Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves: The Samurai Film Handbook

Patrick Galloway
Stone Bridge Press (2005)
ISBN 9781880656938
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (3/07)

At the recommendation of a lab assistant that used to work for me, I started watching samurai movies. My interest in this genre stemmed from years of training in the Japanese martial arts. These movies are fun to watch, incorporate aspects of Japanese history and culture and are a nice break from the current pop culture movies available today. When my assistant moved away to go to a four-year college, I lost my source for samurai movie recommendations. Well, Patrick Galloway has saved the day for me with his book, “Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves: The Samurai Film Handbook.”

More than just recommending a list of samurai films to watch, Mr. Galloway also provides a chapter on the world of the samurai. He also discusses the samurai film genre and also the artists involved. I found all of this background information to be interesting and informative because it provided me with a wealth of information that will enable me to enjoy the movies even more.

Mr. Galloway breaks the movie reviews down into sections separated by time. He covers the beginning, middle and end of the 60’s, all of the 70’s and then runs through the 80’s and beyond. I like how much background information he provides because it enriches my enjoyment of the films. I truly appreciate the amount of work that he put into writing this book. He also combines an extensive glossary and cross index reference in the back of the book. Based upon the wealth of information that Mr. Galloway provides, he gave me a whole new list of movies that I want to watch. The best part is that I found many of these films available on Netflix, so I actually have a way to access them!

I definitely recommend “Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves” to martial movie fans and think that it would also make a great gift.

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