Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam (1982, dir. Çetin Inanç)

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Well, it wouldn’t be right to let a Star Wars month go by without reviewing two of the most infamous Star Wars knockoff movies. This is the Turkish one best known for its training montage. I swear I haven’t heard the theme from Raiders Of The Lost Ark more times in my life then I did watching this movie. The movie is like watching something sci-fi fans in 1982 would have made by mashing together their favorite stuff. The two main things it combines are Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica.

A voiceover provides the setup of the movie while it literally shows footage from Star Wars in the background. I’d make a joke here about the effects looking better than the special editions, but I’m not that much of a fan. Oh, and it goes on for quite awhile it seems. Let me try to paraphrase here. People left Earth and scattered across the galaxy. A struggle to discover the secret of immortality ensued. Despite all this talk about people leaving Earth, there is apparently still an Earth tribe. However, then it says Earth was destroyed. Okay, whatever. Wait, maybe I can’t paraphrase this cause it makes NO SENSE!!!!

Okay, all you need to know is here’s Cüneyt Arkin who apparently also wrote the screenplay for this.

Here’s his friend played by none other than Aytekin Akkaya AKA Turkish Captain America.

After getting shot down by stock footage from Star Wars, they find themselves on a desolate planet with this bad guy who looks like he belongs in a Turkish Flash Gordon movie.

They begin to wander. His friend thinks they might have landed on a planet inhabited by nothing but women. Turkish Captain America thinks he’s a ladies man in this. They see stock footage of the Sphinx, Pyramids, and hieroglyphics. Then the voiceover kicks in saying they were seeing things that look like another civilization that must have fought an unknown power and enemy millions of years ago. This part made me think of Stargate. Of course it doesn’t take long for them to attract some attention from some weird skeleton-like creatures. And this movie doesn’t disappoint. You get to see plenty of Cüneyt Arkin and Turkish Captain America leaping all over the place.

When you’ve fought weird skeleton things, you just gotta follow it up with reject sand people.

And Cylons!

Then they spot the people of this planet. There’s this guy…

who jumps off there for reasons I still don’t understand. Now we meet Turkish Robbie The Robot.

Oh, and Turkish Robbie The Robot doesn’t mess around.

After several of these Turkish Mad Max: Fury Road guys…

kill some people, Arkin and his friend decide to really fight. All you need to know is there’s a blonde with a kid that you’ll see throughout the movie and the bad guy from Turkish First Blood and Turkish Rambo is here as their leader.

After a little conversation, their leader drops the bomb on Arkin and his friend.

Yep, the 13th tribe. This is apparently a piece of Earth controlled by “the Wizard”. The Wizard being the Flash Gordon guy.

Since this is by the same director of Turkish First Blood, there are of course zombies for, um, reasons?

A fight ensues and Arkin and company are sent to go to the “Green Valley” cause, well, I have no idea what this line means, but here it is.

Yep, you apparently need strong body and believer head for fighting with Nimrod.

After the bad guy severs the heads of several zombies, he creates Turkish Abominable Snowman.

There’s some weird stuff that happens here with dead bodies, but who cares because…

it’s time to punch some fucking rocks!!!

Here are some highlights.

Not sure why the punching rocks thing happens considering Arkin will get gauntlets later. No, not Turkish Wolverine gauntlets, but gauntlets none the less. However, I do know why this happens.

It’s cause you will see Arkin fly around in this movie a lot. They made good use of trampolines in this film.

Now while this may be gone by the time you read this because of the music used, here is the full scene in all of it’s glory!

I don’t care how they make it happen, but I want to see Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford punch some rocks. Even if it’s just an extra they do on the DVD release. This needs to happen!

Now we go to the Turkish version of the bar scene. No worries about who shot first here because it just leads to a fight breaking out with one of the saddest costumes I’ve ever seen.

There’s also this guy who looks like he got lost on the way to a Turkish Kung Fu movie.

The bad guy shows up to say this…

and take them to his lair. After traveling through some stock footage they arrive.

Turkish Captain America meets this lady who is the queen of the planet, but will play basically no role in the film. Her and the bad guy seem to think the key to ultimate power and immortality is the human brain. After explaining his plan, Arkin gets this look on his face.

Gotta give the man credit. I’ve seen in him several of these now and he does do one of the best “I’m not happy and about to beat the crap out of everyone in the room” look. And he does just that. He even severs a guys arm and stabs him with it.

