laststandonzombieisland

The late, great, Japanese martial artist/actor/director Shin’ichi “Sonny” Chiba is best known to younger audiences as Hattori Hanzō from Kill Bill, but to an older generation, he was remembered for his 1970s Street Fighter films.

One forgotten gem, 1979’s G.I. Samurai (aka Time Slip and Sengoku Self Defense Force) has just gotten a re-release via 4K Blu-ray restoration.

If you are a fan of 1980’s The Final Countdown, which sees USS Nimitz go back to Pearl Harbor on December 6, 1941, you will “get” the premise of G.I. Samurai, which sees a group of Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force soldiers time-warped back to 16th century Sengoku period Japan– with their weapons to include lots of M-3 Grease guns, Howa Type 64 battle rifles, a mocked up “Type 61” tank, and a Sea King that isn’t.

I say “mocked up” because the Japanese military disavowed the film and provided no support, leaving Toho to make their own tank– which doesn’t look half bad– turn to its armory of small arms left over from assorted Godzilla films, including some actual M-3s and Type 64s, and lease a helicopter that was sort of military.

The trailer:

The chopper is a Sikorsky S-62.

The company’s first amphibious helicopter, the S-62, entered service in 1958, beating the larger, more prolific, and much more familiar S-61 (which became the Sea King) by three years.

Some 99 were delivered to the USCG, which flew the type as the HH-52A Seaguard (as 1352-1379, 1382-1413, 1415-1429, 1439-1450, and 1455-1466) until replaced by the decidedly non-amphibious HH-65 Dolphin (SA-365).

All told, just 175 S-62s were constructed on both sides of the pond.

Some 25 Mitsubishi-built Sikorsky-licensed S-62Js were made for Japanese service, where they were nicknamed Raicho (Ptarmigan).

This included nine that served with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF), another nine that served with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s 51 Kokutai out of Atsugi Kaigun-hikōjō, and assorted SAR dets around the country from 1965 into the mid-1980s when replaced by UH-60s.

The Japanese Maritime Safety Agency (MSA), a coast guard unit, flew another eight U.S.-built S-62As, while at least eight other S-62A 10-seater commercial models flew with Japanese domestic airlines in the 1960s and 70s.

The GI Samurai S-62 looks like a commercial model mocked up in olive camo with “Ground Defense Force” written on the side, although the Japanese army never used the type. It also carries a five-digit civil number. Seen in one of the above images, her 005 tail number could be that of JA9005, an aircraft that flew with the Nakanihon Air Service, a general aviation company that is still around.

Other international users of the S-62 included the Philippine Air Force, the Royal Thai Police, the Indian Air Force, and the Icelandic Coast Guard.

Either way, you gotta love the time warp gimmick.