Scott Glenn sports a truly horrific bowl cut in his first leading role, starring alongside Toshiro Mifune in the Frankenheimer-helmed The Challenge. Featuring a score by Jerry Goldsmith and a supporting cast that includes Sab Shimono and Clyde Kusatsu, the film is a pretty solid action entry though it wasn’t the film Glenn and Mifune…
Tag: sword
Armour of God (1986) – Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan directs and stars in this romp that seems to be a bit of a nod to an Indiana Jones-style adventure. Shot across Europe it’s not quite as exotic looking as a Jones film, or a Bond film for that matter, but it’s fast-paced, has some goofy humour, and features solid iconic stuntwork. Asian…
Deathstalker (1983) – James Sbardellati
Deathstalker is pure 80s sword and sorcery, and while I’m all for gratuitous nudity, there is a lot of it, I don’t need all the rape, I don’t care what the thought process is behind it. It’s repugnant and doesn’t serve to tell us anything about the characters we didn’t already know. Setting that aside,…
Avatar: The Last Airbender – Book 3: Fire (2007) – Sokka’s Master, The Beach, and The Avatar and the Fire Lord
Sokka (Jack De Sena) is feeling left out when everyone else on Team Avatar has special gifts, abilities and fight skills. After discovering a fantastic sword in a weapons shop, he is directed to the great sword-master Piandao (Robert Patick) in Sokka’s Master. Written by Tim Hedrick, this episode first debuted on 12 October, 2007….
Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters (1968) – Kimyoshi Yasuda
Wow, did I have fun with this one. I had never heard of it, but I do love a lot of J-horror, and this one definitely had an interesting sound to it, a Japanese monster movie with practical effects, costumes and a touch of animation, what’s not to like? The monsters are allowed to show…
TIFF ’23: The Dead Don’t Hurt
Viggo Mortensen wrote and directed this Western drama that is filled with recognizable Western tropes but Moternsen neither completely rejects them nor subverts them, he simply uses them to fill out his story about an immigrant couple that finds themselves living and loving on the edge of a corrupt Nevada town in the 1860s. The…
Highlander (1986) – Russell Mulcahy
Highlander. Man I love this movie. I remember the first time I saw it. I had barely heard of it when I went to hang out with some new/old friends (story there for another time) and they put this movie on to wile away an afternoon. I was completely swept up in it, how cool…
Willow (1988) – Ron Howard
I remember the first time I saw Willow. I know where I was, and I remember how it swept me up in its narrative. I knew I had to see it the moment it told me it was from the imagination of George Lucas. I knew who Ron Howard was, but I was a teenager…
Goliath and the Dragon (1960) – Vitorrio Cottafavi
I move to Italy for the next film in DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies book as I explore the chapter on Dragons & Dinosaurs. Dubbed in English to reach the North American audience, this Italian sword and sandal (and sorcery) ‘epic’ follows Goliath (Mark Forest) who has his hands full as we join him…
Ulysses (1954) – Mario Camerini
Kirk Douglas stars in this Italian sword and sandals (and sorcery) epic that also features Anthony Quinn, and is the next film in DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies book as I explore the chapter on Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales. Using Homer’s epic poem as its basis, the film follows Ulysses (Douglas) on his…
The Mind Reels 