Le Défi du Guerrier

Having not seen the previous two "Jaka Sembung" films yet, I found the anti-imperialist plot of this one easy enough to follow and well-intentioned, but slow and even dull at times. The fight sequences almost make up for that: I say "almost", because two of them are shot at night and it's VERY hard to see what's happening (at least on the current prints; maybe a remastered version would improve the situation), especially in the first one where the black-clad Ninja Girl takes on about a dozen of black-clad opponents. It's a shame, too, because in the second major fight scene, shot in broad daylight, it's clear that the Ninja Girl knows what she's doing. The fight quality is somewhere below the Hong Kong, but somewhere above the American, standards of the era. Some things that differentiate this Indonesian production is the inclusion of magic powers (that often prove to be the downfall of those who have them), a man who is fighting exclusively from the sitting-down position, and some memorably gory bits (face ripping). All in all, average martial arts fare. ** out of 4.

I'm not sure what this guy was thinking. I caught a late showing of this movie on lifetime, network for women, and I just didn't buy it. There was no good cinamatography, it was visually unstimulating, and poorly acted, the actors couldn't even speak english and it had to be dubbed. Even so the most obvious flaws in this film were in the writing. As if a warrior could defeat a ninja ever. No matter how good the warior was with swordplay he wouldn't even get close to the ninja. Because of 1 simple word, "Ninja Star."

The Superb Barry Prima stars in this second adventure at the folk hero "Jaka Sembung" this time he has to join forces with the man that the evil Dutch believe that they have sent to kill him, but little do the dutch know that their plans are about to be thwarted.

Not to be put off lightly the Dutch enlist the help of some "evil women" and a Spritual type and send them to kill Jaka and "bring his head on a platter" to the Dutch headquarters.

Things start too look bad for Jaka but with the help of Bergola he may just live to fight another day

A heady mix of super hero antics and good ole "revenge". Prima looks like the real thing and has a real presence on the screen and with the mix of film genres from Fantasy to Adventure makes this a entertaining ride thats gore soaked and action packed.