Re: The Wing Kong Exchange
Red Sonja
In a barbaric world, the evil Queen Gedren wishes nothing more than total power and dominance. To this end she has a sacred talisman stolen and its keepers executed before they can destroy it and bring balance back to the world. Red Sonja, sister of the keeper, sets out on a quest to defeat Gedren and get the talisman back. She does so with the help of Kalidor, master of the talisman, and a young prince and his aide. Can she defeat the evil Queen while remembering her oath never to give herself to any man?
"Winner doesn't have to sit through this movie."
1985’s Red Sonja marks the end of our quick jaunt into the “sword and sorcery†genre, and a more fitting end could not be had. While it is not as good as either of the films that it succeeded, actually to be quite honest it is incredibly bad on many levels, it still has an interesting and unique charm all it’s own while also being one of the ultimate examples of director Richard Fleisher’s schlock style. Attempting to top himself after the previous year’s “Conan the Destroyer†would prove futile, however the entertainment factor was still there (though that’s not always in a good way) and perhaps that is more important than simple star ratings or box office returns. It serves as an ominous warning that going to the well once too often indeed results in failure, though to be fair nobody should have been expecting much from it. This film also marked the end of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s foray into the fantasy genre and was really the final step for him before becoming the “American†action here that he would become best known for starting with the same year’s “Commandoâ€.
"Hey, I can't act, I guess that makes me the perfect female lead for a Fleisher film."
Directed by Fleisher (who was probably grinning from ear to ear at the prospect of making this after having so much fun on Conan the year before) and written by Clive Exton (most known for writing the incredibly bad “The Awakeningâ€, the film that basically killed Charlton Heston’s career) and George MacDonald Fraser (wrote the James Bond film “Octopussyâ€, so you can pretty much tell his feelings on women and their roles in film right off the bat!), the idea was for producer Dino De Laurentiis to make a quick profit off of the modest returns that “Conan the Destroyer†had and try to milk one last dollar out of a genre that was already suffering greatly. Of course this didn’t work out quite as well as he planned and once again he almost went bankrupt, you’ve GOT to love this guy’s perseverance though. Securing Schwarzenegger for the role of Kalidor was a very important step in legitimizing the film and maybe if they had actually made it more about him than the title character it would have done better. When Arnold is clearly the best actor you have in a film (and the year is 1985) chances are good that you are in trouble from the get go. Speaking of the title character, Sonja is played with gusto by one Brigitte Nielsen (former wife of Sylvester Stallone and current complete mess of a human being who sleeps with Flavor Flav!) and she does a terrible job in the lead role, her wooden acting only matched by her total lack of sense when it comes to delivery.
"If only the roles had been reversed."
Sandahl Bergam (even as an evil bitch of a character she is still severely screw worthy) pops up as the evil Queen Gedren here, and does a nice job bitching it up whenever she is on-screen. Sadly she was supposed to play the title character (and I really think the film would have been way better if she had) but she turned the role down to avoid getting typecast. Really? Because appearing in the first Conan film, the movie “She†and this one didn’t do that already? Oh well, she always had that prime role in 1986’s “Stewardess School†to look forward to I guess. Anyhow, she is decent in THIS film and as I say, I wonder how things would have worked out if she had played Sonja instead. Regardless we are never going to know so it’s better just to let that go and watch her be the wonderful mega-bitch ruthless evil Queen here. She is good at it and I totally forget how honourable a character she was in “Conan the Barbarianâ€, so she certainly did her job well. A lot of this films detractors point to her performance as being bad but honestly, when comparing her to the wooden and stilted performance of Nielsen in the lead, Bergman should have been nominated for an Oscar.
"Chances are high that this is one of the most annoying characters ever, but man is his little kung fu cute."
Of course there has to be the standard rag-tag followers in any of these films, and boy do we have a couple of winners here. It’s like Fleisher just couldn’t help himself and decided, “hey, screw it, let’s just go so completely over the top that people will be blown away by our insanityâ€. To this end he succeeded, because the casting of Ernie Reyes Jr. (The Last Dragon) as Prince Tarn and Paul L. Smith (from the previous year’s flop “Duneâ€, maybe De Laurentiis should have realized this guy wasn’t helping him) as his aide Falkon is as inspired a choice as any madman of the cinema could ever hope to achieve. Seriously, these two are dynamite and really enhance what is a pretty pedestrian film, even by the limiting standards of the genre itself. I love watching Sonja spank the young prince and I love the little kung fu moves he busts out even more. In fact, kids doing kung fu is pretty much always for the win where I am concerned, it just looks so damn cute. Reyes would of course go on to star in the classic “Surf Ninjas†so it’s nice to see those skills put to good use. He also kicked The Rock’s ass in the movie “The Rundown†so yeah, he’s pretty cool in my book.
"Well that certainly looks realistic!"
So what about the film itself? There is a lot packed into it’s 89 minute runtime, but again I don’t want to get into all of it here, since you probably want to check it out for yourself JUST for the above-mentioned kung fu skills. However if you are into other sorts of entertainment I can say that the script, while admittedly horrible, does do a decent job of keeping the viewer entertained with it’s mild (and sometimes major) stupidity. In fact, at one point Sonja leaves some characters behind only for them to magically end up ahead of her in short order! Huh?!? Fleisher of course is up to the task of making this seem like perhaps the most insane film he has ever directed (and that’s saying a lot considering the guy directed “Mandingo†AND “Amityville 3Dâ€) and he really does a good job to that end. From a battle with one of the fakest monsters ever to a really overt lesbian subplot (never a bad thing), there is a lot of cheesy entertainment to be had here for sure. Plus you get the ever popular “hero has to win the heart of the woman who doesn’t want him but eventually will because that’s how things work out in the movie world too fucking bad that’s not reality†cliché that is a wonderful standard in these types of films. Actually, to be quite honest, the lesbian subplot is really annoying in the sense that it makes lesbians seem to be a bad thing. Hello! What are you talking about? When the hell are lesbians a bad thing? Never as far as I’m concerned, and maybe if they had realized the positive benefits of that subplot (you know like making out and all that stuff) they might have had a better film on their hands. As it stands, it’s not the worst thing I have ever seen, but then again I’ve seen most of Fleisher’s other films, so I am kind of biased.
"Thank goodness Commando is just around the corner..."
Red Sonja did a laughable $6.9 million dollars on a budget of almost $18 million, so to say it bombed would be the understatement of the year. While Leonard Maltin found joy in determining who the worse actor was in the film, Schwarzenegger himself said it was the worst film he has ever made. In fact he went on to say the following, which I actually find funnier than anything in the film.
“Now, when my kids get out of line, they’re sent to their room and forced to watch Red Sonja ten times. I never have too much trouble with them.†Of course there’s no word on whether he used this form of punishment with all of his illegitimate children, but that’s a story for another day. By the way, for all you trivia buffs out there, this film was nominated for a few Razzie awards, but only took home one, that being Worst New Actress for Nielsen, who won for both this and her hideous performance in Rocky IV. So yeah, not as shining a review as I’d hoped for but I still think cine-trash fans everywhere would do well to check this one out. If you want a good movie, go pop in “Conan the Barbarian†or even “Hawk the Slayer†(ask me about that one sometime and I’ll give you a huge laugh) but if you want schlock of the highest order give “Red Sonja†a chance, it won’t be the worst thing you ever see.
4.5/10.
) I will continue on with them.
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