HEAVENLY SWORD (2014)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

Though there aren't many high-mythicity sword-and-sorcery works in the world of live-action movies, there seem to be even fewer in animation. This situation seems counter-intuitive, since animation in theory would allow producers to get around some of the expense of FX in live-action productions. And HEAVENLY SWORD, a CGI adaptation of a 2007 videogame, certainly looks better than the average animated magical-era fantasy. And for once, the characterization is much better than the average sword-fantasy. So why does it fall short?

I don't know what elements in the screenplay might have come from the RPG and which might have come from scripter Todd Farmer. Given that Farmer's career has not been that outstanding, it's not likely that he added much of his own to the mix. Still, unlike a lot of S&S/D&D animated flicks, SWORD actually comes to a decisive conclusion with respect to the main hero's arc, and that's nothing to sneeze at.

There's a novel idea at the core of SWORD, and it relates to the titular object. Thousands of fantasies have been built around the concept of a "miracle weapon" which is the only means by which the good guys can overcome the superior forces of the bad guys. But SWORD at least poses the question as to how even fundamentally good people might make bad choices in seeking to fulfill destiny.

The Heavenly Sword was previously used to rout an evil deity in the fantasy-verse, so there's no doubt as to how powerful the blade is. However, it contains a supernatural power that can burn out an ordinary person seeking to use the sword. The usual dire prophecy asserts that a Chosen One alone can master the weapon, but how does one find-- or make-- such a Chosen One? Lord Shen, whose warrior-clan has custody of the Sword, tries to beget a Chosen One by inseminating various mothers. But since Shen believes that the only possible champion must be male, he's distressed when his only two children are both female. Nariko at least grows up knowing that Shen is her father, even if he deems her a failure, but Nariko doesn't know about Shen's other attempts. She does grow up in the clan alongside a best female buddy, the eccentric Kai-- only to belatedly learn that Kai is her half-sister.

Then Nariko and Kai must go on the run with the magic sword, for the tyrant Bolan invades the clan's stronghold, seeking the powerful weapon. Almost accidentally, the two females get a new mission beyond just keeping the sword safe, for they learn that Shen did beget a son, whom they presume to be the Chosen One. So this time the heroes must make a quest not for the magic weapon but for the only person who can wield it. Further, Nariko never doubts that the prophecy is true, for every time she uses the sword in self-defense, it drains her energy and threatens her life.

I won't reveal the question of just who the Chosen One really is, or further revelations about the Sword's nature. But even in the extroverted context of the story-- which includes a prison-break as well as the central quest-- there are a lot of good character moments for the two heroines. I downgrade SWORD's mythicity a trifle because it doesn't have any concept as to why the Sword's nature is as it is, which might have provided an apt counterpoint to Nariko and Kai's problematic relationships with their father.

Nevertheless, in terms of blade-action alone, SWORD is excellent, particularly a battle in which Nariko takes on a bulky warrior who fights by turning himself into an "armor-dillo." And the aforementioned conclusion is well-handled, demonstrating that there can be costs for even good guys when they mess around with the powers of heaven.     

DEMON SLAYER SWORD (1995)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological* 

This misleadingly titled offering on a couple of streaming channels must be the most obscure item I've reviewed yet. Not only did the 1995 TV-film-- originally entitled ONIMARO ZANSHINKEN-- not have any online reviews, it didn't even have any visual representations on the three major search engines, except the above placeholder. I assume SWORD only recently showed up on the service I watched.

The title is an almost complete fakeout: there's not even a mention of metaphorical demons, much less demons who can be slain by a magical sword. Rather, this is a story that might've been slightly compelling given its novel concept. In SWORD, an apprentice swordsmith must journey from town to town in Edo-era Japan, trying to recover the badly forged swords left behind by the apprentice's late master. I have no idea what the "Zanshinken" of the title means but "Onimaro," played by Hidekazu Akai, is the name of the apprentice seeking to erase the stain on his master's name by buying back, or even stealing, the inferior craftworks. But Onimaro doesn't only have to contend with sword-owners who have various reasons for not wanting to sell the bad swords. A gang of ninjas, belonging to the legendary Iga Clan, want to kill Onimaro because the clan-leader had some old beef with the deceased swordsmith.

The problem is that because this is a TV-movie, there's not much time spent explaining the various motives of the support-characters, and even Onimaro and his allies are underwhelming. The production values are pretty strong, as are the three major swordfights. But even though as a Westerner I've been exposed to SOME of the mystique surrounding Japanese sword-crafting, SWORD didn't communicate the slightest sense of what that mystique might consist of. Maybe the script would have been able to concentrate more on Onimaro's swordmaking aesthetics had it not saddled the hero with a little "family:" a sassy orphan boy and the daughter of the nasty clan-leader. The daughter of course falls for the hero and is played by Eriko Tamura of DRAGONBALL EVOLUTION fame.

There are two clearly uncanny incidents in the movie. One involves the bad ninjas-- who don't dress in the standard pajamas-- catching the orphan boy in the forest with a multitude of lasso-ropes. This carries an uncanny feel since one cannot see the rope-casters. The other comes at the climax. Several sword-wielders attack Onimaro, and apparently both the hero and his sword are so excellent that not only can Onimaro split the enemies' swords, he can also rapidly whittle the blades into tiny fragments. In any case, still no demons, nor any supernatural phenomena whatever.

