Sangraal

My review was written in September 1983 after a Times Square screening.

"The Sword of the Barbarians" is a chintzy Italian imitation of "Conan the Barbarian", one of dozens of pasta fantasies ground out recently. Cannon pickup (released independently, not part of the MGM-UA distribution deal) is minus the novelty of fantastic special effects which could earn it much of a following theatrically.

Story has Sangral (Peter MacCoy), son of Ator, uniting his tribe of peaceful plains people in prehistoric times with Belem's tribe, alfter saving Belem's foxy daughter Aki from an attack by nasties belonging to evil Naluk's tribe, Naluk is protected by the Golden Goddess, Rani (Sabrina Siani), to whom he makes human sacrifices, officiated by his set of hunchbacked priests. Rani, who periodically appears via cheap special effects behind the altar fire, has declared war upon Sangral, and in one skirmish Naluk's men kill Sangral's beautiful, platinum blonde wife Leni.

Strictly copying the format of the "Conan" film, Sangral vows to bring his wife back to life, and accompanied by Aki and an oriental friend Lee Wa Twan, he treks to visit a black magician Rudak to obtain the secret of rebirth. Rudak can't help but sends him instead on a mission to the Ark of the Templars, from which Sangral extracts a laughably oversize crossbow which shoots three arrows at once. Dull climax has Sangral dutifully wiping out Naluk and even the goddess.

Director credited as Michael E. Lemick tries to stretch his minimal budget with over-use of low-angle and wide angle shots but to no avail. Underpopulated picture features beasts that are actors in cheapest makeup imaginable and virtually none of the promised sorcery. It's just hand-to-hand battle nonsense in the vein of the Hercules and Maciste films of over 20 years ago. Peter MacCoy has the right muscleman build for the lead role and has appeared in several other local items including two "Gunan" features. Judging from the opening narration, his character here is apparently a descendant of the Miles O'Keeffe "Ato", though no family tree of prehistoric Italian schlock heroes has yet been charted. As the evil goddess, Sabrina Siani, also a vet of many of these pics, is an alluring personage, resembling the young Claudia Cardinale.

I've seen yesterday on a local Tv this movie and i can say that it is superb. It's better not only than Ator flicks,but also than Conan curse. Sangraal has got a lot of violence,action,fights;it hasn't got the absurdities of "Blade Master"(The ultra-bow has more sense than the hang-glider) and has got a lot of superb BREASTS SHOTS! I can say that Tarantini has made the better finish for this type of flicks. With the exclusion of Red Sonja, the entire group of sword an sorcery movies say on the finish the hero leave the heroine alone,refusing their love with the stupidest phrases that you can hear in your life ; well,in these situation the hero in question saves the girl(who seems like Caroline Munro) from collapse of the cave ,bringing her to safety. Sangraal DOES NOT cover girl's breasts and begins to kiss with her! And finally the hero shares his new horse with her(probably to go to make love otherwhere,so the heroine remains with nude breasts)!! I'm serious but this finish is the best that i have never seen for this genre of movies!!Brilliant,brilliant,brilliant! There aren't the massacres that we can see on other flicks,and this can make the happiness of those who love action movies with many survivors. I'm sad only for the death of Hal Yamanouchi... But i give to SANGRAAL 10 stars out of 10!! It's indefinitely better also to Deathstalker!

Ah...what have we here....yet another Conan The Barbarian rip off do I see?

Yes indeed and sadly not one of the better ones I might add.

Following the enormous success of the aforementioned pinnacle of the genre, it was inevitable that the market would be flooded with cheap cash-ins.

Now if there's one country in the world that seems to always be the fastest to leap onto any given cinematic band wagon, then it surely must be Italy.

And not just the fastest either, the Italian movie industry, especially in the late 1970's and early 1980's, was probably also one of the most prolific and could churn out seemingly hundreds of films on any given theme (the theme being usually dictated by what happened to be successful in Hollywood at the time) Take for instance the success of George A Romero's Dawn Of The Dead (which was released in Italy as 'Zombi') Within no time at all, enterprising Italian producers had released a whole slew of cheaply made (but often rather watchable) virtual copies of the film.

And so it came to pass (damn! - I sound like a Sword & Sorcery movie narrator now!) that with the remarkable success of Conan, Italian film producers, true to form, released numerous clones of their own.

Universally, all were woefully inferior to the original in pretty much every way and yet, one can't deny that there was a certain (cheesy) charm to many of them such as Joe D'Amato's, 'Ator The Fighting Eagle' starring one time Tarzan, Miles O'Keeffe.

Sadly Sword Of The Barbarians, whilst not totally without its merits, is hardly a particularly memorable entry in the genre.

