A Espada de Fogo

Having basically grown up with them, I admit to being a sucker for the cheesy sword-and-sorcery flicks of the early 1980s. However, this was one I had never heard of before coming across it – nor am I familiar with the work of its director, since he mostly dabbled in vulgar comedies…though I am sure some have nevertheless tried to build a cult around his resume' in view of his surname being similar to that of a certain American film-maker!

Anyway, this (originally intended as a sequel to Franco Prosperi's GUNAN, KING OF THE BARBARIAN released earlier that same year) is pretty much standard fare though marked by a couple of excesses that make it unintentionally hilarious. Upfront is the intermittent narration, which is so utterly downbeat and gravely-spoken to boot that I swear the speaker was on the verge of tears at times! The other is the sheer display of histrionics by the villain who frequently – and not always with good reason – takes to shouting out the hero's name at the top of his lungs; incidentally, his beef with him is merely because the latter has killed a number of his priests-cum-minions, thus thwarting an onslaught on a neighboring village…so I wanted to yell back at him: "Get over it already"! As usual, the protagonist is muscle-bound yet thoroughly bland: at the beginning of the film, he survives the obligatory extermination of a peaceful tribe; eventually, he leads the remaining members of the clan to a promised land (along the way to which, some have begun to despair and almost turn against him – sounds familiar?!); as if that were not sufficiently Biblical, the hero is named Sangraal which, literally, means "Holy Grail"!

He has a blonde girlfriend but soon also sets his sights on the daughter of the people he defended; conveniently, another assault sees the former killed…which the hero is forced to watch from afar while strung up (crucified, get it?). Rather than start life anew with his other girl and make life easier for all of us, he determines to bring the dead woman back to life (yep, they keep coming!) and seeks out a hermit-like sage with the help of an Oriental archer who comes out of nowhere but subsequently breaks our balls by incessantly spouting Charlie Chan-type aphorisms! Pilfering yet another fashionable mystic source, the villain and his men worship a topless goddess who lives inside a fire a' la SHE (just as bloodthirsty and constantly threatening her disciple when his every ruse to dispatch the hero inevitably fails!).

Later on, the protagonist and his two companions are attacked by blind creatures that live in caves and sport webbed fingers – maybe their tatty 'costumes' were borrowed from Sergio Martino's ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN (1979)? – before stumbling upon a secret weapon, an unwieldy arrow-shooting contraption that barely sees service thereafter! Eventually, hero and villain engage in a one-on-one by the sea, with the latter ending up impaled on his own dagger! Mind you, in spite of my disparaging remarks, one cannot really hate this type of juvenile (nudity and gore notwithstanding) fare too much – in fact, on the strength of this, I acquired two other minor efforts (albeit from American exponents) in this vein i.e. Jack Hill's SORCERESS (1982) and THE WARRIOR AND THE SORCERESS (1984), though I probably will not be getting to them just now...

Pietro Torrisi again doing of barbarian type CONAN. As in THRONE OF FIRE or THE INVINCIBLE BARBARIAN. Possibly this movie is the best of all the led ones for him. It is not bored nor kept woman. Simply they are adventures through, like CONAN'S comic-book. The script is not bad but much leaves that to wish, the actors not estan badly in I make concrete the protagonists' trio (the girl and the Chinesse) and SABRINA SIANI's brief appearance , typical in appearing in all the CONAN'S Italian developments (here she works out nake integral). The sets, makeups, wardrobe are pesimos (them same that italianadas as ATOR, GUNAN, THRONE OF FIRE ...) The battles are absurd and badly done, though they have something of gore and blood, in I make concrete and probably the better(best) of the movie, the scene in which the trio protagonist gets into a dark cave and they face men serpent (style WARHAMER FANTASY ROLGAME) well caracters , in a slightly bloody battle. Slightly boring, senseless of the humor and very serious. Only for fans of CONAN.

My review was written in September 1983 after a Times Square screening.

"The Sword of the Barbarians" is a chintzy Italian imitation of "Conan the Barbarian", one of dozens of pasta fantasies ground out recently. Cannon pickup (released independently, not part of the MGM-UA distribution deal) is minus the novelty of fantastic special effects which could earn it much of a following theatrically.

Story has Sangral (Peter MacCoy), son of Ator, uniting his tribe of peaceful plains people in prehistoric times with Belem's tribe, alfter saving Belem's foxy daughter Aki from an attack by nasties belonging to evil Naluk's tribe, Naluk is protected by the Golden Goddess, Rani (Sabrina Siani), to whom he makes human sacrifices, officiated by his set of hunchbacked priests. Rani, who periodically appears via cheap special effects behind the altar fire, has declared war upon Sangral, and in one skirmish Naluk's men kill Sangral's beautiful, platinum blonde wife Leni.

