Duels could be interesting. And as far as samurai goes, there are two samurai base classes I know of.

The first (and my personal favorite) is the Oriental Adventures samurai, that gets a few less feats than the fighter, but some extra skill points, a better save, and the ancestral daisho they can enchant up at the first level.

The other one from Complete Warrior is just crap. Heavy-Armored Two-Weapon Fighter with nothing else really noteworthy aside an eventual intimidate as a free action.