the 3 samouraïs

They were never really explained. My best guess would be that they were created from new technology to be used in the forthcoming "Easternworld" park, and were the forerunners of the Star Trek-TNG's "holodeck" characters: solid holograms. (Remember the moving chessmen in the "Futureworld" park?) The reason why they froze when Harry approached them might be that the hologram projector was programmed to freeze the characters whenever a tech got within range of them to prevent them from interfering with him while making repairs.

===
And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written:KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

No idea, but I loved the visual effect of them "rezzing" into existence via those triangular pixels. Very original and eye catching, surprised it was never used anywhere else.

Evidently Hollywood couldn't find three Asian men to play the role of the three samurai, despite a population pool of nearly one million Asians in metropolitan Los Angeles. So the producers hire three white stuntmen and pasted fake rubber eyelids over their eyes to make them look Asian and dressed all three in funky, neo-Asian-cum-Blade-Runneresque kimonos.

The movie didn't explain the construction of the three, pseudo Japanese samurai. They were obviously not holograms and they could be struck and knocked down. It was some odd, fascinating means of Star Trek-like replicator technology to create androids.

They just kind of materialize, very much in the tradition of Japanese ghost tales of undead warriors returning to avenge the living. Very imaginative, and good sci-do doesn't need to explain everything - unless you're an anal-retentive hack who demands "realism" in your SF - surely a contradiction in terms.

My word that has to be the worst scene in this entire crapfest of a film.

--------------------

Suburban Robot That Monitors Reality