Strictly copying the format of the "Conan" film, Sangral vows to bring his wife back to life, and accompanied by Aki and an oriental friend Lee Wa Twan, he treks to visit a black magician Rudak to obtain the secret of rebirth. Rudak can't help but sends him instead on a mission to the Ark of the Templars, from which Sangral extracts a laughably oversize crossbow which shoots three arrows at once. Dull climax has Sangral dutifully wiping out Naluk and even the goddess.

Director credited as Michael E. Lemick tries to stretch his minimal budget with over-use of low-angle and wide angle shots but to no avail. Underpopulated picture features beasts that are actors in cheapest makeup imaginable and virtually none of the promised sorcery. It's just hand-to-hand battle nonsense in the vein of the Hercules and Maciste films of over 20 years ago. Peter MacCoy has the right muscleman build for the lead role and has appeared in several other local items including two "Gunan" features. Judging from the opening narration, his character here is apparently a descendant of the Miles O'Keeffe "Ato", though no family tree of prehistoric Italian schlock heroes has yet been charted. As the evil goddess, Sabrina Siani, also a vet of many of these pics, is an alluring personage, resembling the young Claudia Cardinale.

This movie stunk. The English dubbing was horribly amateur, like some video company wanting a release in North America hired a bunch of high-school teachers to dub the film and did it in one try to save money at the recording studio. Ignoring the dubbing, the acting was completely off-key. Sometimes the characters looked like they were trying to get their lines over with after practicing a dozen times in front of the mirror, other times they were over-acting, it was the typical acting style you see in high-school dramas.

The choreography was a joke, not only can you tell it's totally fake with the lack blood and the bad acting, but what makes it funny is that they try to make it look real by moving the camera angles in such a way to hide the fact that they thrust the sword to the side of the opponent or to cover up the fakeness. The directing and photography is equally bad, the camera work is shaky, sloppy, and even out-of-focus at times.

The film shots were poorly set-up. They were at bad angles, frames, and positions. I'm sure the director knew this during editing, but they probably were operating on a miniscule budget, so they couldn't afford enough film and decent filming equipment. You can tell the budget is so small by the fact that they lacked enough decent props and backdrops, didn't have any special effects besides camera tricks, and had micro "villages" and settings that had the camera always close-up to hide this fact. Lastly, the music was completely cheesy, like it was made and composed for an electronic keyboard.

To sum things up, this movie is a completely forgettable, straight from film to VHS, watch-on-a-Sunday-afternoon-when-nothing-else-is-on-TV flick.

The following review is an extract from the book "Sword and sorcery in cinema: Conan and other barbarians: A filmic guide", which is now available on Amazon.

"Sangraal is a mediocre but entertaining barbarian-exploitation that takes as its model the Conan of Milius. The script is quite dull and inconsistent; you can tell that it was written in a hurry and probably on the fly, without any intention of deepening the story (many subplots are started and then abandoned, for example the potentially interesting story of jealousy between Lenna and Aki is very much wasted).

Both the dialogues and the tiring voice-over of the narrator result in several unintentionally comical and even ridiculous moments: "The Forces of Evil only beget evil, but Good puts good before", the narrator solemnly explains. Another absurd and hilarious example is when Wang introduces himself to Aki and Sangraal. When the girl tells him her name, the Asian comments: "Aki, I like it; it's like sweet music" (!?). Wang's character, who with his "oriental wisdom" always has a "Chinese proverb" at hand, is a clear imitation of Conan the Barbarian's Subotai. Aki and formerly Lenna, brunette one and blonde the other, act as Sonja.

(...) Soon new challenges and missions appear: nothing less than finding "the Templar's Ark" (!??) - Let's not forget that this film is set in a magical and prehistoric time, long before our era.

Besides the armies of Nantuk, Sangraal and his comrades will have to face some "reptiloid" beings (it is never possible to see them clearly) in some underground tunnels and some primitive monkey-men (Cannibals?) in the thickness of the jungle.

In its Spanish version the film is called "La espada salvaje de Krotar" ("The savage sword of Krotar"), but this Krotar does not appear anywhere. He is only mentioned on one occasion very early on by the narrator (it is the king who expelled the people of Sangraal from their original lands). No doubt that misleading title was an idea of the Spanish distributors, who somehow wanted to associate the film with the popular comic book collection of "The savage sword of Conan".

Despite the film's many shortcomings, its soundtrack is more than acceptable; it has highly epic airs, no doubt inspired by the Carmina Burana."