Le Retour du Barbare

Watching this I got reminded of my childhood and how I loved watching these types of movies. Swords and sandals I think they are called, with a touch of fantasy. And then I thought my childhood was all a lie. How could I have watched this and think this is any good? But reviews in general here have proved that this obviously is one of the weaker efforts. Apart from one praising this as being better than LotR - pure magic, especially because in no way is this explained. Not that you could explain it and sometimes you go with your gut feeling. But if you want to compare this with a "big budget" movie take Army of Darkness, not LotR which even if you don't like it plays in a different ballpark altogether.

Another reviewer of course, how many times can the hero of the movie be captured? The answer lies within this film. If that resembles to anything that makes sense for you: good for you. Just don't expect the majority to get it. Even when the movie tries to defend it at every way possible. "Stunts" are as if they were from a different era. When you could spot the stunt man doing the back-flips. It has its charm I guess. But there are a lot of other problems too. The inability to act, the script that if it even existed, is as terrible at dialog as it gets. You could go further and accuse this of sexism (more on the women side, but men get a bad rep from this too) and many other things. Prop swords that bend on papier-mache walls and so forth ... I'm beginning to wonder why I gave it a 2 right now ... but I guess I'm still a sucker for this

I'm a big fan sword and sorcery, and Throne of Fire in spite of being an extreme ultra low budget, i give him a reasonable 5 stars. "Throne of Fire", "Il Trono di fuoco" or even "O Trono de Fogo", its a European (special Italian) "Z" sword and sorcery\barbarian flick, like many others ("Sangraal, la spada di fouco", "Gunan il Guerriero", "Sorceress", "Ator 1 and 2", "Deathstalker", "Ironmaster" etc, etc...), full of bad actors, bad script, special effects and soundtrack, but this one, i don't know why, its enjoyable to me see it. I recommend this one for big, big fans of sword and sorcery flicks only..

But one thing i must say, this one is much better then the films i refer before, with the exception of "Sangraal la spada di fuoco". In "Throne of Fire", we have the amazing Siegfreid ( Pietro Torrisi aka Peter McCoy)the hero and the gorgeous Princess Valkiri (Sabrina Siani) the heroine, then we have the fabulous bad guys, the personification of Satan and terrible warlord, Morack, and his general, Tares!!

Well, if you like this movie, i recommend: "Sangraal, la spada di fuoco", "Deathstalker" and "Gunan il Guerriero"(one of the worst)

There is something quite attractive about those Italian rip-offs. Everything seems to be more dramatic but will less talent. Throne of fire sure is one of those. You get everything you paid for, cheesy lines, inept acting, boring sequences after boring sequences and probably the worst villain ever.

If you're into those kind of films, you'll get what you're looking for and much more. The "pit of madness" scene, whatever is it called was hilarious, a classic Z-grade moment. Personally, I got a kick of watching this, just a glimpse of the cover art and I knew I was in for something "memorable".For the rest, quite a crap fest with some weird entertaining scenes but nothing good really.

My review was written in June 1986 after watching the film on MGM/UA video cassette.

"The Throne of Fire' is a very ordinary Italian fantasy adventure cranked out in 1982 with the same cast and virtually the same plotline as a dozen other pictures at that time. Cannon pickup bypassed U. S. theatrical release to debut on video cassette instead.

Peter McCoy (real name: Pietro Torriso) toplines as Siegfried, a muscleman destined to save the world from evil, latter personified by Moark (Harrison Muller), the on of the devil's messenger Belial (also played by Muller) and the witch Azira.

For evil to continue to exist in the world, Morak must take the title throne "on the day of the night in the day" (another cornball eclipse coming up). To qualify, he must marry beautiful blonde princess Valkari (Sabrina Siani), daughter of King Egon who recently died. To sit on the throne without qualifying means instant death as it magically generates flames.

Imbued by his sorcerer father with invulnerability (except for a susceptibility to fire), Siegfried also get the temporary use of invisibility, just like his legendary namesake of "The Nibelungen" saga. Sluggishly paced low-budgeter has okay sword fight action but little else. The uncrowned queen of the genre, Siani (who made at least seven such films in 1982) is an athletic, intense beauty who deserved to graduate to better roles. She co-starred with the wooden McCoy in "The Sword of the Barbarians", which Cannon released theatrically in 1983 and the much sexier "The Invincible Barbarian" (released here on video cassette only). Co-star Muller (of "2020 Texas Gladiators") is funny with his rapidfire (self-dubbed) dialog delivery.

This cheapjack Conan rip-off is so mightily inept that the villain actually comes off appearing more sympathetic, interesting and intelligent, not to mention handsomer, than the hero. Surely this was an unintended consequence of the poor script and bad acting, the seemingly lumbering stupidity of the wooden muscle-bound hero and the obligatory trotting around cardboard sets in g-strings by these supposedly heroic do-gooders. This makes the Conan and Beastmaster films look like Ben-Hur and El Cid in comparison. The only (accidental)redeeming feature is the striking presence of Harrison Muller, Jr. as Morak a surprisingly appealing "bad guy." Both his person and his character stand out, perhaps largely due to the colossally boring nature of those around him. It's hardly his fault that he was warped by destiny as the plot would have it...the viewer can't help but root for him to succeed since he's the only one of any interest or appeal on scene.