Badass! Of course people move in on Turkish Captain America and he joins in the fight. Unfortunately, it’s not enough and now we get to a scene that rivals the Black Widow capture and the inclines in Turkish First Blood and Turkish Rambo for the least inconvenient character inconveniences. The bad guy tries to bury them alive. Yeah, that’s going to work with these two guys. Of course it doesn’t and they simply pop back up out of the dirt.

By the way, throughout all of this stuff is the Star Wars, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Battlestar Galactica, Flash Gordon, and other popular themes on the soundtrack.

Now we’re outside again for who knows what real reason. Doesn’t matter. It means it’s time for Arkin to battle the Snowman by jumping all over the place.

Turkish Captain America gets in on the action, but isn’t very successful and gets captured again.

Now is the time for another exposition dump. This is the first of two sequences that are quite confusing. I am obviously watching this with fan subs so it could be that, but I don’t think so. The leader of the humans tells a story that basically amounts to a sci-fi retelling of how Muslims in Arabia kept science alive while Europe plunged into darkness. He says his people are from “Islam, the greatest tribe and an established community that lived on Earth.” Makes sense, it’s a Turkish movie after all. Well, at least it makes sense at this point in the film. It won’t make sense later though. However, he does say that Muslims are a guardian of religions. I’d think this is just a typo, but given what comes up soon, I’m not sure. It probably has to do with the fact that Islam is the third in the Abrahamic faiths which doesn’t exclude the stuff that came before Mohammed. Christ himself is considered a prophet. It’s most likely a part of this film’s ultimate message of unity and peace among people.

After some fighting and…

a scene that has Turkish Captain America in Turkish A Clockwork Orange, Arkin and blonde go into the tunnels to find the sword of power. This is when we get stuff that I’m really not sure of. Apparently, the faithful went underground with Jesus as their guide. This place includes Christian religious imagery too.

You can kind of think of this as Indy going through a holy place to find something at the end that will help him. Then we get a little backstory on how the Wizard emerged from these people with an obsession for immortality. I’m really not sure if this is supposed to mean the people on the surface were separate from those underground or not. It’s confusing and I would want someone like Ed Glaser who makes a lot of videos about Turkish films to explain it to me.

All that’s really important, which is something often said when talking about Turkish Star Wars, is that Arkin has the sword and is ready to deal out some justice.

Even the Cylons have trouble because Arkin can block bullets with that thing.

After the movie drops it’s English title into the film…

Turkish Captain America just casually knocks out Arkin.

Once again, all you need to know about what happens next is Turkish Captain America gets fooled and Arkin has to come to the rescue. Sadly, Turkish Captain America is killed. Arkin gets the sword of power again and melts it down into gauntlets.

Now the movie just becomes an action sequence with a lot of Arkin jumping. Seriously, I think his jumping rivals the slow motion falling down in Brazilian Star Wars. All of this is going on while Earth is threatened with destruction and I guess is destroyed?

No time for that oddity. Just more action.

After defeating the bad guy, Arkin says goodbye, and flies off in the Millennium Falcon.

That’s it! It really is like watching something that was thrown together by sci-fi fans. It certainly is quite a mess, but a fun mess. A fun mess with some of the best movie scores of the time. Even if they were lifted. I do recommend this. Don’t know if I could watch it again, but it is fun to watch once.

Turkish Film Fest: Turkish Mad Max/Ölüme son adim (1983, dir. Çetin Inanç)

Posted on November 28, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

I didn’t think it was possible, but they did it. This movie is even better than Turkish First Blood. Again, you can stop reading now if you want to and just go watch it. I won’t blame you. The only downside to this movie, if you can call it that, is that I think the tie-in to Mad Max might have been an afterthought. It’s feels more like they had an action packed script for the three leads to star in, then decided to throw in a few Mad Max elements such as the leather outfit and weapon from the Mad Max poster. I could be wrong, but it’s the impression that I get. Let’s dig in!

The movie begins on this shot of Kaan or Kagan (Cüneyt Arkin) climbing up onto the top of a building. He makes his way to a stairwell where bad guys start to flow in. He lights some dynamite and appears to chuck it onto the angry no arms and no legs dummy from Turkish First Blood.

Regardless, it kills some of the bad guys. Kaan beats on one guy, then takes him around by the neck and begins to lead him down the stairs. Cut to title card. Arkin is once again in badass mode for this movie. However, this time around we get to see him do some more acting.

