The Seven Magnificent Gladiators, 1983.

Wow, I wonder what this is a rip-off of. Who cares, though – it’s got Sybil Danning and Lou Ferrigno. Interestingly, Danning was in another Seven Samurai rip-off three years earlier in Roger Corman’s Battle Beyond the Stars which is awesome and you should go watch it. This was one of the Italian sword & sandals movies that came out following the success of Conan the Barbarian which are usually pretty bad. We’ll see how this one holds up.

To begin, the costumes range from average to decent to awful. The main villain wears some sort of weird leather triangle with a high-necked cape like Dracula’s. It does an excellent job at accentuating his already ridiculous appearance consisting of a bowl-cut and subpar moustache. Mix that in with the knee-highs and man-thong and we have a truly ridiculous looking villain. Thankfully we have Mrs Danning in what might be some of her highest-waisted bikini bottoms yet! The emperor’s gem-studded robes are awesome.

I’m not going to talk about the plot. It’s the Seven Samurai. Or Magnificent Seven I suppose if you haven’t seen the former. This one has the inclusion of the holy Blade of Achilles which will seek out a worthy warrior to defend the village. An interesting twist. If you try to touch the sword and you’re not worthy it kills you. And like any reasonable person would do, the villagers just leave the unworthy corpse in the streets. The other thing this movie decides to add is oil wrestling. I sure don’t remember that from Seven Samurai!

Lots of good stuff in this. We got a chariot race, albeit in the dark and with a shaky camera so it could certainly be improved but it was enjoyable enough. There’s some gallant horse-riding scenes with inspirational music but the music is nowhere near as Magnificent Seven’s which I guess is to be expected considering that movie has such a damn good sound track. Tavern fight with some guards, man slapping wood in half, bad guys attacking a main character one-at-a-time, and a training montage of women in short skirts being taught to fight by men in slightly shorter skirts.

I wish there was more use of cunning in the defense of the village. Any time the baddies attack, it’s just a big meathead brawl. I want more booby traps and bottle-necking troops into kill-zones. If you’re going to make a movie to capitalize off of Conan’s success, take a look at the battle of the mound which was ALL booby traps.

I often find myself bored with Italian Conan knock-offs but this one made the wise decision of making their Conan knock-off a knock-off of a completely different film – one known for being adapted. This was probably a good choice. No beasts as this isn’t a fantasy/horror but rather a ‘historical,’ no breasts but a nipple does peek out during the oil wrestling scene so we’ll count it, and shockingly, no blood. I think adding some decapitations and a topless Sybil Danning would go a long way in making this film really stand out. The emperor is awesome – you can totally picture him saying BIGGUS DICKUS. It’s been a while since we’ve had a Seven Samurai movie. I’m hoping the next one is called Sven Samurai and is about a Samurai protecting a Danish village and he has to assemble a team of vikings. That’d be kick-ass. We have one instance of someone saying “PARRY THRUST” for anyone counting Looney Tunes quotations. I liked this. One Thumb Up Seal of Approval.