The Sword And The Claw — The Sword And The Claw(Blu Ray)
This release appears on AGFA(American Genre Film Archive) who have also (fairly) recently uncovered & reissued the likes of The Zodiac Killer, and Effects. The region free Blu Ray comes in a clear case, and this features revisable artwork- with the poster for each of the two films on either side. Compared with the other AGFA releases I’ve seen the extras here are somewhat thin on the ground, taking in just a selection of trailers for other wacky ‘n’ weird martial arts/ action films.
So first up we have The Sword And The Claw( aka Kiliç Aslan) from 1975. This is a Turkish production, that at some point has been over-dubbed in English, and uses a host of familiar classical waltz in its soundtrack. The film is sort of a cross breed between Tarzan, 1940’s swashbuckling, lo-fi sword & sorcery, and bad period drama. The film opens with the kingdoms king been murdered in an act of treachery- his baby son and heir is hidden in the forest, where he is raised by a pride of lions. When grown the heir Süleyman Sah / Kiliçaslan( played by bulky Turkish action hero/ greasy heartthrob Cüneyt Arkin) has superhuman strength & a rather tacky clawed hand attack- he decides to take his vengeance against those who killed his father. And along the way we get into lots clumsy & jumpy fights( clearly using an off-screen trampoline), a cast dressed in what looks like a mix of kids plastic army helmets & ropy amateur-dramatic costumes, truly cringe-inducing dialogue, and badly placed fake blood. The films write-up suggests that Süleyman Sah has steel claws, but these only appear in the last twenty minutes. On the whole I felt somewhat underwelmeded by the film- as I was expecting maybe a 70’s take of Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky, but instead it’s mostly fairly tame & tacky action film with little 1970’s chesses. It only really (semi) goes where I was expected in the finale where we get arm rip-offs, people thrown through walls, and rapid face slicing.
The second/ bonus film here is 1978’s Brawl Busters (aka Sa-dae-tong-iue-moon ). This South Korean production has a very puzzling & confusing plot- which darts between a martial arts tournament, a revenge plot, and lots of similar sounding named characters. The film has a highly amusing dubbing on it which features both well-spoken British voices, and even English regional accents like cockney. You also get some wacky action sequences like a flying & wrap around veil attack, someone stuck in tar that poured down from a light fitting, while been attacked by buzzing & floating circular saws, and a character running through the top of trees. Once again there is not really much blood/ gore present, though at least the fights are fairly well choreographed & at times fairly exciting( unlike those in The Sword And The Claw). On the whole, I’d say that Brawl Busters is the more watchable of the two films, sure it doesn’t have a great crawl hand gimmick- but as a passable & wacky material arts film its good fun.
I guess how much you enjoy double headed release is down to what your expecting- if, like me, you were hoping for gory ‘n’ cheesy 70’s action fun- you’ll be disappointed. If though you’re here for campy, tame, action silliness- with amusing bad dubbing- you’ll enjoy what’s on offer here…personally, it wasn’t for me, but it might satisfy your action exploitation needs.