Kara Murat: Fatih'in Fermani

This fantasy action film could only star Cuneyt Arkin. After all, he was `The Man Who Saved the Earth' (aka the Turkish Star Wars). Looking like an older James Dean and acting twice as intense, Cuneyt Arkin stars as Adam Costa, a loyal but disgraced soldier seeking to revenge the murder of his mother (and her whole village). It starts of seriously enough, but when people start jumping on rooftops 'Six Million Dollar Man' style the film loses all credibility. Along the way Adam saves a princess and falls in love, rejects a red haired witch, gets captured and blinded (a recurring theme in Arkins films), is forced to kill his best friend, miraculously regains his sight and defeats an entire army of Sinbad lookalikes by jumping on their heads! The plot is often incomprehensible, but luckily for us there is always another action scene around the corner. Unfortunately for us, as a fighter Cuneyt comes off a bit stiff.

This is the best kind of B movie. Everyone involved in the production must have had a whale of a time putting this together with the meagre production values available. The entire film seems to be shot on location, as we get to see every corner of the castle they were allowed to film in. The costumes appear to be rented from some cheap party shop (at one point Cuneyt even wears a Prince Charming costume). Who needs an original score, when you can borrow music from Hollywood productions, most notably John Barry's `The Lion in Winter'.

There are lots of experimental camera angels, cheap effects and a whole lot of eyes being poked out (after all, Adam has to take revenge for what they did to him). It gets rather bloody at times but it all looks so fake that you cannot help but be amused. Cuneyt gets hit by arrows more than any other man in this film, but keeps on fighting anyway. Also note that Turkish actors are masters of the exaggerated death scene. The way people perish in this film has not been seen since the silent era. Best of all, the public loved it and to this day Fadih Sultanin Fermani is a popular video rental.

A fabulous 4 out of 10

Sultan Khan of Turkey has fallen in love with Princess Iren of Byzantium. When he asks her father Niktol for her hand he refuses and tries to kill Khan. The Sultan's armies then attack and overtake Constantinople (now renamed Istanbul). Niktol kills Princess Iren and flees with his army to the island of Lesbos. From Lesbos, Niktol launches a series of ruthless attacks on Turkish villages resulting in the death of one of the Sultan's guard's mother. The guard, Murat, is sent by the Sultan on a mission to avenge his mother's death and bring back the head of the man who killed Iren. Murat goes undercover in Lesbos posing as Royal Guard Kostas, seeking the killers.

This film comes from a time when Turkish cinema was booming (at least within Turkey). The lead actor, Cuneyt Arkin, was a huge star within the country. Many of the Turkish films were very cheap ripoffs of American films - for example "The man who saved the world" used scenes from Star Wars, while Rambo was 'remade' in Turkey. This film is not quite as bad as that (although it does music some of the score from Patton: Lust for Glory), however the fact that it was very cheaply made shines through in every single area.

The plot however is actually pretty good and holds the interest well however the other values take away from it. First of all the acting is terrible! I said Arkin was a star I never said he was any good. It's full of heroic stands and evil stares to convey character, the camera doesn't help by zooming in on people's faces etc. The whole directing and editing is terrible - it's very badly cut and jumps uncomfortably between scenes, within scenes with music and action very poorly blended (eg the score just stops regularly). This carries on into the fight scenes, where swords and arrows suddenly appear in people's bodies and they fall down screaming. The fight scenes are also a bit ridiculous, many feature Arkin clearly bouncing around on a trampoline just out of shot, others see him taking on armies single handed. The fights are terrible by even 1970's standards - armies run at our heroes one at a time to allow him to dispatch them with a single blow, one at a time. Only one fight is good, it blends comedy in much the same way that Jackie Chan does in his fights. However the majority of sword fights feature rubber swords and terrible fake blood.

Overall this is of interest as the Turkish film industry no longer exists as it did then. In fact many of the films have been destroyed and the silver extracted from the negatives. As a film it has a good story but is so cheap that it's hard to see past the wooden performances and effects.

admit it..You can never watch any sword scene funnier anywhere,even if the actors try to do their worst. A one man army conquors a whole empire alone by jumping around,even more hilarious when it is not meant to be hilarious.The scenes jump to one another as if they were in a hurry to finish the movie.Gotta love the colorful costumes also ;)

I would also suggest to watch the turkish movie "The Unforgettable Director of Romantic Movies" starring Sener Sen also,which is a dramatic-comedy,where a director cuts a lot scenes from his movies cos he's short on the film.Reflects a lot.

I always like to see off the beaten track cinema, and Karamurat is some way off even what I would term the beaten track. A Turkish historical adventure, it deals with the conflict between Turkish and Byzantine forces, with Turkish warrior Karamurat as its hero. On a mission of vengeance after evil Byzantine behaviour, he ends up beating, slicing and at times stabbing his way through an impressive quantity of foes, bringing laughs and occasional excitement. The film runs out of steam a little before the end but for the most part keeps up the right level of amusement, oddity and occasional inspiration. The sets and costumes are fairly impressive and there are a good number of extras, though the budget is clearly low the film has a nice sense of scale. Action is frequent though never especially well choreographed and the film relies on its star, Cuneyt Arkin to hold things together. He has a suitably tough physical presence and a good glower, he can swing a sword around OK and convinces somewhat as an action hero, so keeps things going OK, even at times where the action is really lax. There isn't much in the way of gore or outrage sadly, save mild bloody moments from the odd arrow and some of the slicing. What's there is pretty amusing though, especially in the climax. The lack of any nudity is a downer as well, it's the sort of film that could have done with some to boost its trashy credentials. This said, with the emphasis on the Turks being Muslims and occasional display of ceremony perhaps that sort of thing was never going to be on the cards. The inherent interest of seeing a film where Muslims are a force for good (relative to the films world at any rate, they at least aren't as sneaky as the Byzantines) at least slightly makes up for the lack of sleaze I guess. Director Natuk Baytan keeps things going pretty well, I wouldn't call his work inspired but it certainly does the job. Fights are perfectly visible, editing is deployed mostly in the service of fantasy rather than as a tool to make the fights look more impressive, an OK if ineffectual effort is clearly visible in distracting from more notably inept moments, its fair work. There are obvious pulled punches, rubber swords and bits where stabs or slices aren't connecting with their targets, but its good fun in an amateur sort of way. I kinda like being able to see the joins (as it were) in films like this, it may not do well for suspension of disbelief but its just plain fun to me, the amateurish artifice full of good intention if not ability. To many, this will just be too cheesy and badly done, and its not quite mental enough to be a true bad cinema classic, but I still had a pretty rocking time with it, so 6/10 or so.