Then we meet every slimy businessman and bikini girl from every Turkish movie of this era. Arkin says hi the Arkin way. By shooting him in the hand.

Jeez! Where’s Buddy with his Healing Hands when you need him?

Turns out Kaan was delivering a small package for this guy. It also turns out what was in it was used by a girl who subsequently died before his eyes. Kaan isn’t happy to say the least. Especially after this guy says “they were destined to die”. Kaan says “and so are you”. He makes the guy eat the whole package of heroin and watches him die.

Now we cut to Kaan dealing some cards onto a bed. Then guys start to come into the room. I think the first part of this scene is only to remind us that Arkin is going to be doing more of that knife throwing to kill guys in this movie. Seriously, he kills a lot of people by simply throwing a knife that flies like a projectile. You’d think he worked in a carnival for many years before taking up whatever his job is in this movie.

After dispatching those bad guys, the main guy comes into the room and has a job for Kaan. He wants Kaan to bring a professor who has, or is, developing a new medicine. Kaan takes the job, then cut to another room where we are introduced to the second member of Kaan’s team.

This is Ali played by Yildirim Gencer. Yildirim Gencer is the one who played Kilink in Kilink In Istanbul, Kilink vs. The Flying Man, and Kilink: Strip And Kill. This is when a strange old man bursts into the room.

This leads to a rather comical little scene where this old man appears to be having a lot of trouble firing this rifle. In fact, eventually they just end up starting to fight. After Ali pins the old man we find out that the old man is really Kaan in disguise.

This is how we learn that two of them are friends, and have a rather unique relationship. This is one of the things that makes this better than Turkish First Blood. This isn’t just one scene, but something that develops over the course of the film.

Now for another call back, we meet the third member of Kaan’s team played by actress Emel Tümer. Emel Tümer played the girl in Turkish First Blood. Except this time she’s going to be kicking butt and blowing people away right along side Arkin. We meet her during this scene where she is having a drinking contest with this guy. Of course she wins, but then the surrounding guys pin her down as if at the very least they are going to feel her up. This is honestly a great scene because of this.

Kaan and Ali enter the room and Arkin gets this smile on his face as if to say, “Hi boys! Hope you enjoyed what little you just got because I’m about to even up the odds and you won’t like what me, my friend, and she has in store for you.” And beat the crap out of them they do.

During this whole fight they are also talking to each other to catch up. We find out that she has at least been in a relationship with Ali at some point and probably Kaan as well. It ends with them taking a little breather and enjoying a drink with each other.

Then we get a sequence that I’m not sure of the plot purpose. However, it does give the film a chance to have her get shot in the butt, which is kind of funny. But more importantly, it introduces us to the coin flipping thing that Kaan does in this movie. He’ll flip a coin to see whether he or Ali will do something, Ali always calls heads, and loses every time. It also gets in something else that will carry throughout the movie. That Kaan and Ali really are fond of her. Next she gets behind the wheel and proceeds to tell Ali she didn’t appreciate being shot in the butt by his friendly fire.

I love the back and forth here between Ali and her, which does end up like it should because she isn’t paying attention to the driving while doing all this talking.

Of course she’s gonna need some help pushing that car. Heads or tails?

Now is when the action largely takes over the movie. I’ll try to hit the high points here.

Arkin is ready for his Mad Max poster now.

I didn’t expect Turkish Mad Max to be the one where Arkin wields a bow and arrow.

At this point, they find the professor and his wife. Arkin gets some nice poses in here too.

Then there’s a conversation between Kaan and Ali. I didn’t pick up the in joke till I looked up that Ali was played by the same actor who plays Kilink, but I get it now. Kaan tells Ali: “You’re a celebrity nevertheless. Twice even. At being a crook and at scoring ladies.”

Now comes a humorous action sequence where they have obviously returned to the set of Turkish First Blood. It’s funny because during the majority of this scene they are doing battle with stock footage.

This is where we find out that the guy who hired Kaan has double crossed them. Big surprise there. About as much of a surprise as the fact that they return to the quarry set of Turkish First Blood and I believe the set of Turkish Star Wars where Arkin punched rocks.

Of course more action ensues and Ali once again loses the coin toss and has to carry the professor who was shot during the battle. Next we return to what I assume are the caves from Turkish First Blood. We also get this great shot.