   

     

LANCELOT, GUARDIAN OF TIME (1997)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*                                                                                                                          Six years after Marc Singer reprised his Beastmaster character in this 1991 flick-- which cut its costs by eschewing fantasy-settings and placing most of the action in modern times-- LANCELOT GUARDIAN OF TIME attempted a similar "fish out of water" plot with the actor. Despite decent production values and an assortment of "name" actors, LANCELOT failed to score with the same "dumb fun" approach as BEASTMASTER 2, nor did the 1997 film find its own identity. This may be because the credited writer and director had little previous experience in filmmaking, and LANCELOT evidently didn't improve their fortunes, since IMDB doesn't list any subsequent credits for either raconteur.                                                    

There are a few indications that the script wanted to come up with a more rounded approach to its time-travel scenario. Back in pre-Camelot England, when the future king is still a snot-nosed kid who has yet to pull any swords from any stones, evil sorcerer Wolvencroft (John Saxon) learns of young Arthur's destiny. The evildoer kidnaps the youth to twist the tail of good sorcerer Merlin, so Merlin sends for the foremost knight Lancelot (Singer) to beard Wolvencroft in his lair. There's a seemingly interminable conversation between the villain and the knight, in which Wolvencroft tells Lancelot about planning to take Young Arthur to some future era. The medieval warrior seems to understand the concept of time-travel without batting an eye, but he doesn't manage to stop Wolvencroft from doing exactly what he planned to do. But it's OK, because Merlin then sends both Lancelot and his horse to 1997 as well.                                                                                                     

   

As is standard in these stories, Lancelot quickly falls in with some denizens of modern-day times who help him realize his goals. Here it's a brother and sister in L.A. Brother Michael is a nothing character, not even providing comedy relief, but sister Katherine (Claudia Christian) just happens to be disillusioned with modern metrosexual men and yearns after traditional heroes-- so that Lancelot just happens to fill her dance card. However, since Lancelot is destined to return to his historical period, nothing really gets going with the couple.                                                                         

    The script fails to clarify Wolvencroft's evil scheme, but I think it has something to do with his gaining access to the sword and the stone. He's not able to do this in his own time, because Merlin has mystical safeguards over those items. But by traveling to the far future, the villain can masquerade as a rich 20th-century guy, contact the authorities in Great Britain, and get modern Brits to loan the antiques to an American museum. Once the sorcerer gets hold of the relics, he can use them to summon a demon or something like that. Lancelot duly prevents the sorcerer's evil plot and then returns to his own time with the kidnapped Young Arthur. Instead of foreshadowing Lancelot's tragic love affair with Adult Arthur's queen Guinevere, the doughty knight just happens to meet, in his own era, a dead ringer for Katherine. Happy happy joy joy. It's a rather pokey fantasy, but might be worth a watch if one likes any or all of the three main performers: Singer, Saxon and Christian. Maybe someone else will make the ideal movie about discontented modern women finding their knightly heroes. Though there is some magical stuff here, the setting in modern times keeps LANCELOT from qualifying for my "reign of wizardry" category.  

HERCULES (2014)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *fair* 
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*                                                                                                                                                  The Wiki-article on this film mentioned that its producers originally intended, for whatever reason, not to credit Steve Moore, author of the graphic novel on which the movie was based. I've read none of Moore's works on the subject of the Greek hero, but since this Dwayne Johnson project spawned two imitations, THE LEGEND OF HERCULES and HERCULES REBORN, one might credit Moore with having brought these into being as well.                                   

  I didn't remember anything about my previous screening of this flick, but now I see why: the only thing HERCULES has going for it is a restrained performance by Johnson, in which he bulked up more than his usual weight and, more importantly, avoided any of his signature winks to the audience. This Hercules grew up as an orphan who became a great warrior due to his uncanny strength and his fighting-skills, and over time people began telling stories about his divine parentage and his slaying of giant monsters. Only one event in the myths strongly resembles the traditional narratives: while Hercules lived in Thebes with his wife and children under the rule of King Eurystheus, his family was slaughtered. He was accused of having slain them when he went mad, but all Hercules remembers is witnessing a spectre akin to the death-hound Cereberus. After that, Hercules became a full-time mercenary, leading an assortment of soldiers, some of whom are also based on legendary figures (Atalanta, Autolycus, Tydeus). Hercules comes to the defense of King Cotys (John Hurt), ruler of Thrace, against an invading force. But wait-- could it be that Cotys hasn't told the whole truth about the situation? Just like Hercules' memories of his family's slaughter may not be entirely correct?                                                                             

 Basically, 2014 HERCULES is constructed like a two-part mystery story, and neither mystery is interesting. The script tries to sell the idea that Hercules, after having been a mercenary who for years killed for whoever paid him the best, suddenly gets the Religion of Altruism and turns against Cotys and his secret ally. The secondary characters are no better, supplying nothing more than the marking of time. The battles are OK, but the most I can say is that they aren't as terrible as those in LEGEND. If I had to choose between the three, HERCULES REBORN seems the best just by virtue of having less pretension than the other two-- though I'd probably choose to view a half dozen Herc-flicks from the 1960s over any of these 2014 losers.                                

 

THE MARK OF ZORRO (1974)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*, 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*                                                                                                                          Director Don McDougall, whose long list of TV episodes includes some very nice work for shows like RAWHIDE and Classic TREK, probably had to make the best of things when he drew this assignment. He had to take the script for the 1940 MARK OF ZORRO, one of the most sumptuous swashbucklers of the Classical Hollywood era and squish its plot and action down into about 75 minutes. Still, enough of the mythic aspects of the 20th-Century Fox version of Zorro come through that I can give this 1974 MARK a fair rating.                                                                                                       

 The telefilm's best asset is star Frank Langella in the dual role of Zorro and his foppish civilian ID Diego Vega. The actor had to follow closely in the shoes of Tyrone Power, but I thought he gave both characters as much mojo as anyone could under the circumstances. Ricardo Montalban is in a similar position, playing Esteban, the military power behind the corrupt alcalde's rule, but in some ways he's better off, since his normal acting-style was more florid than that of his predecessor, and thus his Esteban doesn't seem too derivative. The rest of the cast deliver decent perfs, from Gilbert Roland and Yvonne deCarlo as Diego's dad and mom, to Robert Middleton and Louise Sorel as the alcalde and his perhaps unfaithful wife. Anne Archer gets one good scene as the romantic interest Teresa-- the one taking place in the church, where Zorro's pretending to be a priest-- but her character doesn't get nearly as much attention as the Linda Darnell version did. She doesn't even get a final clinch with the hero at the conclusion. Her casting in terms of her age is a bit odd too. In the 1940 film, Gale Sondergaard, then a little over forty, played the aunt of Teresa, and that role was played by Linda Darnell, who was then seventeen. In contrast, Anne Archer was only seven years younger than Louise Sorel. There's an odd remark by Middleton's character about how some figure akin to Zorro may have been observed in "The Pyrenees" of Spain, which was perhaps meant to address where Diego got the idea of Zorro. Possibly this remark was in the 1940 film too, but I'm not inspired to find out.

