Comme un lion

The Sword and the Claw (1975)

** (out of 4)

A King is brutally murdered so an assistant takes his young son and hides him in the woods. The young boy is raised by lions and when he reaches an adult (Cüneyt Arkin) he is thrown into battle against the man who murdered his father.

If you're unfamiliar with the world of Turkish cinema then sadly I'm not good enough of a writer to fully explain how bizarre and outrageous their movies are. If you thought Edward D. Wood, Jr. and Jerry Warren were bad filmmakers then the next time you view their work you might put them in the same league as Hitchcock and Kubrick. I say that because films from Turkey have gained a reputation for being some of the worst ever made and that certainly fits THE SWORD AND THE CLAW.

Technically speaking, this movie deserves a BOMB rating unlike any other. There's honestly not a single good thing to be found here. The performances are beyond awful. The dubbing makes those old Godzilla movies seem like masterpieces. The music score is embarrassingly horrific and doesn't fit anything in the movie. There's a really awful screenplay and even worse is the editing, which is perhaps the worst I've seen from any movie. All of these things makes this one of the worst movies ever made but.... We're talking Turkish cinema and this stuff helps make it entertaining.

Yes, this film certainly fits into the "so bad it's good" category because there are some major laughs to be had here. All of the stuff I mentioned will make you laugh as long as you enjoy these types of bad movies but where the film really comes to life is in the final ten-minutes when it's an all out assault as the "lionman" goes full vengeance and takes out dozens of bad guys. The lion claws put on his hands are just priceless and adds a lot of entertainment value.

This film sure gets a lot of mileage out of Lionman clawing people in the face. This is a good thing, because right here is the best Turkish film I've ever seen. And I've watched about five of them!

Lionman becomes Lionman because his daddy was a nice warlord who won a battle and tried to broker a peace agreement with the opposing force, only for them to turn nasty and assassinate him. Lionman mother died in birth but luckily his uncle or somebody sneaks him out of the castle, but then sets him down to have a pee or something and by the time he comes back, some lions have gone and taken him. Hence: ManLion.

He's like Tarzan only he likes to tear people's faces open with his fingers. People can be smart and say 'Yeah? Who told him how to make and wear underwear?' but that probably just happened naturally after he friction burned his balls on those vines he keeps swinging on. Years later, he's all growed up and so is his half-brother, who works for the evil warlord and thinks the warlord is his dad, and vice versus. If only the evil warlord has looked, just once over the last twenty years, at his 'sons' back and noticed the tattoo that all children of the nice warlords have. It's like a lion drawn with a biro by a drunk person.

Lionman gets caught up in all the crap with the evil warlord and the rebels when he rescues some guy by tearing everyone's face off, but then he also saves his half-brother from the rebels. Eventually, he does end up on the rebels side, being taught English and spending his spare time clawing people in the face.

The thing that's great about this film is that a huge fight erupts every couple of minutes which usually involves Lionman jumping up in the air and clawing at people's faces until they fall over all bloody. In the last battle alone he must do it to about one hundred extras with his iron claws. Did I say iron claws? He ends up with them because his real face-clawers get melted with acid.

Endless fun from start to finish. Daft too, like all the trapeze equipment that appears in the evil guy's castle so Lionman can do stunts. I nearly forgot to say that Lionman's roar is hilarious!

Cüneyt Arkin is the godfather of Turkish Trash - or Turkploitation, as some might want to call it. His performance alone is worth seeing this incredibly funny movie about a baby, who gets raised by lions after his parents were killed. Surely he develops superpowers that should be helpful in avenging his parents deaths...

You think this sounds familiar? Well, forget everything you´ve seen, cause when Cüneyt strikes, nothing will be the same. His ways of getting rid of his enemies make Steven Seagal look like the easter bunny. With the power of a lion in his hands (???) he does severe damage to the stupid faces of hundreds of extras. But the greatest thing is his way of moving around: In the final 20 minutes of this little gem Cüneyt barely touches the ground. You see him flying around like there´s no tomorrow (with the catapults just out of the frame). I´ve never seen anything like this before - it´s like watching a rabid dog (frog?) in a drug frenzy thirsting for blood...but you´ve to see Cüneyts silly face. One of the funniest films I´ve ever seen

A nice and involving tune takes you along while Lionman (which is a big boy with stupid gloves which he wears when he wants to use his "powers") and his fellowmen. He must rescue the ugly princess passing the Dead Man valley.

He nearly cannot speak and uses a stupid expression all the time , not speaking of the utter cry he cast whenever he gets angry for something (lions roars are being heard in the same time). He was grown up by lions in the forest and this gave him "great" powers , which are those of using his stupid hands with gloves when he wants to fight or climb. A must for trash.

Hilarious film, I had a great time watching it. The star (Cuneyt Arkin, sometimes credited as Steve Arkin) is a popular actor from Turkey. He has played in lots of tough-guy roles, epic-sword films, and romances. It was fun to see him with an international cast and some real lousy looking pair of gloves. If I remember it was also dubbed in English which made things even more funnier. (kinda like seeing John Wayne speak Turkish).