MAD MAX meets rockabilly in Lance Mungia's thesis film turned nineties cult hit SIX-STRING SAMURAI, on 4K UHD/Blu-ray deluxe combo as part of Vinegar Syndrome's Underground line.

In a world the Russians decimated the United States with a nuclear weapon in 1957, the last bastion of freedom in the land was Las Vegas where Elvis Presley really was the King until he definitively died forty years later. Now sword-swinging, guitar-strumming opportunists are trundling down the yellow brick road and eager to take out any competition. Among them is Buddy (Jeffrey Falcon) who can swing a sword and play six-string at the same time, which he demonstrates upon unprovoked attacks from such entities as the mercenary bowling Pin Pals and the crooning, back-stabbing Red Elvises. He comes to regret rescuing a young orphan known only as The Kid (Justin McGuire) from roaming cannibals as the urchin trails him relentlessly, ignoring threats of violence and stories of The Spinach Monster. Little does he know that among his foes on the long road to Vegas is Comrade Death himself.

While somewhat of a cult hit upon release, SIX-STRING'S obnoxiously hip try-hard kitsch is more grating than amusing, its Rockabilly fable seeming as if it would play better projected on the walls of a dance club than watched on the big screen or a home theater. Falcon is a very physical performer but what little presence he has on speaking is blunted by the nonstop soundtrack which the actor and character is not charismatic enough to keep up with. While the film looks like a MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME retread – satisfyingly so in the economic use of California's deserts, quarries, and ruins in the same manner as many a New World or Concorde science fiction film of the previous decade – director Lance Mungia seems to be more inspired by Kurosawa and YOJIMBO than Sergio Leone; although some of his inspirations may be overshadowed by his contemporaries Quentin Tarentino's PULP FICTION and Robert Rodriguez's EL MARIACHI. The film is not without accomplishment, a brief sequence of Buddy and The Kid trekking through the sand dunes conjures up EL TOPO as much as THE SHELTERING SKY in the ravishing beauty of the environment, the blocking, and the photography (the film's most handsome aspect). On the other hand, the guitar-strumming version of a Mexican standoff during the climax is more laughable than thrilling, although the final shot does remind us of the film's WIZARD OF OZ connections.

Picked up by Palm Pictures' SIX-STRING SAMURAI hit DVD in a non-anamorphic letterboxed transfer that was not bettered overseas. Vinegar Syndrome's 2160p24 HEVC 1.85:1 widescreen UHD and 1080p24MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray are derived from a 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative and the results are stunning for a low-budget, independent film shot by students on expired Fuji stock (freely-loaned top tier Panavision cameras and lenses helped a good deal along with mostly outdoor sunny settings). The Blu-ray alone looks spectacular from California desert vistas to Jean-Pierre Jeunet-esque wide-angle in-your-face close-ups, while the HDR grading of the UHD recovers highlights in the sunny skies and does appear to provide more shadow detail in the backlit shots and some of the dark natural-light interiors. The original surround mix is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, with music and foley the active elements of the mix more so than ambience (perhaps fitting for a sweltering, post-apocalyptic world in which distant noises are usually heralds of stalking rivals). A lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track is also included along with optional English SDH subtitles.

Director Mungia appears on a commentary track with cinematographer Kristian Bernier who recall shooting the opening sequence of The Kid and his mother running through reeds in a parking lot at Loyola Marymount and then took those reeds to Death Valley and had crew hold them in front of the camera to make it appear to be the same location. Mungia reveals that the film was his thesis project and that he actually had to pay to re-enroll when they needed access to the sound stages to do pickup shots. They also discuss the enigmatic Falcon, an American who went to Hong Kong and got cast as villains in Hong Kong action and martial arts films before becoming an action choreographer, and that Mungia learned about coverage for fight scenes from him. Mungia reveals that he has not been able to track own Falcon who has since vanished with no internet presence – even contacts in China have no word of him – or McGuire who he at least knows went on to play college baseball. Bernier reveals that although Mungia liked his reel, he was only three weeks out of film school when he got the job.

Two new commentary tracks might seem like overkill, but Mungia appears a second solo track in which he reveals that he had acquired a print of the film that he kept in his closet and had been considering having his own HD master struck of the film before Vinegar Syndrome made the deal with Palm Pictures. He discusses the influences of his childhood, including working in his family's rose field where he developed an appreciation for landscape, his love of westerns, Kurosawa, and Wong Kar Wai. He also reveals that Robert Rodriguez encouraged him to just go ahead and make a film, and that EL MARIACHI star Carlos Gallardo introduced him to Falcon.