A piece of trash from Indonesia, this incredibly strange film charts the strange friendship of a blind swordsman (who actually uses a wooden pole more than a sword, but THE WARRIOR AND THE BLIND POLEMAN wouldn't have sounded as good a title) and a strange little guy who has big hair. The latter is apparently "Barry" (or Berry) Prima, an Indonesian cross between Jean-Claude Van Damme and Jackie Chan with a Rambo hairstyle. He starred in about a dozen Indonesian obscurities during the '80s, carving his own forgotten spell of movie stardom before disappearing back to wherever he had come from.
This is a film which gets weirder and weirder as it goes along. Most of it is just incredible non-stop action which has been inspired by the Chinese martial arts, with people flying all over the place and exaggerated sound effects all over. There is one stage, late in the film, where the paces flags for about twenty minutes as we watch the activities of a group of Indonesian amazon women - I figure they forgot the storyline at this point, or had some space to fill. It's certainly pretty boring, but events culminate in an enjoyably cheesy battle packed with explosions, where apparently they just decided to blow up the few sets that they had built with sticks of dynamite. Elsewhere we have a severed human head that turns into that of a goat, invisible people fighting, levitation, magic bolts that burn people, a snake pit into which a man is dropped, a woman getting impaled by a handful of rings (I didn't understand that one either), lots of invisible force fields (cheap, you see) and bad women that explode in mid-flight. It's one of those films that you watch and then wonder if it was just a bad nightmare after all.
The budget is poor and it shows throughout, with the special effects cheaply-done and limited (although they still manage to be fun). The film is not without gore but it's not for the gorehounds to watch, except maybe in desperation. The acting is non-existent, the poor dubbing saps credibility from the proceedings. However, the sheer scale of so-bad-it's-good entertainment counts for a lot here and it's so bad that it becomes oddly watchable and even a little fun, especially in spotting all the weirdness that comes from a film made by a society totally opposite to that of the west. A tacked on announcement (weirdly repeated twice for some reason) promises that the Warrior will return in THE WARRIOR AND THE NINJA - and I for one will be sure to keep an eye out for that film, as if it's anything like this then I'll be sure to enjoy it!
This is a film which gets weirder and weirder as it goes along. Most of it is just incredible non-stop action which has been inspired by the Chinese martial arts, with people flying all over the place and exaggerated sound effects all over. There is one stage, late in the film, where the paces flags for about twenty minutes as we watch the activities of a group of Indonesian amazon women - I figure they forgot the storyline at this point, or had some space to fill. It's certainly pretty boring, but events culminate in an enjoyably cheesy battle packed with explosions, where apparently they just decided to blow up the few sets that they had built with sticks of dynamite. Elsewhere we have a severed human head that turns into that of a goat, invisible people fighting, levitation, magic bolts that burn people, a snake pit into which a man is dropped, a woman getting impaled by a handful of rings (I didn't understand that one either), lots of invisible force fields (cheap, you see) and bad women that explode in mid-flight. It's one of those films that you watch and then wonder if it was just a bad nightmare after all.
The budget is poor and it shows throughout, with the special effects cheaply-done and limited (although they still manage to be fun). The film is not without gore but it's not for the gorehounds to watch, except maybe in desperation. The acting is non-existent, the poor dubbing saps credibility from the proceedings. However, the sheer scale of so-bad-it's-good entertainment counts for a lot here and it's so bad that it becomes oddly watchable and even a little fun, especially in spotting all the weirdness that comes from a film made by a society totally opposite to that of the west. A tacked on announcement (weirdly repeated twice for some reason) promises that the Warrior will return in THE WARRIOR AND THE NINJA - and I for one will be sure to keep an eye out for that film, as if it's anything like this then I'll be sure to enjoy it!