ZORRO IN THE COURT OF SPAIN (1962)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*, 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*                                                                                                                          ZORRO IN THE COURT OF SPAIN starts rather slowly but soon shapes up into a decent little swashbuckler. Most of the movie's alternate titles seem to emphasize the titular masked hero swashing his buckles in Spain, so I've no idea why the English dub I saw claims that the action all takes place in "Lusitania," which in recent centuries usually connoted Portugal. All the names involved in the court-intrigue are almost certainly fictional, so the change wasn't made to offset political connotations.                                                       

As with some of the other "Euro-Zorros" around this time, being set in Europe raises the stakes from the more modest adventures of the California-based Fox. A new grand duke, brother of the previous and deceased duke, has challenged the widowed duchess for the throne of Lusitania. The duchess has gone into hiding with her allies, but for some reason she's separated from her small daughter, and one of those allies takes the little girl to Lusitania Capital (I'll call it) to hide her from the enemy in a monastery/orphanage. The Duke either lives in the Capital or close to it, doing various tyrannical things with the help of his main henchman Captain Miguel (Alberto Lupo), so this choice of locations doesn't seem like the swiftest idea. In due time the Duke and Miguel will get their hands on the kid in order to force the duchess to abdicate. In addition, evil Miguel has been pestering Marquise di Villa Verde to let him marry beauteous Bianca (Nadia Marlowa), despite the fact that Bianca is betrothed to marry the Marquise's son Riccardo (George Ardisson), also Bianca's cousin. Riccardo comes to the Capital just in time for all these events, having been to Mexico for training as a young cavalier (one of two major flippings of the usual Zorro-script).                                                 

     
Apparently, Riccardo and his factotum Paquito got some advance intel on the troubles in Lusitania, because as soon as he arrives, he's already got the whole Zorro idea thought out. He immediately plays the part of the jaded aristocrat with no interest in local politics, so as to allay any suspicions from Captain Miguel and his sister Isabella, who oddly is currently married to the Marquise. The father of Riccardo and Isabella have no interpersonal relations, though, so this may be a change made by a translator. Some Zorro-stories give the main heroine an interfering aunt, which may be where Isabella comes from, but she only has one scene relevant to the narrative and totally disappears from the latter part of the movie. Anyway, Riccardo's louche act alienates both his father and Bianca, but it works to allow the hero to listen in on the plots of his enemies and work to counter them as-- Zorro!                                                           

   
   The fight-scenes are passable and Ardisson makes an okay masked avenger, even though he gets more mileage out of the Riccardo role. But the most interesting change is that although the heroine goes through the usual process of rejecting Riccardo while going gaga over his costumed identity, this time Zorro marries the heroine in his non-costumed identity.    No rationale is presented, though possibly Riccardo does this to block Miguel from forcing Bianca to marry him. Riccardo, knowing that Bianca doesn't love his false identity, refrains from making her share his marriage-bed. But of course, once he rescues the little girl from the evildoers and gives the duchess the chance to oust the evil Duke, Zorro can unmask and the two enjoy connubial bliss. The villains are not very stylish this time, but the romance is much better developed than in the majority of B-Zorros.

BEOWULF AND GRENDEL (2005)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*                                                                                                                          Sturla Gunnarson's take on the medieval poem "Beowulf" is never less than diverting, not least thanks to the film's gorgeous cinematography of the stark but beautiful Icelandic locations. It's deliberately an inversion of the moral certainties of the poem, wherein Evil is identical with physical monstrosity. The script's take might have been influenced by John Gardner's 1971 book GRENDEL, which told the Beowulf story from the POV of the monstrous titular man-slayer.                                                                     

BEOWULF is constructed much like the sort of mystery in which the audience sees a crime committed and then watches to find out how and when the hero will dope out the truth. Twenty years before the story proper, the Danish king Hrothgar (Stellan Skarsgard) leads some of his men to chase down a petty thief, a big hairy man whom the Danes consider to be a "troll." The big man flees the hunters in the company of his young son Grendel, but when they are both cornered on a cliffside, the father orders his son to hide in a crevice. The "troll" then faces the Danes and is killed by their arrows. Hrothgar spies the hiding boy but does not reveal his presence.                                                   

  Grendel grows into a savage beast-man (Ingvar Sigurdsson), and finally initiates a war against his father's slayers, killing twenty men in the king's mead-hall. Hrothgar is now old and befuddled, and he half suspects the origins of the killer. News of the murders reaches the tribe of the Geats, and their great hero Beowulf (Gerard Butler) journeys to Denmark with his retinue of warriors. Unlike the hero of the poem, this Beowulf is intensely curious as to the origins of Grendel. He's perplexed that the savage man simply avoids fighting with the Geats, while continuing his crusade against the men of Hrothgar.                                        

A new character, a witch named Selma (Sarah Polley), provides some of the answers to Beowulf's questions: that Grendel refuses to engage with the Geats because they, unlike the Geats, have done him no harm. It's strongly suggested that Selma's claim to witchy powers is a pretense to give her some immunity from attacks by brutish men, for she tells Beowulf that she was forced into prostitution by evil slavers before setting up her witch-hut. She, as much as Grendel (who rather clumsily raped her at one point, but in ignorance of his crime), is an outcast from the rude Scandinavian society that recognizes only physical strength as a virtue.

Even after Hrothgar confesses his past offenses against Grendel, Beowulf remains committed to ending the savage's rampage. In the poem the hero is mighty enough to rip the monster-man's arm from his body, but since no one here possesses supernatural powers, this Beowulf sets a mechanical trap that tears off Grendel's limb. Dying, Grendel flees to the sea, where his body is claimed by his mother, billed as "The Sea Hag." Later, when the prideful Danes hang up Grendel's arm as a trophy, the Hag emerges at night, kills various warriors, and steals the arm as well. Beowulf pursues the hag to an underground cave, and the monstrous woman, who possesses fangs and great strength, almost kills the hero. Beowulf only triumphs (slightly as in the poem) because he acquires a sword from the Hag's treasure-trove and kills her with it. Though the script isn't able to assert the true nature of the Hag and her son without breaking out of its own continuity, I think it's implied that both are offshoots from humankind, whom the primitive tribesmen mistake for "trolls." The tone of BEOWULF is uniformly dour, and the warriors' limited knowledge about the world's nature provides some dramatic moments. But as a whole this Grendel-sympathetic take on the poem is just fair in terms of its symbolic discourse.                                    

