Giochi di morte

"The juggers are coming!" is a shout that strikes both fear and excitement into the hearts of the villagers. These wretched people, living in the Mad Maxesque world of post-nuclear devastation will now have to defend the honor of their village by playing against a wandering band of Juggers.

This game is the centerpoint of the movie. It's a brutal match of American football and medieval warfare. Both teams will try to get a dog skull on a stake at the opposite ends of a small playing field. Only problem is that only a small, lightly padded player (the Qwik) can touch the skull, and all other players are armed with clubs, chains, mallets and bad attitudes.

Needless to say, the game can get brutal, broken bones and gouged eyes are common enough. But once the game is over, the real insights into the world this movie creates are made. There is no brutal rivalry outside the playing field, only a camaraderie that can stem from knowing what you both have been through. The winners are treated to a feast, no matter how poor the village, for the player's blood has brough some exitement into their otherwise dreary and hopeless lives.

I will not spoil the plot here, but needless to say, the young elements of the wandering band of Juggers, which is led by Sallow (Rutger Hauer), will not long be content to fight in backwater villages for little money and poor entertainment (a village of starving peasants can only provide so much).

On the technical side, this is not a brilliant movie, clearly made on a low budget, most of which was probably spent on actors. But movie itself is a great masterpiece, showing more and more of the "world" in which the Juggers live with every time you watch it. Small things will speak volumes and prove true the old saying: A picture speaks more than a thousand words.

Also the action scenes, while they do not contain the speedy cars and flashy wrecks of Mad Max, are still full of adrenalin and will leave thinking about why the game of Jugging is not played already.

Sand, scars and blood just about sums up Salute of the Jugger (the title for the full 104 minute version, not the 90 minute US "Blood of Heroes" cut). Salute is an unapologetically brutal story, perfectly cast, well played and very competently filmed. All the cast acquit themselves well; Hauer is suitably grizzled, and Chen manages (believably) to be cute, scary, vulnerable and savage all at once.

There's very little plot or dialogue in Salute, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The showcase here is the heart pounding Jugger matches, which are genuinely gripping and gritty action sequences, shown to a sparse percussive soundtrack that only very occasionally veers slightly too close to smug Americana triumphalism.

Top marks go to the stunt, makeup and continuity people. There are no Jackie Channish balletic combats here - faces smash open under brutal blows, and the face remains smashed in the following scenes. The wounds heal slowly over time, but the grimly realistic scars of the Juggers remain consistent throughout. Continuity is often underemphasised, as you only miss it when it isn't there, but there are no slip ups in Jugger despite its low budget.

One interesting point is the change of emphasis in the 90 minute cut. The title changes to "Blood of Heroes", and the message of "Salute" that there *are* no heroes, only winners who sleep in silk sheets, is diluted by ending prematurely on a victory high. In the full Salute, there's a frank message that for some, beyond "happily after after" lies more sand and scars and blood. If you get the choice, the 104 minute "Salute" is a more complete and consistent film.

It's difficult to adequately describe this amazing movie A truly remarkable film. It tells a simple story in a beautiful and brutal way. The writing stays out of the way and allows the story to be told with out getting gunked up with a lot of preachy dialogue. The performances by Hauer, D'Onofrio, and Chen are intense when they have to be and minimalistic when they ought to be. But the true genius of this movie is the production design. The details are what leap out at me. The little things. Everything seems right and nothing is out of place. The constant brutality is underscored by the moments of beauty and heroics. SEE THIS MOVIE

It was a while ago when I first saw this movie and watched it again recently. People might complain that it doesn't have enough dialogue, plot is not intricate enough, there aren't any special effects for a Sci-fi movie, and it is too low budget to be considered a good movie. But I'll say people who say such things, they don't really know how to appreciate a good movie or understand what a good movie is, because they are too used to modern day rubbish jam packed with special effects, explosions, unnecessary twists and horrible scripts.

I think everything is done just right in the movie and I especially love the way they give no sentimentality to the backdrop to the movie. No discussion of the past as to why the world they do jugging is the way it is and everyone in this world just get on with their lives in this gritty desolate world without any lamenting thoughts to the past.

I won't go into much detail, but all I'll say is just watch the movie and you'll be glad that you did. By the way, it seems like there are two versions which I didn't realise until I read the comments here and seems like the shorter version cuts out the ending. Since I thought the ending was very fitting I do recommend you watch the longer version, it just won't have the same impact without the proper ending.

I am surprised and delighted by the sheer depth of this movie every time I re-watch it. Not only is the jugger sport convincing, well-designed and very enthusiastically played by the excellent cast of actors, but the post-civilised (as opposed to post-apocalyptic) world it takes place in is both subtly drawn and entirely believable. Nowhere in the pithy script is there the usual heavy-handed sci-fi references to the nuclear war (or whatever) that reduced human-kind back to feudal barbarism. We are presented with the world of the juggers as-is, without a single "as you know, our society collapsed after the great firestorm in the sky" speech or a hint that the heroes of the title can improve mankind's sad situation as anything other than gladiatorial entertainers. A masterpiece that should be on DVD, converted into a computer game and, if they can get the original cast and production team together, sequelled.