“Afro Samurai” On NPR
Author: Stephen Gerding
January 5th, 2007
NPR has both a written article and an audio clip discussing Spike TV’s new series, Afro Samurai. Man, at a million dollars an episode, this better kill in the ratings!
The title character is a black man who was raised in a martial-arts dojo after his father was murdered by an assassin. He seeks revenge, and the recovery of his father’s hachimaki headband, which identifies the wearer as the world’s greatest warrior. The (very violent) action takes place in an alternate reality that juxtaposes samurai duels with cell phones and cigarette lighters.
Five episodes of Afro-Samurai have been produced with an impressive budget of $1 million per episode. If the series proves successful, it will be continued. Viewers will get a chance to judge when it airs Thursday night on Spike TV.
If you missed it on TV, Spike’s got the entire first episode online at a decent quality for a limited time.
- Related Articles:
3 Responses to ““Afro Samurai” On NPR”
January 6th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Gah! I watched the first episode and, boy, did it suck (IMO). So over-stylized that I couldn’t just sit back and enjoy it. And not much story at all in the first episode. I really can’t see it getting much better in the next three episodes either.
Anyhoo…
January 8th, 2007 at 8:40 am
I don’t know that it was that horrible, but it did suffer from a terrible lack of originality and reliance on style over substance. Things were hard to follow, but to be fair, I was watching it while making dinner, so…
I’ll give it another episode or two before I give up on it totally, but damn, it didn’t look like a million bucks on my screen.
January 8th, 2007 at 8:53 am
I didn’t watch it, but yeah, a million bucks…that’s crazy…