 

LION MAN (1975)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*                                                                                                                                                  The Turkish film industry is renowned for producing knockoffs of Western franchises. the so-called "Turkish Star Wars" being a famous one, though not one I've seen. But the movie LION MAN-- currently on streaming under the blah title THE SWORD AND THE CLAW-- is a reasonably original take on Tarzan, but one where the future hero (Cuneyt Arkin) is raised from infanthood by a pride of lions.                                                                                                      

The place name "Byzantium" is tossed out at one point, so I guess the opening conflict takes place between Byzantine Christians and Muslims of that period. The Christians lose a rather ratty looking battle, and their representative lord Antuan (Yildririm Gencer) appears at the court of Suleiman Shah (also played by Arkin) to come to terms. Unbeknownst to Antuan, a lady of the Christian court, Princess Maria, finds Suleiman beguiling despite his being married to his own queen. Maria and Suleiman do the deed. Some time passes, during which Antuan lays plans for an assassination and the queen delivers a son to Suleiman. However, Antuan's assassins attack the shah at court and kill all his people, including the queen, which apparently paves the way for the Byzantines to conquer the country. However, one of the queen's servants gets away with the shah's infant son. This son is lost in the wild and gets raised by lions. Antuan tops off his triumph by marrying Maria, little suspecting that she has a Suleiman-bun in the oven.                                                                                                      

Twenty years later, the Byzantines exert a cruel hold upon the kingdom of Wherever It Is, and a resistance movement of Muslim nationals has arisen. Antar (Cebil Sahbaz), the grown son of Maria-- whom Antuan assumes to be his own progeny-- serves the Byzantine cause, and during a patrol he and his soldiers are attacked by rebels. For reasons I forget, Aslan the Lion Man intervenes to help the Byzantines. The two half-brothers exchange pleasantries, to the extent that Aslan can't speak human lingo.                                                                             

Living with the lions has conferred upon Aslan superhuman strength, at least on the level of a Maciste-movie, and the movie's highlight is seeing the hero attack people with his naked fingers poised like claws. Aslan's interference with the rebels cheeses off the daughter of the rebel leader, so she sets up an occasion to meet the wild man. When he drops his guard, she stabs Aslan-- and then belatedly sees that he possesses a royal birthmark, attesting to his true lineage. Soon Aslan joins the rebels and learns to speak and follow other human customs-- though surprisingly given the Tarzan influence, there's no romantic arc between Aslan and any female of his own species.                                     

   Meanwhile, Maria finally confesses to Antuan that Antar is not the Byzantine's son. (Antar also possesses the birthmark of the shah's line, but I guess none of the Byzantines knew what it meant.) Antuan hurls Maria into durance vile and begins counter-attacking the rebels and their new ally. After various martial encounters, Antuan tries to nullify Aslan's claw-powers by pouring acid on his hands. However, a rebel blacksmith makes metal claw-hands for the hero, so that he becomes more powerful than before. Eventually Antar learns his true heritage and the half-brothers unite to destroy the "false father."                                                                                                                       Surprisingly, aside from avenging the death of Suleiman, the movie's main plot-thread is about the two siblings finding one another. LION MAN has a delirious concept, but at most turns it's undermined by the poverty of the production, resulting in bad fight-choreography beside which even an Italian knockabout comedy looks good. Some battle-scenes are even scored with a peculiar jaunty tune, rather than something more suitably adventurous. Arkin's the only performer who projects a little personality, though I can't say he overshadows even Gordon Scott, much less Johnny Weismuller.    

THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (2014)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*

MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*                                                                                                                                I saw LEGEND once before, but I must have been "out of critical mode" while watching, because I remembered nothing about it. Only after this re-watch did I realize that it's much worse than even the bargain-basement Hercules flicks of the sixties.                                 

Only the opening scenes have any bite to them. King Amphitryon of Tiryns (Scott Adkins) is first seen leading his army to conquer another city. Amphitryon proposes single combat against the city's king for all the marbles, and he wins the battle and dominion over the city. What this ruthless monarch does not win, though, is the approval of his wife Alcmene (Roxanne McKee). Alcmene, despite having borne a son to Amphitryon, hates her lord's warring ways so much that she prays to Hera at the goddess' temple for a deliverer. Hera appears to Alcmene, and tells her that Zeus, King of the Gods, is willing to spawn a hero with the mortal queen, while Hera is willing to allow the infidelity because-- well, it's not clear why Hera's on board. My theory is that the writers knew they had to use the strongman's familiar Roman name "Hercules," rather than the Greek "Heracles," but they *may* have wanted to allude to the meaning of the Greek name, since said meaning occurs later in the script: "Heracles"= "Glory of Hera." Alcmene consents to have Zeus come to her at night, and Amphitryon witnesses what is essentially an "invisible man" impregnation. The evil king doesn't overtly make the connection to Zeus, but since he doesn't simply have the infant Hercules killed, Amphitron probably worries about the consequences of killing a god's spawn.                                                       

 After this setup, though, the script devolves into an amateurish level of predictability. Hercules (Kellan Lutz) and his older sibling Iphicles (Liam Garrigan) grow to manhood, and though crown prince Iphicles is scheduled to make a political marriage with Cretan princess Hebe (Gaia Weiss), she and Hercules fall in love. Amphitryon is the only one besides Alcmene who knows/guesses Hercules' divine parentage, but Iphicles gets some direct evidence of his half-brother's power when the two siblings are out in the wild and get attacked by a bad CGI creature that's supposed to be the Nemean Lion. At least the lion is invulnerable as in the myth, and Hercules breaks its neck with his demigod-strength. But this signals to Iphicles and his father that they need to get rid of this strongman, so they send Hercules off to a foreign war in the hope he'll get killed. The rest of the story is just a long, boring montage of action-scenes as Hercules gets taken prisoner as a slave, is forced to fight in gladiatorial games, and finally works his way back to Greece to reclaim Hebe and overthrow his false father and nasty brother.                   

