Le maître d'arme

This film is a really bad ripoff of " The Highlander" . Reincarnation and illegal fencing club. Something like that , it doesn't really matter. It's very , VERY slow moving. Oddly the action scenes are few and they aren't exciting or memorable. The movie does have some weird , bleak , depressing atmosphere. I don't know why. I've struggled to finish the whole movie and now I barely remember anything what happened. That is a sign of a REALLY bad movie.

What else ? There is a sex scene thrown into the movie , some gay subtext and bad acting from Lamas. That's it. Avoid it.

I give it 1/10.

(1992) The Swordsman ACTION

Straight-to-rental, written and directed by Michael Kennedy starring Lorenzo Lamas as homicide detective Andrew, who has an additional feature. It is that he has the psychic ability to either see the past or the future, depending on the circumstance. Like if he touches just a dead body, then he would be able to see how that person got killed, which is similar to the Christopher Walken character of "The Dead Zone", and if the person is alive he can either see other peoples fate including his own. Which the set up is as follows, where bodies are being found with no real identification, except that they all have one thing in common, that they were all killed by a sword. It is later learned that an illegal underground dueling operation was being practiced, which if the persons were to win a specific amount of matches ends up winning a sword belonging to Alexander the Great. Except that Alexander's sword was stolen from an old exhibit museum funded by a wealthy donor by the name of Stratos (Michael Champion), leaving with one security guard killed in the process. In other words, he would pay goons to steal his own sword intended for a display at a museum funded by him just because he also happens to organize an illegal underground dueling operation which he tries to entice Andrew to join. What's dumb is that theirs no stakeout, nor is Andrew going undercover wearing a wire to convict this guy for attempting to kill the manager of the museum, Julie (Claire Stansfield) or even a suspect with other peoples deaths. So the police would have Andrew and his partner watch her, since some people was trying to kill her before for stealing the sword, and may come back to finish the job. And of course, both Julie and Andrew click. If you've seen the (1977 film called "The Duellists", starring Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel, you will see how realistic those fights in that movie were in comparison to the fake looking sword fights in "The Swordsman". And as a guy who loves action movies, this movie is quite bad, even for someone who is as athletic as Lorenzo Lamas.

The legendary sword of Alexander The Great has just been unearthed. It is said to have been blessed by Apollo. Stolen before it can be made the focus of a museum exhibit it is now being used in illegal swordplay exhibitions and Det. Andrew Barrett is on the case. Det. Barrett has been having strange dreams and visions. Julie Wilkins the archaeologist who found the sword believes it is because he is the reincarnation of Alexander The Great. But can she convince Andrew before it is too late? Lorenzo Lamas makes both a believable haunted detective and a vengeful Alexander. A pre-Renegade Lamas is unbelievably masculine in straight black hair that hangs half way down his back. Michael Champion as the long lost cousin is the perfect foil for Lamas.

With the right cast where we don't just have Lorenzo and the pretty female lead this may have worked out better as the plot is enjoyable, not award winning by any means but I enjoyed this more than the Highlander movie with Sean Connery in it.

The whole time I'm watching this I kept wondering if Lorenzo's hair was as long as the character, if anything it kept giving me Samurai Cop type flashbacks. Though this is a far superior movie to that too.

One thing I didn't care for was the bad guy in it. It makes sense at the end but I felt they could have cast someone more menacing. If you're into low budget 90s films or martial arts films where the plot isn't complex and there's a decent amount of action you may enjoy this. At best this is a typical Lorenzo Lamas 5.5 out of 10.

Lorenzo Lamas stars as Andrew the reincarnation of "Alexander the Great" who receives visions to take on his long lost cousin Stratos (Michael Champion) in this stylish yet second rate knock off of Highlander. Some okay actionscenes but mainly it's a been there done that movie.