Lionman II: The Witchqueen

Being a fan of Natuck Baitan's hugely enjoyable & crazy biblical adventure film "Lionman", I just HAD to see this obscure sequel, which seems to be some kind of Turkish-American co-production. I guess the first film must have made some money worldwide since an American film crew decided to do a follow-up. I wasn't expecting it to be nearly as entertaining as the first one, but honestly, they could have done A LITTLE better than this disappointment.

The film takes off where the first "Lionman" ended. The Lionman have defeated the evil Antoine and reigns the people from the throne of his father Salomon. But even though he now has got a woman and child he can find no peace of mind in the civilization and longs back to his former life living in the wild amongst the lions. When the Lionman finally declares his retreat from civilization and gives the throne to his best friend, Antoine's equally evil son sees the opportunity to avenge his father and conquer the land. He also uses the aid of a scantily clad witch, who try to keep Lionman out of the way with the help of black sorcery and magical monsters, while his armies invade the peaceful country. And so Lionman and his merry men begins a dull, ultra-cheap quest to regain the throne and stop the evil sorcery.

That's right, this movie tries to be a mixture of an old time historical adventure film and a typical moronic 1980s sword and sorcery flick (the IMDb must have gotten the production year wrong since the film feels very mid-80s). The story is not bad and the movie might actually have worked with better photography, a more experienced director and better actors. The lead actor Frank Morgan is a poor replacement for turkeys number one action star Cüneyt Arkin, as he lacks both the charm and energy (not to mention the trampoline skills...) to make the role work. On the plus side the film has a medieval "Defenders of the Crown"-like synthesizer score run on repeat throughout the movie (just like the first film used the same classical piece in absurdum). Also, the films offers a lot of cheap sword and sorcery silliness, like swamp monsters and magical rings. Those things are always good, no matter how crappy the movie. My conclusion: Don't expect it to be on pair with the original "Lionman", in fact don't expect much at all, but if you've endured movies like "Thor the conqueror" and "Throne of Fire" you might as well see this one too.

If you love Turkish ripoff exploitation cinema of the 70s and 80s-most notoriously "Turkish Star Wars"-you have hopefully already found the original "Lionman," aka "Aslan Adam," known in some circles as "Turkish Tarzan." It is memorably goofy and energetic and ridiculous. It was also apparently a big success, because this sequel is comparatively "lavish," which by the standards of these movies means that they actually bothered to create original costumes and some actual sets and stuff.

Like "Lionman" it's also a laff riot, though surprisingly in creating a sequel they changed everything, most of all Lionman himself: He's no longer some swarthy Turkish guy but a very big, blond, beefy surfer-bodybuilder type who looks like Andy Gibb on steroids. Lionman still has a ridiculous "animal yell" (just some guy going "Arrr!", plus the sound of a lion's roar), swings on the occasional vine, and wears spiked boxer-glove "claws" (they look like giant oven mitts) but is otherwise less like Tarzan than Conan the Barbarian. And his adventures this time are much more in the sword-and-sorcery vein, particularly in that his nemesis is a beautiful "witchqueen" who's dressed like a total disco tramp a la early Grace Jones. Lionman's love interest is a big-nosed Shelley Duvall lookalike! Well, there's no accounting for taste.

There's a lot of beefcake (the witchqueen's right-hand-man is a buffed bald and bearded guy dressed in sort of a leather jumpsuit), horse riding, evil-spell throwing, spear tossing, comic-sidekicking (including a "muscle senior" called Chimp!), cheesy synth music, and hilariously dumb fighting action. This movie must have been made for the international market, since the terrible English dialogue ("Welcome Princess to the entertainment which you will so generously provide for us!") read on the soundtrack by very proper-sounding British dubbing actors actually more or less matches the lip movements of the on-screen actors.

I would love to know the story behind the making of this movie, since (at least according to IMBD) the director and lead actors seem to have never made anything else-they weren't even involved with "Lionman 1." Well, they sure made a memorable one-hit-wonder, even if most of them probably now hope the embarrassment is well behind them. The film ends with a teaser for "Lionman: King of Magus" (involving an evil ring a la "Lord of the Rings"), but alas, there is no evidence that movie was ever made. Too bad.