 It's hard to choose which of LEGEND's faults is the worst. The CGI Nemean Lion looks great next to the awful gladiatorial battles, which seem as fake as hell. While director Renny Harlin had never been a critical favorite, I liked both of the nineties films he did with Geena Davis, CUTTHROAT ISLAND and LONG KISS GOODNIGHT. Despite the assorted problems of both movies, they're good basic formula-flicks that can catch an audience up with sheer momentum. But LEGEND drags from fake battle to fake battle with zero sense of kinetic power, and Harlin's phoning it all in. The dramatic scenes are equally terrible, and the dialogue is so clunky that it's hard to tell if any actor except Adkins has any talent. But I'd have to say Kellan Lutz is the worst performer here. He acts out his Herculean role with a sort of stone-faced indifference and fails to sell the alleged heroism of his character. Even a couple of scenes where Hercules invokes extra power from his heavenly father-- additional strength in one instance, a lightning-filled sword in another- fall flat. Though LEGEND came to theaters six months before the Dwayne Johnson HERCULES of the same year, I strongly suspect that LEGEND's producers sought to steal a march on the Johnson film. But coming out early with a mediocre script didn't help LEGEND, which flopped at the box office just as the Johnson film succeeded. Even the Asylum's HERCULES REBORN, also from 2014, proved more entertaining than this drab mythological misfire.

LUPIN III: GOEMON'S BLOOD SPRAY (2019)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

Animation director Takeshi Koike followed up on his 2012 teleseries A WOMAN NAMED FUJIKO MINE with a 2014 OAV, JIGEN'S GRAVESTONE. Both of these iterations of the Lupin III franchise were considerably more serious in tone than the original comics of Lupin's creator Monkey Punch. After roughly five years, Koike got the chance to follow up on his follow-up with two more OAVs focused on selected Lupin characters: GOEMON'S BLOOD SPRAY in 2019 and FUJIKO'S LIE in 2020. 

Structurally BLOOD SPRAY has a strong plot-similarity to GRAVESTONE. In both, the spotlighted character is hired to perform a job unrelated to any of his criminal outings with Lupin. But a formidable opponent appears, using special skills to offset those of the protector. Each character is shamed by his failure but gets a second chance to duel his adversary to the death, this time with Lupin's crew in attendance.

The BLOOD SPRAY script changes up some details. Goemon is hired to protect a yakuza boss from possible assassination while the boss and his gang are aboard a steam ship. Hawk, a red-haired giant of a man wielding twin axes, boards the ship and destroys its engines. However, Hawk isn't after any of the yakuza, but after Lupin and Jigen, who are, apparently without Goemon's knowledge, aboard the ship to rip off the gangster's loot. (Fujiko is aboard ship as well, but her role here is as minor as it was in GRAVESTONE.) The yakuza boss perishes when the ship catches on fire, and the other gangsters blame Goemon for failing in his mission. Goemon accepts the blame and swears to slay Hawk.

Zenigata, who was barely in GRAVESTONE, learns of Hawk's mission and plans to arrest him as well as the Lupin gang, though for some unstated reason the cop's superiors want him to leave Hawk alone. (Since Hawk was an American soldier at one point, he may have become involved in black-ops, so that someone in the American spy-networks ordered "hands off.") Hawk tracks Lupin, Jigen and Fujiko to their hideout. They flee into a nearby forest, but just when the man-mountain has them cornered, Goemon appears and challenges Hawk. To the samurai's shock, Hawk's unique axe-weapons counter Goemon's katana, so that the samurai is both wounded and defeated. By dumb luck, Zenigata appears and gets the drop on Hawk, and the giant refuses to fight a lawman, allowing himself to be taken prisoner. Lupin and his friends escape with the wounded Goemon in tow.

Goemon is doubly shamed and subjects himself to a special cleansing ritual, and though his allies feel for him, they can't empathize with his warrior-ethos and end up leaving him behind while they try to figure who hired Hawk to kill them. In their absence, yakuza gangsters make the mistake of messing with Goemon. Ironically, their interference sparks in him the "sixth sense" he seeks to bring forth in order to combat Hawk. The gangsters die bloodily, except for one Goemon spares, to reaffirm the samurai's intention to continue his honor-bound mission. Hawk breaks out of jail and pursues the Lupin Gang, with Zenigata on his heels. But Goemon gets his second chance at vengeance, and no one needs guess who wins. 

There are no concessions to goony humor here as there was, very briefly, in GRAVESTONE, and Zenigata is played utterly straight, rather than as the comic fall-guy. And even though Goemon is the gang-member being spotlighted here, he remains a fairly standard stoic samurai, used largely to contrast his honorable conduct to the ruthlessness of the yakuza. The "sixth sense" is less a marvelous psychic ability than a temporary boosting of Goemon's already-superlative senses. And the best character-moment stems not from Goemon but from his partners, as they watch him undergoing his mystic ordeal. Clearly, despite their patina of tough indifference, Lupin, Jigen and Fujiko are worried about their comrade, even if Fujiko disengages by refusing to recognize male standards of shame, claiming, "Men are stupid." Lupin and Jigen agree with her but remain to watch the samurai for some time longer, being no less implicated in the masculine codes of honor.   

THE MAGIC CARPET (1951)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I saw CARPET long ago and remembered little about it but the unusual presence of Lucille Ball in a Hollywood "Arabian knockwurst" (my term for all the low-budget Oriental fantasies that got ground out like sausages). While producer Sam Katzman was never known for excellence in any genre, I have found that a couple of his Oriental sausages were silly fun, such as THIEF OF DAMASCUS and THE SIREN OF BAGDAD. Additonally, CARPET's director was Lew Landers, who produced some favorite horror-films, such as the 1935 RAVEN and THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE. Unfortunately, this flick, which as far as I can tell was Katzman's first venture in Arabian Nights terrain, is ordinary in every way.  

At least the film starts off with action, as some Caliph (let's say it's in Baghdad) getting assassinated on the same day he proclaims the birth of his newborn son. The Caliph's court is massacred and a usurper named Ali (Gregory Gaye) takes over, along with his vizier Boreg (Raymond Burr) and Ali's capricious sister Narah (Ball). However, a servant escapes with the newborn with the aid of the titular flying carpet. The dying servant leaves the infant and the carpet with a virtuous couple, and the carpet is squirreled away while the couple raises the boy as their own over the next twenty years. The child grows into the man Ramoth (John Agar), and once he's an adult Ramoth is mighty wroth with the tyrannies of Caliph Ali. In approved Zorro fashion he fabricates a masked identity, The Scarlet Falcon (though he's not often seen masked) and organizes a resistance movement.

