By Chris Jackson
Starring prolific Turkish actor Cüneyt Arkin (the writer of the 1982 cult classic known in the west as “Turkish Star Wars”), The Sword and the Claw tells the story of a young prince who is raised by lions after his father, the king, is murdered. Now a grown man, his unusual upbringing has given him the strength and prowess of a lion, and he uses his skills to jump, roll and swing around the countryside in his quest for revenge against the new king and his legions of soldiers.
Landing somewhere between Conan the Barbarian and Carry On Up the Jungle, The Sword and the Claw is a swashbuckling romp filled with high-octane sword fights, lo-fi bloodshed and overly dramatic deaths, accompanied by a really rather peculiar English dub that sounds like it was recorded by high-school drama students, which would surely be detrimental to most other films but here just adds to the overall weirdness. Often nonsensical and with much of the plot seemingly lost in translation, it’s certainly one of the more unhinged oddball movies to have come out of the recent 101 Films / American Genre Film Archive partnership so far.
A bonus full-length movie, the Korean Brawl Busters from 1978, brings some nifty low-budget kung fu action, snazzy sound effects and a fair few laughs to the extra features section, while a handful of particularly bonkers trailers from AGFA’s vaults give glimpses into the worlds of ’60s Italian sci-fi comic book superhero/spy Argoman, The Supergirl of Kung Fu, and “The Three Supermen” who embark upon some campy globetrotting adventures. Great fun all around if you’re the type of lunatic who enjoys this sort of thing!
