SPOILER ALERT! This movie does have its problems it's true, but credit should be given to Laughlin's idea of transporting a Samurai-trained gunfighter into Zorro territory. As in his Billy Jack films racial and moral injustice play a major role and, unfortunately, the United States is the off-camera villain. The wealthy spanish Dons of early California are being taxed to death by the American government and one of the most prominent of the Spaniards, Don Paulo (O'Neal), revisits a plot that has already worked once: enlist a village of Indians to wreck gold-carrying American ships on the coast and plunder their riches, then murder the Indians so no one will know. But the Don has a small problem in the guise of his sister's husband, Finley McCloud (Laughlin) who was brought up in Japan as the son of the American Ambassador and has shared his skill with the Samurai sword with his brother Paulo. Finley is also a master of a one-of-a-kind 12-chambered revolver (nowhere in the movie is it called a LeMat)and having left the family when the first murders are committed he returns to intervene when he learns they're going to happen again. Martial arts in the American West are an interesting combination (check out "Red Sun", "Kung Fu", or the newer "Shanghai Noon" films)and Laughlin's haunted gunfighter-swordsman had great potential which I'm afraid to say usually failed to materialize onscreen. Much of the problem was a screenplay that continually put the hero in situations that made him look foolish: he stares down an adversary after his oversize sombrero has been chopped in two, eliciting laughs, or he hangs helpless from a tree while discussing the conspiracy with the villains. Also Laughlin's character talks too much, especially about himself---"My life as a wandering gunfighter---", ughh,gag. Turning the hero into a clown is a mistake not unique to this movie though; catch Schwarzenegger's embarrassing crying fit while dressed in pajamas and a KKK-hat in the otherwise excellent "Conan the Barbarian", or Will Smith's humiliating dancing-girl disguise in "The Wild, Wild, West"---that movie was excrement, they should've paid me to sit through it. Also bad was Burgess Meredith's mind-numbing narration, which starts the movie on a sour note. The California coast and photography were excellent however, and the costumes, fantastic. The climaxing duel between Finley and Paulo, decked out in their Spanish noblemen finery, is memorable as image, but another misstep in execution. It's obvious that the final confrontation between the two Samurai-pistoleros is meant to pay tribute to Sergio Leone's spaghetti-Westerns, but the pacing is too drawn out and effect is lost in the translation. What an idea though. Even the title---mastery of the pistol is not only a skill, but a discipline. An idea familiar to all fans of martial arts films. So despite the negatives, "The Master Gunfighter" has to be included in the collection of any red-blooded follower of Tom Laughlin---which I definitely am.
Review of The Master Gunfighter