All the familiar swashbuckling tropes are dutifully hauled out. A beautiful young woman named Lida (Patricia Medina) joins the rebellion against the Falcon's wishes, and of course the two fall in love, though she doesn't prove to be much of a fighter. Ramoth gets a chance to infiltrate the Caliph's palace by curing Ali's long spate of hiccups (don't ask), but I'm blamed if I remember what comes about because of this action. I also forget how Lida becomes a member of Narah's harem, which leads to a minor set-to when Narah slaps Lida. (Medina claimed in an interview that Ball hit her for real.) Neither the hero nor the villains seem to do much of anything but run through the motions, until the moment that Ramoth is informed of his heritage and of the secret weapon of the flying carpet, which the hero uses to overcome the villains and be united with his lady love. Oh, and Ramoth gets to swordfight Boreg, so there's that.

Though I imagine the use of the carpet was inspired by the climax of the 1940 THIEF OF BAGDAD, the extremely paltry special FX probably didn't inspire even the most uncritical viewers in 1951. Some of the lead actors in these knockwursts have brought a little charisma to the formula stories, but John Agar is horribly dull in the role, and even Medina, who played many such exotic roles, can't do anything with her part. Of the three villains, Ball gets the best lines and is almost the only reason to see the movie, which premiered days before the launching of her successful I LOVE LUCY teleseries. Ostensibly Ball, who had never quite hit her stride on the big screen, had to complete some obligation to Columbia Pictures and accepted the role even though she knew CARPET was junk. Her breakthrough as a TV comedienne gave her a second life in cinema, though she still dominantly worked in TV. But for what little it's worth, this moldy oldie is the only time actors like Ball and Agar delved into the domain of the superhero-adjacent fantasy.  

THE BLACK SWAN (1942)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

I can just barely justify assigning this naturalistic film a trope in my system, based only on the fact that in THE BLACK SWAN, pirates are made into the means of overcoming piracy, and thus are factors in bringing about the very civilization that moviegoers fled to theaters to escape.

SWAN-- which according to my sources is barely based upon the Rafael Sabatini novel-- starts off by abjuring any of the politics that informed both Sabatini's most famous novel CAPTAIN BLOOD and the 1935 film adaptation that became the granddaddy of all sound pirate films.

This is a story of the Spanish Main - - when Villainy wore a Sash, and the only political creed in the world was - - - Love, Gold, and Adventure.

But in fact, SWAN uses basically the same political backdrop as CAPTAIN BLOOD, with England seeking to make inroads against Spain's colonial holdings in the New World, the aforesaid Spanish Main. The broad implication to most English-speaking audiences was that England was going to become a better master than Spain.

Only through scraps of dialogue do the characters make clear that the male principals in the story-- the historical Henry Morgan (Laird Cregar) and the fictional Jamie Waring (Tyrone Power) and Billy Leech (George Sanders) -- start out as English privateers, who are free to pillage the ships and colonies of the Spanish. Yet the film starts out with what seems an outright act of violent piracy, as Waring, Leech and their forces attack the Argentinian town of Corrientes. However, the raiders then suffer a counterattack, and Jamie is taken prisoner and stretched upon a rack by the Spanish governor. This state of affairs only lasts long enough for Waring to exchange some barbs about past hostilities, and then Waring is rescued by a force led by his bosom chum Tommy Blue (Thomas Mitchell).

The governor changes places with Waring on the rack, but the interlude's real purpose is to introduce two other characters. One is the minor figure of Lord Denby (George Zucco), England's governor of Jamaica, whose presence in a Spanish-held city is never explained. Waring implies that Denby's been giving aid and comfort to the enemy, hanging Englishmen, presumably other privateers. The dialogue has also established by this time that Waring thinks that Morgan, something of a father-figure to Waring, has been hanged in England.

Though Denby claims that England and Spain have made peace, Waring tells his buddies to stick Denby in a cell. Then the much more important character of Denby's daughter Margaret (Maureen O'Hara) shows up. Waring immediately begins courting her in his preferred manner, trying to force a kiss upon her. She bites his lip, he knocks her out, and then throws her over his shoulder, implicitly planning to continue the courtship elsewhere. Then he forgets about Margaret-- rather unceremoniously dropping her to the floor-- as the last major character in the story pops up. It's none other than Henry Morgan, who, instead of getting hanged, has been appointed to take Denby's place as governor of Jamaica. The broad implication is that the former privateer is supposed to be better than Denby at ridding the Caribbean of pirates.

Waring and Blue are only reluctantly converted to serve Morgan's cause, while Leech makes clear that he plans to continue as a full-time pirate. In Jamaica, Denby cedes his position to Morgan and then disappears from the story, but his continued presence in Jamaica makes it convenient for Margaret to go on living there-- and thus for Waring to court her by more "civilized" methods. But in contrast to many similar swashbucklers, including CAPTAIN BLOOD, the female lead shows no overt sign of interest in the male lead, for all that Waring recites the usual "your lips say no but ..." schtick. Despite Waring's forcefulness and charisma, Margaret cleaves to her current fiancee, a weak sister named Ingram.

However, if Denby is only a suspected traitor, Ingram is the real thing. He sells intel on incoming treasure-ships to Leech and his gang, and even warns them when the ships under Morgan's command go on the hunt. To Margaret's credit, she does notice one of Ingram's suspicious transactions, but she still makes plans to marry him. This enrages Waring, so that he kidnaps her and takes her away on his ship. This leads into Leech's forces overtaking Waring's one ship, and lots of romantic tensions as Waring runs a long con to convince the pirate that he and Margaret deserted decent society to elope. 

SWAN is the closest thing we have to a perfect pirate movie, with note-perfect performances by Power, O'Hara, Cregar, Sanders and Mitchell, and an inimitable score by Alfred Newman. Yet the script by Ben Hecht and Seton I. Miller excels in establishing how much fun robbery and rapine are when they're performed in the name of civilization. Whether by accident or design, Margaret never overtly responds to any of Waring's roguish sallies until he proves to her that he's actually joined the side of the angels. Thus, when the two engage in a final liplock at the movie's close, Morgan laments that "it's the end of the Spanish Main"-- dolefully returning the viewer to the real world, where love, gold and adventure only survive in stories.