Then we get what is probably the most insane action sequence in any of these Turkish movies I’ve watched so far. After everyone but Kaan goes down the side of a rock face on a rope, Kaan tries to go down. He’s got people at the top and on sides of him. The scene is hilarious as Kaan switches between shooting and many knife throws to deal with the bad guys. There is no way I can do this over the top action sequence justice. Just take my word for it that it’s pretty cool in it’s lunacy.

Once they are safe, we get a nice little scene where Kaan gives Emel Tümer’s character a flower. Ali then asks him where his present is to which Kaan gives him his cigarette. “A cigarette for death”. Then they’re off to battle some more stock footage. We get some more action, then Ali finally finds out that Kaan has been using a coin that is tails on both sides this whole time.

Now all the friendship stuff between Kaan and Ali comes to a head when Ali is left trying to get to the truck Tümer and Arkin are in while bad guys close in behind him.

He honors his friend’s plea and shoots him. After some more action, Arkin and Tümer return to the guy who hired them and do him in for lying to them that it was medicine when it was drugs. It ends with this look on Arkin’s face.

I really enjoyed this one. Aside from the Django one, these were fun for me to watch and write about. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving week.

Turkish Film Fest: Turkish First Blood/Vahsi Kan (1983, dir. Çetin Inanç)

Posted on November 26, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

This is one of the most awesome things I have sat through in my entire life. It’s mindless entertainment with frantic editing and cinematography that helps to keep an intense pace. Cüneyt Arkin kicks massive amounts of ass and I don’t care how old he is, he should be in the next Expendables movie. The soundtrack is so epic that you could play it over Moses parting the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments or one of those battles made up of a cast of thousands. I even landed a version that clearly had machine translated subtitles which means I sort of get what was going on, but they say it in the most hilarious way possible. The only issue to say up front is that if you get motion sickness easily, then maybe this isn’t for you because the camera points upward and spins. Not too often, but combined with everything else, it might get you. Otherwise, stop reading now and just go watch it. Turn off your brain and just enjoy.

For those of you who actually want to read about this film first, here we go!

The movie opens up on a house party which is soon invaded by a gang that I will probably see again when I watch Turkish Mad Max. They are looking for somebody and they aren’t going to leave even when one of the people tells them to “get out you fuckers!!!” There’s a fair amount violence here before it cuts to a pair of panties on a woman. She just turns and leaves the room where a guy comes in, wakes a guy up, and kicks him to death.

Now comes one of the oddest scenes in the movie. A lady who is in several of these Turkish movies is driving a car with a child and an old man. They come across what appear to be dead bodies. But then they get up and come towards the car after them. And by come after them, I mean they totally act like zombies.

The only reason I know they weren’t actually zombies is because the leader of that gang finally calls them off of her. It’s the weirdest thing in this movie. You keep wondering are they trying to rape her or literally take a bite out of her. It’s not clear what was going on in this scene even after you find out they’re not zombies.

After the camera gets knocked on it’s side…

and she introduces this guy’s chest to a branch…

we cut to Cüneyt Arkin playing this movie’s Rambo named Riza. He is being walked in handcuffs by two soldiers. They try to help out. It leaves her free to show up later in the film, and Riza to do the leave town scene from First Blood. But first, we are introduced to the main villain of the movie.

Best I can figure is that he comes from Riza’s military past, is a bit of a gangster, and has a personal grudge with Riza. I think Riza was involved with the death or maiming of his son or someone he cared for, which is why he was being taken to court. It’s also why his gang seemed to be trying to eliminate any witnesses that could derail the upcoming court case for him.

Now Riza is walking down the road and passes the gang. They tell him to leave and he doesn’t. In fact he walks behind them as they drive away and seems to be able to walk as fast as they can drive. They turn around, but the way it’s done it does make it look like he magically transported in front of them. Now they take him to some ruins. This is when we get some of those glorious subtitles.

Then they beat him. This is the equivalent to the scene in First Blood where they pull the razor out to shave him and Rambo flips out. This scene is actually done quite well as it cuts from Riza tied up and cut in flashback to them beating him in the present, while a shot of his unflinching face is zoomed in on.

Arkin is pretty intimating and you know these guys are in trouble. Then this happens.

He breaks free and apparently there is a heavily forested area nearby. They follow him into the forest and we do the whole jumping off the cliff thing. It cuts him up, but he’s fine. He’s Cüneyt Arkin. The man punches rocks.

