EDITOR’S NOTE: The Bushido Blade was on the CBS Late Movie on April 27, 1984.

Imagine: On a late night in 1984, you could have turned on CBS and found a movie that stars Richard Boone (Have Gun, Will Travel), Mako (Akiro the Wizard!), Sonny Chiba (the meanest man alive!), James Earl Jones (Darth Vader!), Tetsuro Tamba (Tiger Tanaka!), Toshiro Mifune (the greatest Japanese samurai actor ever!) and Laura Gemser (Black Emanuelle!).

This is based on the true story about the Convention of Kanagawa that Commodore Matthew Perry (Boone) signed with the shogun leaders of feudal Japan. Perry was entrusted with a sword meant for President Franklin Pierce  by the Emperor of Japan, but it is stolen by Baron Zen (Bin Amatsu), a servant of Lord Yamato (Tamba), who wants to keep Japan isolated.

Yes, Mifune was in a movie about a very similar idea, Red Sun. In this film, he plays Commodore Akira Hayashi, who must find the sword and protect the honor of the Japanese. Soon, Prince Ido (Chiba), Captain Lawrence Hawk (Frank Converse) and Midshipman Robin Gurr (Timothy Murphy) and Cave Johnson (Michael Starr) are all on their own quests to get the sword back.

This is one of four movies that Rankin/Bass produced with Tsuburaya Productions (the others are The Bermuda Depths, The Last Dinosaur and The Ivory Ape). It’s directed by Tsugunobu “Tom” Kotani and written William Overgard, the same team who worked on many of these U.S. and Japanese co-productions.

Obviously this seems like an attempt to cash in on Shogun but it was made two years before that mini-series aired. Also: Laura Gemser is from Indonesia, yet in this she’s a half-Japanese female samurai who can speak English. Who cares? She should be in every movie.

You can watch this on YouTube.