THE SIGN OF THE COYOTE (1963)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Even without knowing much about the history of California's annexation by the United States, I knew that such a transition of power was not going to be as hunky-dory as depicted in 2005's LEGEND OF ZORRO. For that reason, I immediately liked that SIGN was set in 1847 and that it showed that there was quite a bit of conflict between the new regime of the Americans, dominantly of English extraction, and of the native Californians, dominantly of Spanish descent.

SIGN, a Spanish-Italian co-production, is also interesting in providing info on how Europeans related to the public domain character of Zorro. Jose Mallorqui, a Spanish writer, invented "El Coyote," a patent Zorro imitation, in 1943, and produced almost 200 works in this series. Two Mexican-Spanish movies adapted the character in 1954, three years before Walt Disney initiated its ZORRO series, and SIGN was one of two sixties films adapting the Mallorqui character again, albeit with totally different casts and directors. 

For the first thirty minutes, director/co-writer Mario (EYE IN THE LABYRINTH) Caiano creates considerable empathy for the fate of the Californians under the rule of Governor Parker, who's just the norteamericano version of every Spanish tyrant Zorro ever faced. A particular standout is a courtroom scene, in which an American gunfighter is let off the hook for killing an innocent woman while trying to shoot a Californian.

On the minus side, the hero is introduced with very little fanfare, as if he's already been around for a while. He's Cesar (Fernando Casanova), whose name just happens to be that of Zorro's offspring in the movie DON Q, SON OF ZORRO, and his elderly father's name, at least in the translated version I watched, is Diego. However, the father of this Cesar has never been a masked vigilante and plays little part in the narrative. Cesar doesn't exactly duplicate the fey qualities of the original Diego, but he refuses to take direct action in the face of tyranny, which is enough to arouse the contempt of his leading lady Leonora. Naturally, he uses the alter ego of El Coyote-- essentially a charro outfit with a domino mask-- to battle the evil Americans. Usually El Coyote works alone, but he's able to call upon a small collection of Californians who don masks to help him. There's one odd moment when the hero is aided by one of his family's female servants in a version of his masked attire, but her masquerade is not explained.

So in the end SIGN soon settles into just another Zorro-type flick, with the usual swordfights and romantic interludes between the cute noblewoman and the masked swashbuckler. Most disappointingly, the menace of the crude Americans is largely brushed off once Parker is killed. Aside from Caiano, the only other Italian name I spotted in the credits was that of Piero Lulli, a veteran of several peplum adventures.

BLACK FOX: AGE OFTHE NINJA (2019)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

This live-action, Edo-period ninja-movie was made the same year as an anime titled BLACK FOX, and one of the non-animated movie's main characters is supposed to be the ancestor of the main anime character. I have not seen the anime.

While FOX is not any sort of gang-changer, it stands as an object lesson as to how a contemporary movie can be centered upon the relationship of two heroic women, without running all the male characters into the ground. And this is a signal accomplishment, given that one of the villains is the father to one of the heroines.

Young woman Miya (MamiYajima) is subjected to an arcane experiment by her father, one that fills her body with electrical energy. A marauding gang breaks into their home, and Miya flees, thinking they've slain her father. The woman wanders through a forest until she comes across a compound belonging to a ninja clan called Kitsune (fox). Miya encounters Rikka Isurugi (Chihiro Yamamoto), and though their meeting isn't entirely copacetic, Rikka becomes sympathetic to the frazzled young woman, despite witnessing her bizarre shock-powers. Rikka appears to her grandfather Hyoe (familiar face Yasuaki Kurata) to give Miya shelter from the gang, the Negoro. Hyoe does so briefly, but when the Negoro come calling, they launch a frontal attack against the Kitsune. Informed of the higher powers served by the gangsters, Hyoe backs down and turns Miya over to the Negoro and their masters. 

Rikka, having befriended the helpless fugitive, defies her grandfather's authority and swears to rescue Miya. To this end, Rikka dons a special costume far from the usual attire of the cinematic ninja, seen only briefly in the opening credits-- a fairly sporty outfit, crowned with a black fox-mask. She probably only wears the mask for about ten full minutes during the action-packed climax, but it looks good, and at least is a great improvement on the bizarre costumes worn by the so-called "ninjas" of the NARUTO manga.

The climax has a few too many irons in the fire, as we're quickly introduced to the bosses behind the Negoro, and the strange development that the Negoro, for reasons unclear to me, suddenly decide to throw in with Rikka against their former employers. Far less surprising is the revelation that Miya's father did not die in the raid, and that in truth he always planned to exploit his daughter as a living weapon. The shock of seeing her father alive again throws Miya into a fugue state, and he even manages to turn Miya against her own rescuer. However, in tried-and-true sentimental fashion, Rikka is able to appeal to female friendship to snap Miya back to normal.

Though few of the male characters are that important, only Miya's father is a flat-out villain. Hyoe compromises with the Negoro because he wants to save his clan, while one of the conspirators is openly disgusted at the father having turned his own daughter into a lab rat. Chihiro Yamamoto provides most of the physical action and the heavy emoting, but the script is noteworthy for including small bits of character-business that keep everything from seeming overly predictable.

  

DORORO (2019)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Since I rated the mythicity of the live-action DORORO as more concrescent than that of the original 1967-69 manga series by Osamu Tezuka, I had some curiosity as to whether an anime series could achieve any similar feat. I had no access to the 1969 anime adaptation, but I did to this one from 2019-- which, from my partial readings, seems to have borrowed not only from Tezuka but also from a 2016 manga-reinterpreation of the original Tezuka material by another artist. I didn't attempt to re-read all of the manga iterations, but sampled bits and pieces from each series.

Because of that sampling, I noticed that the creators of the 2019  DORORO had a reasonably original take on the character of Hyakkimaru, the paraplegic samurai who shares top billing in the feature alongside his young (only apparently) male companion Dororo. As a child, Hyakkimaru's warlord-father Daigo sacrifices his own son to numerous demons in exchange for his realm's prosperity. Each demon takes a body part from the infant, leaving him no more than a lump of dying flesh. A highly skilled doctor not only saves the life of the discarded infant, he outfits Hyakkimaru with artificial limbs and trains him to use his psychic senses to perceive the world around him, in lieu of his lost sense-organs.

