once America.

The opening scene shows a young boy and his mother fleeing some Mad Max-style baddies, only to be stopped by the appearance of the mysterious Buddy, but not before the boy's mother loses her life to the assailants. Following this tragedy, the boy latches onto Buddy as he continues along his way; this, despite his protestations. Nobody wants a little boy following them into the wastes; especially not anyone who has Death following close behind, quite literally.

The journey brings him into contact with a wide array of wacky fellows, from a gang of bowlers, to a cannibalistic family, to some weirdos slinging candy, not to mention crossing paths with the Russian army, and the windmill people! Each interaction brings him a little bit closer to his destination, the biggest gig of his career.