Hundra - 1983

What ever happened to the "sword and sorcery" genre of film?  I was recently on IMDb looking up Hundra and it hit me as I browsed this IMDb user list of such films.  More so, it's the vanishing of the fantasy / young adult action film that has happened.  The thing I love about the fantasy genre is that even rated R movies are still admitting there's the dumb kid in us that is into wizards and magic, and likes to see evil sorcerers and weird shit happening.  Conan the Barbarian isn't classic because it's a great action movie.  It's a great action movie, has weird appeal to it's characters, nudity, and still keeps it's silliness factor high.  Why can't silliness be a sell point any more?

I'm not here to be all depressed about how the fantasy genre has been dumbed down by about everyone these days.  I'm here to talk about a fun movie called Hundra from 1983 that was made to capitalize off the success of such films as Conan the Barbarian and also Quest for Fire.  This film is pretty much Conan light, with a female lead, but it still retained some originality to it and has a lot of the familiar things to offer.  It's got the rough and tumble fighting and a quick setup for the plot, attractive female star that gets nude along with several other girls along the way, larger than life baddie, odd magical happenings that are never explained but don't need to be, and true feeling of how shitty life in ancient times must've been, especially for girls.

This genre was huge in the 80's, and I can't imagine why.  Of course, one thing I'm realizing more and more as I do this blog is that there used to be a lot of cash ins on a hit film, and now there's not.  Nowadays, you'll have a few quick cash ins and maybe some direct to DVD cash ins, but you won't have years and years worth of cash ins, or years where like 4 similar feeling movies are made to cash in.  Case in point is my recent review of Just Before Dawn where I revealed that 12 slasher movies came out in the year 1981 alone - most of them released in theaters, and most of them copycatting either Halloween or Friday the 13th.  I've also covered Alien, Terminator, and Mad Max rip offs, along with others I'm probably forgetting.

Hundra is best defined in pictures, not words:

I love that cartoon style new poster they have on IMDb, which I put up here.  I's got everything you'll wanna see in the movie right there on the poster: nudity, chicks with weapons, girls kissing, and some ridiculous villain.  And then a screenshot showing what most of this movie actually is: a pretty average blond girl with an obvious fake sword and a badly acted villain, while in the background Bronson Canyon fills in as a desolate landscape.  (Side note, I guess it was actually filmed in Spain.  My bad)

Hundra is about about a female warrior named Hundra who doesn't accept her place in the male dominated society and goes about to set the injustices right - with a broad sword.  She is told by an old woman that she must bear a child so that the Amazons don't become extinct.  Thus a large portion of the movie is her trying to find the right guy, and when she does, her trying to seduce the guy.  That part of it was slow and not as fun, but the action works to keep you interested.

I give it a solid 3 star effort, and be warned that lesbian kiss on the cover never actually happens.