Now, when the two manga-artists depicted Hyakkimaru at the outset of each feature, the samurai is seen as being fully able to act the part of a normal human, despite having been deprived of his normal abilities. But the writers of 2019 correctly perceived that it should be almost impossible for a person lacking most of his senses to segue so easily into emulating the way normal humans interact. Thus, though the 2019 Hyakkimaru possesses the same motives as other versions--to slay all the demons who stole his body parts, in order to get them restored to his maimed body-- he shows so little affect as to make Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry seem like a bon vivant. The slow re-acquirement of his humanity from episode to episode is thus something that the acerbic Dororo can nurture while they ply their demon-hunting trade.

In addition to killing many diverse demons to restore his human attributes, Hyakkimaru is also drawn, little by little, into a conflict with the father who sacrificed him, and with the son whom Daigo did not sacrifice, Tahomaru. Tezuka's manga kills off the second son of Daigo in his only episode, so that the climactic confrontation is between Hyakkimaru and his father. The 2019 anime repeatedly pits the two brothers against one another until the climax and raises more ethical issues as a consequence. For instance, though Tahomaru is moral enough to realize that Daigo committed a terrible crime, that crime resulted in the prosperity of the warlord's realm, and thus Tahomaru feels that preserving the realm necessitates the slaying of the unfortunate sibling.

This series may be somewhat more organized than the original manga, but DORORO is still very episodic, and nearly none of the demons are memorable presences. One exception is a sprite who's capable of making humans speak and act in reverse of their actual intentions. This leads to some very welcome comedy when a young woman tries to talk Hyakkimaru into marrying her, and he, under the sprite's influence, agrees. Dororo, who's been crushing on her partner for some time (though she thinks he's been fooled by her boy-imposture), is of course enraged by this seeming betrayal.

In many ways, the demons' evil is eclipsed by that of humans. The lords and their samurai warriors are responsible for much suffering to protect their power, but people on the lower rungs of society are only intermittently more ethical. Tezuka's anti-war philosophy is conspicuous here, but I can't claim any of 2019's ruminations rise to the level of strong literary myths. The series' strongest trope relates to Hyakkimaru trying to retain his moral nature despite all the carnage he must wreak to regain his physical humanity. I can't say that these ethical moments ascended to a level I would call "mythic," just as the villainies of human beings are also fairly pedestrian. Still, the final episode of 2019 does give Dororo and Hyakkimaru a better closure than did the original Tezuka work. 

 

BEASTMASTER 2: THROUGH THE PORTAL OF TIME (1991)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

While the second iteration of the BEASTMASTER lacks any of the darker themes of the 1982 original, it's at least silly fun, unlike the abysmal second sequel. 

As the film opens, Dar the Beastmaster (Marc Singer, still looking buff in the role despite the passage of almost ten years) faces a new threat to his world (represented by just a few location-shots in the desert). A new tyrant has arisen, seeking to bring everyone under his control with his (very small) army of raiders. This is Arklon (Wings Hauser), who has apparently had a previous encounter with Dar and his beast-allies before, since Arklon wears a leather half-mask over the part of his face that Dar's eagle clawed. Dar, for his part, has heard a prophecy that he must slay the brother whom he never knew, and in due time it's revealed that Arklon is that brother. I really don't know why any of the credited writers-- the dominant voice, arguably, being that of Jim Wynorski-- bothered with this trope. The script shows zero interest in how the brothers came to be separated, so that there's zero dramatic interest, and only some piddling comedic lines.

The sibling duel of Dar and Arklon is forestalled by the machinations of sorceress Lyranna (Sarah Douglas). She discloses to the warlord that they can acquire a doomsday weapon in order to quell all resistance by visiting a exotic parallel world known as "Ell-A." All the two of them need do is step through a magical portal right out of STAR TREK, and they'll be able to steal the great weapon known as a "nuclear detonator." 

But before Arklon is fully convinced, three cars from savage Ell-A barrel through the portal-- two police cruisers following the car of madcap heiress Jackie Trent (Kari Wuhrer). Arklon has his raiders attack Jackie and the cops, but Jackie gets away. I guess the cops get killed, though the film doesn't show their deaths, perhaps because such a depiction would have been a "downer" amid all the jocularity.

Jackie wanders through the nearby desert and chances upon Dar and his animal buddies: one tiger, one eagle, and two ferrets. The two humans make nice while Jackie tries to wrap her head around being in a parallel dimension. But after two or three jokey episodes, Arklon's men catch up with the duo, and they take Jackie prisoner while Dar is forced to flee. Then the soldiers take Jackie back to their commander, who's decided to use the young woman as a guide to 20th-century Earth. Then, as the villains and their captives venture through the portal, Dar shows up and follows them. Dar confronts Arklon and Lyranna in Ell-A, but the warlord uses his magic super-wand to delay the Beastmaster. Dar gets temporarily captured by the police, while Arklon and Lyranna go shopping for Earth-clothes with Jackie to advise them. 

There follow various alarums and excursions to burn up time, with Jackie getting free and reuniting with Dar. No doubt the writers wanted to distract from the fact that the two villains have no credible plan for invading an L.A. military base to steal a nuclear weapon. They get away with it because the script says they will; nothing more. Finally, after a lot more "fish-out-of-water" tomfoolery, Dar intercepts the evil warlord just as he's about to pass through the portal, and they duel to Arklon's death. Dar goes home with his eagle and tiger, but for some reason leaves his two ferrets with Jackie. Possibly Wynorski thought that a sequel might take the hero back to Ell-A. But since the next installment took place entirely in Dar's world, as far as I recall the ferrets are just back in the Beastmaster's care as if they'd never left.

The principal actors-- Singer, Hauser, Douglas and Wuhrer-- all give the sense that they're having fun with their roles, and that does a lot to prop up the weak script. But the only real consequence of either sequel was that they kept the franchise in play, which led to the 1999 syndicated teleseries, which boasted a few excellent episodes and a much better development of the Dar-Verse than any of the movies put forth.