A politically edgy examination of inter-racial dating and identity through irony, humor, and social commentary, Cowboy Versus Samurai is a laugh-out-loud, romantic comedy exploring the sexual dynamics that surface around race when an attractive Korean American woman moves to town. Travis Park is a high school English teacher and the only Korean American man living in a dusty cowboy town known as Breakneck, Wyoming. When a gorgeous, whip-smart Asian American woman moves into town, he immediately falls for her; the only problem is that she only dates white men. In this savagely funny and often-moving re-telling of Edmond Rostand¿s Cyrano De Bergerac, one man must choose allegiance between his cowboy friend (a dim, handsome, Caucasian P.E. teacher named Del) and his Asian Brother-with-a-Capital-B (crazed, militant Asian of Unknown Origin, Chester). He must choose between the Asian American and the American within himself ¿ between Cowboy and Samurai ¿ in a pursuit of a love that may only be as real as the love letters he writes for someone else.

The time of the Samurai in ancient Japan was unique and violent; a life filled with tradition, honor, and legend. Throughout many centuries of war, the Samurai developed one of the most revered weapons of all time -the Samurai sword. They lived by a code of honor known as Bushido: Way of the Warrior, that still stands true in Japan today. With unique 3D animation, ancient Japanese woodblock prints come to life. Soul of the Samurai is the story of their life and of a culture unfamiliar to most of the Western world. .

Seventeen-year-old Jake Lonestar is a student attending Amarillo High School in Texas. Jake wishes he were just a normal American teen with a lot of friends and maybe even a cute girlfriend. But Jake's adolescence is far from normal due to a incident in his youth that left Jake with supernatural powers: with a single touch, Jake causes everyday electronic devices to morph into murderous robotic machinery. Because of this, Jake has earned a reputation with his classmates; they see him as a freak.When aliens abduct Jake's family from the Lonestar Ranch, an eccentric adult toy inventor named Dr. Valery Dax appears. She claims to be Jake's aunt and takes him to New York City with her. Dr. Valery wants Jake to join the Samurai Superheroes Force (the SSF for short) and partner up with smartass hacker and veteran superhero, Mr. Suit. Dr. Valery has equipped the SSF with genetically engineered warhorses and living-metal swords in order to combat the newest threat in New York's underworld- cyborgs. But when Jake is still not impressed, Dr. Valery sets one of her sex droids to “persuade” him. However, with Jake's power, one touch to the android and she ends up evolving: developing free will, a wicked personality, a foul mouth and a serious chain-smoking problem! Strangely enough, Jake finds this all pretty hot. Can a perverted, lazy coward like Jake Lonestar really become a superhero? Find out as Jake Lonestar battles cyborgs, befriends quirky aliens, seduces androids and tries to find the courage to live up to his new superhero name: Cowboy Samurai.

In the writing on men and masculinities there is a pervasive sense that the essence of masculinity has somehow been lost. While often attributed to the angst-ridden exaggerations of privileged white men, the notion that masculinity has become synonymous with loss is a global theme and this perceived loss has contributed to the ubiquitous sense that masculinity is, or has always been, in crisis. For American and Japanese men the loss of an ideal masculinity is invariably connected to the loss of the cowboy and samurai as replicable and dependable archetypes of masculinity. I have responded to the crisis of masculinity as a social and cultural phenomenon. It is experienced and responded to by men and women, and it is reflected in and developed through the narratives of cultural artefacts such as film. Through close analysis of film texts informed by interdisciplinary research I argue that the crisis of masculinity experienced by American and Japanese men is informed by the complex and precarious bilateral relationship between the United States and Japan that finds an acute expression in the interactions between cowboys and samurai on screen after World War II. I focus on cinematic cowboys and samurai in particular because of the unique position both archetypes hold in the history of the bilateral exchange between the U.S. and Japan, and also because of their centrality to the national cinemas that participated in this exchange.

"With his easily readable and entertaining style, Hillsborough does a great job of elucidating the complex customs that ruled Edo Period life and politics. --The Japan Times"