Supermänner gegen Amazonen

This film is great, only in the bad movie sense.

Imagine if you will a film that allows a trampalining star to be the lead character. The amount of times we yelled "Yes we realise you can jump really high" was enormous.

It's not a good film, but enjoyable, sort of like an early attempt at the Scorpian King, only with no where near the budget.

All in all a film that MST3000k should have done at some point.

Jake

I've come to realize that I say this every so often, but this has got to be one of the weirdest, most incoherent and senseless movies ever made. You never know what to expect with a Shaw Bros production, but this "Amazons against Supermen" is like a mixture between dumb and brilliant. The opening credits already illustrate a collage of exciting and spectacular Superhero action guided by a rhythmic and catchy tune. This promptly sets the right mood, of course, but I've seen enough bad movies to know that promising credits unfortunately aren't a guarantee to steady entertainment. After that follows a long – but still fun enough – sequence showing some sort of gladiator tournament inside the barriers of an Amazon tribe. They have ingenious contests like archery dueling on stilts (!) and mud catch. Although you can tell all this footage is irrelevant and pointless, it nevertheless remains amusing to watch. Then it's time for the extended introduction of the three multicultural supermen. There's the enormous black guy who doesn't like to be interrupted when he's eating, the Asian expert in martial arts and a vainglorious white kid who has a throne in between two mountains and enjoys making loops when he jumps. The amazons intend to subject a whole village of poor suckers to slavery, but they're already under the "protection" of the aforementioned gay superhero. Even though the earlier sequences during the tournament raise the impression of being a serious and hardcore "action" movie, with bloodshed and sleaze, the tone and choreography of the later fight sequences tends towards slapstick. The seemingly improvised script comes up with the most bizarre stuff (Amazon women only go to war when the moon is full?) and the acting performances go from simply bad to downright insufferable. The only scenes that are properly acted are the romantic bits between the black superhero and the local school teacher (who just happens to be the only black girl in town). In fact, those parts were so believable that I assume these people where really in love. "Amazons versus Supermen" comes with a valuable morality lesson: it requires multiple interracial supermen to defeat a small army of aggressive women in bikini, so next time you get into an argument with your wife, don't even think for one second you stand a chance.

Wild Hong Kong-Italian co-production with a handful of US actors thrown into the mix as the mysterious centuries-old magician and protector Dharma (Landi) nurtures his young protege (Jordan) in the art of sleight of hand to perpetuate the illusion of immortality in the face of marauding Amazons led by statuesque Queen Longo.

Madcap fantasy blends peplum and martial arts stylings with cartoonish slapstick, even a blush of romantic blaxploitation with former Harlem Globetrotter Hannibal paired with Detroit-native TV actress Moody (each of the three 'supermen' conveniently colour matched with ethnically similar girlfriends of varying skill and plot importance).

The action sequences and stunt-work looks well orchestrated, whilst the Amazons are impressive physical specimens (Woods and Gille in particular) but the acting is mostly colour by numbers, and the tone awkwardly uneven failing to capitalise on the opening sequence in which the girl gladiators compete with one another to elect the next Queen (echoing Terence Young's Amazon women epic 'War Goddess'). Longo (who also appeared in 'War Goddess') and veteran spaghetti western heavy Pizzuti deliver the most watchable performances, whilst Hannibal generally looks at ease in a physically demanding role.

The version I saw entitled 'Amazons and Supermen' contains a few scenes towards the end in which the Italian actors' dialogue loses the English dub but if anything this improves their inane banter in a film that's better seen than heard (if at all).

Sometimes mildly amusing, momentarily faintly erotic, but mostly just tedious, it's disappointingly mild PG-grade material that may struggle to attract anything other than a young adolescent audience who even then might find it underwhelming. There's better (funnier or more erotic depending on your preferences) Amazon women pictures before you stoop to this one (e.g. 'Hundra', 'Women Gladiators' and the aforementioned 'War Goddess' are worth checking out).

So, if you want to watch a movie with 20 or 30 stunning women who know how to ride horses, this is the movie for you. Yes, it has a plot, and yes, there are some hilarious continuity errors, such as the stone quarry filled with heavy equipment tracks. But, it is good Italian slapstick, and nearly 50 years ago, when this movie was made, the world had not yet become obese. There is virtually no nudity in this film, but if you were around when this film was made, it's worth it just to bathe in the aura of a time when everybody wasn't overweight. Some of the scenes go overly long, and my copy popped in and out of Italian in some places, but I will definitely watch this film again in a few years.

Of course, it looks like a very bad film. But I can't believe people who made this film didn't know what they were doing. And dialogues are so ridiculous, we laugh at each word. Look at this film with friends, you're sure to spend a good time !