It starts like Spanish soap opera with our hero and his teacher talking at the dinner table. Next the evil Spanish conquistadores who have taken over the Philippines are pillaging and raping. They stop at our hero's home to collect the extortion payment.
As a hard core fan of martial arts movies of the golden age from 1967 to 1984 I accept there is a lot of bad along with the good in these movies. I can accept or put up with a movie with little or no plot, one dimensional characters with no development, over-acting, goofy dialog dubbing and other cheesey things that would make most viewers turn it off. There is a general rule that the better the martial arts the more cheese that can be tolerated.
One thing I do not tolerate is bad martial arts. I have practiced kali, arni, escrima, whatever you want to call Filipino stick fighting. The stick fighting here is rather basic but authentic. I have also practiced fencing and the fencing in this movie is similar to what a child would do with a long pointy stick. Fencing is a sport not a martial art. It was invented so that male adults could play with swords and not get hurt or killed. Three kinds of swords are used. The epee and foil are both long with pointed ends. They can only minimally be considered as weapons. The only attack is a thrust and the only damage it could do to an opponent is a stab. In a real fight such a stab, even if to the heart, is unlikely to stop or even slow down an aggressive attacker. The saber is the most recent addition to the sport of fencing. It has a true blade edge and the tip is a knife not a pin point. In a real fight the saber could dismember or kill an attacker.
If I had to choose between using an epee or foil in a real fight against a skilled fighter or picking up a chopstick I'd use the chopstick. The use of fencing techniques and weapons in this movie annoyed me way beyond any of the cheese.
My copy is a digital file made from a VHS recording of a television broadcast. The original dialog is English.
I do recommend this movie for hard core fans of the genre because of the Filipino stick fighting. This style is rarely seen in these movies and here it is presented authentically although rather basic and slow. I also think Filipinas are the most beautiful women in the world and there are many to look at in this movie.
