I was resistant to the charms of this 80’s adventure film for years. I always saw it as the cheapjack film made to try to beat the first Conan film into theaters and dismissed it as a mess of hackwork. And that is a fairly apt description of the film if your focus is on sillier elements. No, it isn’t as well produced as the famous Schwarzenegger film but it has its own real joys that can often surprise you. I rewatched it about ten years ago and found myself far enough away from my younger self’s sneering dismissal that I really appreciated it. It is far from perfect and it has the spastic structure of a story made up on the fly, but it feels like a sincere effort to make a modern peplum with no winking at the camera. I can respect that and I now count myself as a big fan of the film. Last night I rewatched it on the new Blu-Ray grinning and laughing the whole way through. True, I was sometimes laughing at the film’s failures but I find the effective bits far outnumber the misfires. For a long time I ignored this movie but now I fully embrace it.
2 comments:
Welcome to the club! I have loved this film since my first viewing on opening weekend. Yes, some of the acting is awful, some of the dialogue is lame, the editing can be confusing---but it does so much with its miniscule budget, and the cast is largely fantastic in their roles. A great score, a great leading man, humor, action. It's great fun, and easily better than any of the other low-budget sword and sorcery films from the '80s, IMO.
i loved this film when it first came out. so much so that i named my pet kitten Xusia after the Richard Moll character. i thought it was a great name. i also have the recently released blu-ray and hope to get around to watching it again soon.
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