Gunan il guerriero

While at the video store a while back, my friend and I stumbled across this gem. And man, is it terrible. This is probably the worst movie I've ever seen, but it's so darn funny.

As you can see from the other user comments posted, this movie is chock full of awful stuff. Obviously, the English dub is horrible, but it's to be expected from a film of this ilk. Even worse are the endless voice-overs at the beginning and ending of the movie. The action scene's are some of the funniest you'll ever see, given that they're all done entirely in slow motion (Watch for the crushing "death blow" Gunan gives at one point where he simply slaps his foe across the back with his sword).

My friend and I believe that the film had to have been directed by two different people, given the drastically different first and second halves of the movie. In the first half, we see the competition between Gunan and his brother to see who is the most "invincible" of the barbarians. Suddenly, the movie turns into Lenne running around topless for the rest of the film, with some strange subplot about a tribe of female warriors which turns into the main battle scene and climax and whatever other garbage the "second" director wanted to toss in. You be the judge.

If you have watched such a movie as "Ator, the invincible" directed by Joe Damato and you think that was bad(and it was)just wait to watch this. I can assure you that this was twice worse than that. The pace of the movie is always slow as a turtle and the battles are all filmed using slow camera, even when the guy is running sometimes they use the same slow camera, What´s the reason for that? Apart from this, special effects are very cheap and the funniest thing about this disaster is that the plot tries to show Gunan as a kind of Christ antecedent and they even say that his word was later used by a very brave king in Camelot(King Arthur, as you can suppose) so Excalibur was a long time ago the sword of a guy called Gunan, what an interesting revelation... But I prefer not to comment anything more about this turkey, in Spain i think it is impossible to find and if you live in other place and you see it at the video store, just avoid it. I give it a 1, and because I laughed sometimes.

When twins survive the Ungat horde raid on Solmen and are brought up the Kuniats, as adults they compete to become Zukahn, an invincible warrior prophesied to free the land from Ungats. However, when things go awry Gunan takes on the formidable enemy himself.

The Invincible Barbarian or Gunan il guerriero is one of the first Italian Conan the Barbarian cash-ins. Director Francesco Prosper's outing suffers from all the shortfalls that many of the Italian low budget film at the time, ungainly sound design, camera work, editing and staging. Prosper's overuse of slow motion and other speeds really hampers the film further, along with the countless long and medium shots. That said, there is a handful of memorable visuals, including a beach filled with a tribe of Amazon women and a spacious fire lit cave.

Written by Piero Regnoli there plenty of slashing and sword action, however, it's plodding Roberto Pregadio's heavy handed music does inject energy into the picture. The real locations offer atmosphere and grit. The craftsmanship on the production, from the sets to weapons and costumes are well produced.

Lead Pietro Torrisi looks the part as Zukahn / Gunan, in fact uncannily he looks just like He-Man if he walked out of a frame of drawn celluloid. Top billed Malisa Longo's Marga who gets more dialogue than you can shake a stick at. Emilio Messina's Nuriak is menacing enough. Sabrina Siani as Lenni who steals the third act. Siani is undressed as the script dictates but she has screen presence. Uncomfortable rape scene aside, Siani injects some much needed life into the proceedings but is sadly underused with no real action scenes, aside from a torture device escape.

Ultimately, it not as watchable as Ator, the Fighting Eagle is a (1982), both Torrisi and Siani presence isn't enough to cement this a must see (but don't fret they both get another stab at the swords and sandals sub-genre in The Throne of Fire, Il trono di fuoco (1983)).

I think somebody bought a video camera and decided to make a barbarian movie. Some of the "swords" look like tin foil cut into a sword shapes. The acting is, well, let's not discuss that . . . The fights are ridiculous, they don't even pretend that the swords are really cutting people. However, this movie's heart is in the right place. Whoever made it set out to make a movie about a big guy avenging his people (I think that's what was going on) and they did. No pretense, no self-importance, no pretending that this is anything special. It was made and, I bet, the people who made it were proud of themselves for the effort they put forth. Watch for the guy who looks exactly like Adam Carolla.

Gunan (Peter McCoy) and his brother (Giovanni Cianfriglia) are raised by a tribe of amazons. It is prophesied that one day, Gunan shall free the land from the evil warlord Nuriak (Emil Messina), however the first time Gunan meets his enemy, he wastes so much time talking to Nuriak that the bad guy can summon help. This never would have happened to Arnie. Anyway, while Gunan recovers from this failure, he falls in love with stunning blonde Lenna (Sabrina Siani). When Lenna becomes a captive of Nuriak, a second attempt to fulfill the prophecy is due... and this time, Gunan is really angry.

Difficult to vote for this one, as it is on one hand one of the poorest productions in the genre I've ever seen, on the other hand it is so funny sometimes! Gunan's enemies die without a drip of blood when he hits them slowly with the flat side of his sword. And then there is one extra eye-candy star for Sabrina Siani. "Gunan" director Franco Prosperi was producer of her previous movie "Mondo Cannibal" which looks like a masterpiece compared to this mess, though.