Amir Shervan

Amir Shervan , born Amir-Hossein Ghaffari (Persian: اميرحسين غفاری; May 24, 1929 – November 1, 2006), was an Iranian film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter.

Biography After studying theatre in Pasadena, California, he returned to his home country, Iran, and had a prolific cinema career that began with Parviz Khatibi's 1949 film Vaareite Bahari (واریته بهاری). all the way to his own directorial debut Torkaman.

As a result of the Iranian Revolution, many Iranian films were censored or "purified" by the government, making it difficult for any films without a pro-Islamic angle to be made. This halted his filmmaking career, so he relocated to California in 1980. Between 1980 and 1987, Shervan worked to build his production company, Hollywood Royal Productions, where he aimed to make American action films, taking influence from other massive hits of the 1980s, primarily Lethal Weapon.

From 1987 to 1992, Shervan produced and directed several action films including Hollywood Cop, Killing American Style, and Samurai Cop, which starred Matt Hannon and Robert Z'Dar. Many of the same locations are used throughout his films. For example, the estate that the majority of Killing American Style is set on, is the same building that the climax of both Samurai Cop and Hollywood Cop is set at. Shervan was known to cut the budget in other places, such as filming all of his movies during the day to avoid buying lighting equipment to use for the night sequences, or using his own production van for car chase sequences. 1988 Killing American Style 1989 Young Rebels 1990 Gypsy Co-written with Carol Dickey 1991 Samurai Cop