There are all the usual trappings to be found here as in the other films of it's ilk i.e. topless maidens, torture and violent battle scenes (some of which are pleasantly gory) but overall this film feels distinctly lifeless.

It's a sad reflection in fact, that whilst watching this I found myself continuously looking at the video counter to see just how much more running time was actually left, as I was becoming increasingly bored with the unfolding on screen events.

Even the climatic battle between the hero and the main villain was handled in a rather hopelessly lacklustre manner.

Still, if you're a fellow fan of the Sword & Sorcery genre, then you'll no doubt want to see this and make up your own mind.

It's certainly not exactly a complete stinker of a movie (in fact it's quite amusing in a B-Movie sort of way), but it certainly doesn't warrant repeated viewings.

Seeking new land for his people a swordsman's wife is murdered by followers of the evil Goddess Rani. He vows vengeance upon the cult and journeys to the Ark of the Templars for a magic crossbow to exact his revenge.

Director Michele Massimo Tarantini's Sangraal The Sword of the Barbarian(s), Barbarian Master, la spada di fuoco (1982) is one of three swords and fantasy films to feature both lead Pietro Torrisi and also Sabrina Siani. The other two are Francesco Prosper's Gunan il guerriero, Gunan King Of The Barbarians or The Invincible Barbarian (1982) and Il trono di fuoco, The Throne of Fire (1983).

Here again, Torrisi looks uncannily just like live action He-Man as Sangraal. He does a more than competent job in the leads role, sadly he never gets a meatier script to test him. Blonde beauty Sabrina Siani's role is small but pivotal. Both blonde Margareta Rance as Lenna and Brunette Yvonne Fraschetti's Ati, daughter of a village leader fill the void. Xiomara Rodriguez is notable playing Rani, Goddess of Fire and Death, beautiful, vengeful and bloodthirsty who demands human sacrifice. Rani inexplicably needs to be topless, despite having a wonderful costume. Mario Novelli offers weight as evil warlord Nantuk. Sabrina Siani gets to give a wacky brief cameo performance as the temptress Goddess of Gold and Life in the final act.

Tarantini's basic story, Piero Regnoli's clunky screenplay with Ted Rusoff as dialogue supervisor features more of the same issues synonymous with the Italian produced sub-genre films. Editing, dubbing, sound design etc. That said, the costumes and props are well crafted, the locations especially the caves offer some credence to the production. The visual effects are bare minimum. Mostly smoke and mirrors. There's voiceover, horses, swords, nudity, skeletons snakes, severed limbs and sacrifice as Sangraal and Ati, joined by Hal Yamanouchi who plays an archer Li Wo Twan go about getting their revenge. Sandstorms and plenty of spear and sword action ensues as they tackle blind cave dwellers, morse code 'man monkeys' and other dangers.

Pasquale Fanetti's cinematography offers atmosphere. Alessandro Lucidi's editing is quite tight. Franco Campanino's dramatic music is fitting. Despite much of the poster art being misleading for this offering, those familiar with the genre will notice it's nothing new. To Tarantini's credit it's well put together compared to his Italian contemporaries of the sub-genre.

Ultimately, while the journey story isn't as fantasy filled as The Throne of Fire, it's one of the more rounded efforts of the Italian produced Conan, He-Man type swords and sorcery cash-ins.

This movie stunk. The English dubbing was horribly amateur, like some video company wanting a release in North America hired a bunch of high-school teachers to dub the film and did it in one try to save money at the recording studio. Ignoring the dubbing, the acting was completely off-key. Sometimes the characters looked like they were trying to get their lines over with after practicing a dozen times in front of the mirror, other times they were over-acting, it was the typical acting style you see in high-school dramas.

The choreography was a joke, not only can you tell it's totally fake with the lack blood and the bad acting, but what makes it funny is that they try to make it look real by moving the camera angles in such a way to hide the fact that they thrust the sword to the side of the opponent or to cover up the fakeness. The directing and photography is equally bad, the camera work is shaky, sloppy, and even out-of-focus at times.

The film shots were poorly set-up. They were at bad angles, frames, and positions. I'm sure the director knew this during editing, but they probably were operating on a miniscule budget, so they couldn't afford enough film and decent filming equipment. You can tell the budget is so small by the fact that they lacked enough decent props and backdrops, didn't have any special effects besides camera tricks, and had micro "villages" and settings that had the camera always close-up to hide this fact. Lastly, the music was completely cheesy, like it was made and composed for an electronic keyboard.

To sum things up, this movie is a completely forgettable, straight from film to VHS, watch-on-a-Sunday-afternoon-when-nothing-else-is-on-TV flick.