See! He’s fine. He just got hit by some ketchup on the way down. Now we meet this movie’s Colonel Trautman.

He is trying to deal with the villain of the movie who isn’t listening. The guy tries to tell him he has hundred of witnesses, but Trautman says witnesses are for sale. It doesn’t matter what he says because this guy says “Riza was convicted and he is outlaw now.”

After emerging from leaves and rolling from one part of the forest into another, he kills and eats a crab that is stock footage one minute, then actually there.

Next we meet this guy who isn’t happy with Riza as you can see. I’m not sure if he is supposed to be the son of the bad guy who he said was dead or is just somebody else who is angry with Riza. Regardless,

To which the guy responds “I have to see his carcass clad. I’m a dead, everybody will die!”

Now Riza finds himself in a cave that I’m pretty sure is Superman’s lair from The Return Of Superman. The director of that film was even involved in the production of this movie. Guy still has an unfortunate first name. Especially when this film is introduced in the opening credits as a Kunt Film.

Anyways, after angry no arms and legs guy kills a guy with a bomb and Riza cuts something off his skin with a knife, the film really starts to get manic with it’s editing. Riza is digging in, Trautman is beginning his search for Riza, and the gang head into the forest some more to get themselves killed. I know The Cinema Snob review of this already mentioned it, but seriously, sometimes it does look like Cüneyt Arkin is posing for the epic soundtrack.

Meanwhile, more bad subtitles.

Now that Riza has a walkie talkie, they start to try and reach out to him, but he basically ignores them. He hears someone and throws the knife and pins the girl from the beginning of the movie against a tree. After unpinning her we get a scene that rivals Black Widow being captured for what felt like three minutes in Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015).

Riza just walks up that tiny little incline, but she seems to be having all the trouble in the world. You’d think she has something wrong with her leg or something that could explain this, but I didn’t catch anything. She was standing before, and stands up the second he gives her his hand. I get why we see her bathe in a river though. She’s beautiful and she could use a little wash after the attack at the beginning of the film. Then she gets out of the water and walks over to Riza and the epic music kicks in. It’s hilarious. Think he’s going to do anything about it. Nope. It just cuts to her dressed and they eat. There’s a lot of sudden cuts in this movie.

Time to go back to the bad guy who does a great job playing a really deliriously angry man who wants Riza dead. That, and more hilarious subtitled lines.

To borrow from The New York Dolls song Stranded In The Jungle: Meanwhile, back in the jungle. Riza is wearing a bush, then we cut to the girl in the caves. It’s supposed to be rain on the outside of the caves, but it sounds more like some monster is scratching at the walls to come and get her. That, or rocks falling from the sky. But then Riza shows up and suddenly those effects go away. Now they try some more to get in touch with Riza on the radio. Then he and the girl have a brief exchange in which we find out some more about Riza.

It’s all clear to me now. Actually he does go on to say “a war between good and bad but who is the good?”

At this point, it’s basically non-stop action. So let’s just do some highlights.

Now the bad guys have Riza and the girl corned in a cave. They bring in a bulldozer, a giant hammer, and explosives to try and kill him. It does kill her, but Cüneyt Arkin of course emerges from the rubble.

He now does this mad run where he slits the throats of each person he meets basically without stopping.

They try to drive away, but you can’t escape Cüneyt Arkin. He’ll just grab onto the car, which he does. Then he has a final battle with the gang leader.

Now Riza just has the big bad guy to deal with and the maimed guy. Riza just shoots the bad guy in the head after giving him some parting words. Then we finally learn what this armless and legless guy’s problem is with Riza.

Riza and this guy were fighting in a desert with the camera on it’s side. The guy got ahold of some water, drank it, then ran into a minefield. The guy tries to blow him up, but Riza figures it out and it’s the guy who blows up instead. With everyone dead, Riza is apparently a free man now, and he walks away from the townsfolk and Trautman.

He truly became “honoured wild blood.”

Nothing I can say about this can do it justice. I’ve seen The Cinema Snob review numerous times and even it doesn’t do it justice using actual clips from it. You’ve got to see it to believe it. It’s so much 80s action fun. Also, it’s honestly pretty well put together. It does a great job of keeping the crazy pace and that soundtrack will periodically kick in to give you dose of adrenaline. Whether you find it with subtitles or not, just see it.