The Master Gunfighter is a film released in 1975 in Panavision, written and produced by Tom Laughlin, who also played the lead as Finley. The Master Gunfighter is mainly a remake of the 1969 Japanese film Goyokin, although the story revolves around a true incident in the early 1800s involving massacred Indians that occurred in the vicinity of Goleta, California. Plot In 1836 in southern California near Santa Barbara shortly after California became part of the United States, American settlers and the U.S. government discriminate against the Mexican landowners and frequently take their land by force or legal skullduggery. Wealthy Latino ranchers whose land and wealth are at risk decide to misdirect a U.S. government ship carrying gold so that it will be wrecked and plundered. To prevent themselves from being caught, they plan to massacre the local Chumash Indians. The hero is the now-estranged adoptive son Finley (Tom Laughlin), a master swordsman and gunfighter, who tries to prevent this while still saving his family. Cast Tom Laughlin as Finley Ron O'Neal as Paulo Lincoln Kilpatrick as Jacques Geo Anne Sosa as Chorika Barbara Carrera as Eula Victor Campos as Maltese Hector Elias as Juan Burgess Meredith as Narrator The director was Tom Laughlin, but officially the director credited was his son Frank (in 1975 he was 9). Critical reception Film critic Roger Ebert was harsh in his criticism of the film, writing, "The movie opens with a long-winded narration, in a hapless attempt to orient us, but not long afterward the narrator has to break in again—we're lost already. It's all to little avail. I don't think there's any way an intelligent moviegoer could sit through this mess and accurately describe the plot afterward." Richard Eder of The New York Times wrote, "It is long, stilted, self-conscious, badly acted and boring. Apart from that, there is little to recommend it." Joseph McBride of Variety called it "[a] curious blend of amateurish plotting and slick production values," adding that "John Wayne never killed so many bad guys as Laughlin does in this film, and Errol Flynn at his most spectacular lacked the uncanny fighting skills Laughlin displays here. It's a throwback to an earlier age of swashbuckling, but the blend with contemporary bleeding heart attitudes makes the film seem hypocritical." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 1 star out of 4 and wrote, "'The Master Gunfighter' reminds