The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984)


After Conan the Barbarian made it obvious that sword and sorcery films could turn a buck in the United States if taken seriously numerous producers and directors spent the rest of the 1980s churning out bad knockoffs that no one could take seriously.  Most of those came from Roger Corman's New World Pictures, but there were others that popped up here and there.  The Warrior and the Sorceress just happened to have David Carradine, once again earning a paycheck on a low-budget production.  This time around it's yet another knockoff of Yojimbo. 

Kain (Carradine) arrives in a town suffering a water crisis.  The one well is disputed by rival warlords, Zeg the Tyrant (Luke Askew) and Bal Caz (Guillermo Marín).  Kain is recognized by the local prelate (Harry Townes) as one of his order, but the world has made the warrior weary to the point to where he now fights only to win coin.  He sees the opportunity in the town of playing both factions against each other and profiting from it. 

In order to do this he first allies with Bal Caz, betraying him in a battle with Zeg after overhearing that he is to be killed.  What he finds out while pretending to ally with Zeg is that the hostage he is holding, Naja (María Socas), is a powerful sorceress with the knowledge to forge a sword that can cut through anything.  Zeg wants the sword but is quickly losing patience with Naja.  She recognizes Kain for what he is and, reluctantly, he begins to work toward rescuing her and saving the village in the process. 

Naja is not the one with four breasts.  That doesn't mean we don't get to see her breasts.  In fact, she is topless the entire movie, in what seems to be a fashion choice rather than something forced on her by Zeg.  The surprising thing is that the four-breasted woman shows up at all, and in this case in the form of a dancer at a feast (Cecilia Narova).  The prosthetic work to give her the extra breasts is well done.  Too bad the rest of the effects aren't, as the creature that Bal Caz keeps as a partner is an obvious puppet as is the guardian watching over Naja. 

The other good makeup work is on the slavers, led by Burgo (Armando Capo).  They are lizard-like creatures that Kain also uses to his advantage against the warlords.  Then there is Zeg's often-shirtless captain of the guard Kief (Anthony De Longis) who mistrusts Kain from the start.  Like the story it is based on there are a lot of moving parts.

Unlike Yojimbo or A Fistful of Dollars this is going to be on no one's classic list.  It is entertaining as an exploitation film and, unlike others of its type, it's not full of rape.  In fact, rather than get down and dirty, most of Zeg's men just go straight to killing rather than having their way with the womenfolk.  This makes this movie quite a bit more watchable, as does Carradine doing his best Clint Eastwood impression.  Luke Askew always makes a decent villain, and he does here as well. 

Problem is that it is a cheap production that does drag here and there and relies way too much on its source material, with a sprinkling of fantasy cliches here and there.  Copying this storyline does keep the budget down by limiting the action to the town, but it also reminds the viewer that they could be watching Yojimbo, A Fistful of Dollars or even Last Man Standing rather than this.  

The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984)
Time: 81 minutes
Starring: David Carradine, María Socas, Luke Askew, Guillermo Marín
Director: John C. Broderick

 

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