REVIEW: ATOR L'INVINCIBLE 2
REVIEW: THE BLADE MASTER
REVIEW: JOE D'AMATO [ 1984 ] 92'
REVIEW: THE METAXA CORPORATION
CAST: MILES O'KEEFFE, CHARLES BORROMEL,
CAST: LISA FOSTER, DAVID CAIN HAUGHTON
PERSONAL RATING:
CRITICAL RATING:
WTF-FILMOMETER: BEHOLD THE MIGHTY ZOR!

"Here, in the mist shrouded valleys beneath sleeping giant volcanoes, the legend of Ator was born - a legend steeped in mystery and fantasy which inspires the brave, comforts the weak, and strikes fear in the craven and wicked. After the fiery, chaotic creation of the Earth, in the turbulent period of man's ascendancy, our world is populated by wild, cruel, and ignorant men. But there are still a few who seem to have been touched by some higher power and whose courage and bravery set them apart from the savage hordes. . ."

The makers of the first Ator film, whether they consciously did so or not, made the wise decision to give the audience little to no indication of in what time period the film is supposedly taking place. This kept the constant appearance of ancient Roman architecture throughout the film (aqueducts in the background of Ator's village, the amphitheater that serves as the temple of the Spider King) from ever being as attention grabbing as it could have been. ATOR L'INVINCIBLE 2, from this point referred to by its American release title of THE BLADE MASTER, sadly refuses to follow suit. As espoused in the opening narration, this film takes place at the dawn of man - as such we get a few entirely random scenes of cannibalistic cave people. Thrown into the mix for flavor are Ator and his ilk of enlightened iron-age barbarians, the use of explosives long before they should have existed, Germanic architecture, samurai, nuclear weapons (!!!), etc. etc. etc. The resulting film is an anachronistic mess that manages, somehow, to be even goofier than the first of the series.

THE BLADE MASTER begins, rather oddly, with our introduction to the ignorant people the narration refers to - they sit around fires in squalid conditions beating various rocks and bones together and chowing down on bits of raw meat. For no reason in particular another tribe of cavemen rushes in, armed with spears and apparently more advanced than the previous lot, and proceeds to slaughter the other group. A jarring cut in the action takes us to a considerably more modern castle - inside shots reveal that there's a cave somewhere within it (?) where the peaceful intellectual Akronas is working on his various enlightened scientific whatsits. His daughter Mila enters and he shares with her his latest discover - a reflective octagonal container thing that we never get a good look at due to all of the light being bounced off of it. Akronas' description doesn't give much insight into what the thing is, as it is said to be, "everything, and nothing. . . It is life. . . and death. Goodness, richness, poverty, and evil. It all depends on man, what man does with it." Mila makes some sense of his ramblings by letting us know that it could be a weapon - though by Akronas' logic it could just as well have been a cheese grater or a sack of potatoes. But no matter - the point is that the... thing... must be protected from the hands of 'ambitious men' and that only one man is good enough for the job.

Yup. You guessed it. Miles O'Keeffe, er... Ator.

We are whisked back into flashback mode for the next three minutes where footage from ATOR L'INVINCIBLE is played and the narrator fills us in on the events. Of note is the offhand way in which Ator's bride Sunya is removed from the equation - the narrator states, quite frankly, "Later, Sunya died," but never bothers to tell us why or what from. It seems Ator has retired to the 'Eastern lands', wherever they may be, to home in on his skills - apparently he had that annoying sign of Thoren surgically removed between films (a wise decision to be sure). Living with him is the unfortunately named Thong - a master swordsman and, also unfortunately, mute. It seems Ator spends most of his time lifting rocks while Thong does artsy stuff, but the two of them take some time out of their day to sword fight the crap out of each other as well. It may be hard for those who witnessed the first film to imagine, but Ator's costuming this go 'round somehow manages to be more ridiculous that that of the first film, with the titular character running around in little more than a pair of leather undies and a very short skirt for the majority of the film.

And my God, the hair!

Back at the castle Mila is understandably worried about her father - who will protect him after she leaves to go to the 'ends of the Earth' to find Ator? As if by cue, stock footage from the first film of the black knights of the spider appears, indicating that the evil Zor's forces are approaching - the only difference in the footage here is that it hasn't been tinted to simulate night time. Costumes are recycled ad nauseum from the first film, here, in an effort to make the stock footage of the men on horseback from the first film match up to the footage of the new men running about the castle. The soldiers of Zor have no trouble taking out the guards of Akronas' domain and, with Zor fast approaching (though as of yet entirely unseen), the aging intellectual sends his daughter off on her journey to find Ator. No sooner has she began running out of the cave than the soldiers of Zor appear and begin roughing up Akronas - but a thundering voice from behind commands them to stop.

And so we are introduced to Zor. Oh Zor, what can I really say? Zor is a pale, lanky individual with a highly effeminate personality and a penchant for wearing a big black hat shaped like a swan (of all things - that our evil antagonist should associate himself with a creature generally represented by its placid beauty is truly unfortunate). He spends a good 75-80% of this film stopping his minions from doing harm to any characters in the film, leaving him one of the most ineffective and downright silly movie villains in all of history. To give an idea of just how ineffective this character is in comparison to other movie bad-guys, I've included the images below of Darth Vader (left), Lo Pan (middle), and the mighty Zor (right) for reference.

At any rate, Zor stops his minions from pummeling the poor peaceful Akronas to death by letting them know that all of them "together are not worth this man's little finger!" - so much for positive re-enforcement at the workplace. What ensues is a battle of wits - at least it's supposed to be a battle of wits, I think - between Zor and Akronas that ends with the former rearing back his head in laughter and making what I'm voting as the best bad guy face in film history. In the meanwhile, Mila is out of the castle and running through the countryside in a hunt for the ends of the earth, where nature herself seems to decline to accompany you any further, and the domain of the mighty Ator. Zor sends a number of soldiers - that number being two or three - to follow Mila, capture her, and bring her back to the castle - a task they fail at completing quite marvelously. Three of them ambush the girl as she passes through a forest, only to be struck down in short order - two more then miraculously appear in the background and, as Mila looks back at them, shoot her in the chest with an arrow. Wounded, she retreats into the undergrowth - one has to wonder, though, why a wound to the chest would suddenly cause her to start to limp. I digress. She manages to escape the entirely inept search capabilities exhibited by the two soldiers and continues on her way.

Back at the castle Zor is asking the really important questions about what's going on - such as, "Why did your daughter fly like an arrow straight towards the sun?" He brings up the idea of torturing the aging man of science but just as quickly dispels it and opts, instead, to showcase his mighty 'powers of deduction' (he was a former student of Akronas, after all). A stock footage shot of some place suspiciously like Arizona lets us know that we're headed back to Ator's domain - there he is busy trying to perfect his broadsword. After coming to a revelation about it so stupid that I refuse to repeat it here, Mila stumbles in and manages to ask for help before promptly passing out. Ator has Thong (natch) fetch his medical supplies - which consist of leaves, a wet towel, and bubbling dry ice - so that he might perform 'surgery' on the young woman to save her life. Meanwhile, Zor has come to the conclusion that the only thing Mila could possibly have run off to find was Ator - who also appears to have been a former student of Akronas, though the movie made no mention of this during the earlier flashback. Mila is back up and about in Ator-land - an indeterminable amount of time has passed between shots - and, after marveling momentarily at the warrior's vast knowledge of surgery, decides that she's ready to head back and help her father. Ator begrudgingly agrees, but warns her that the way is long and hard (even though Mila managed it in a single afternoon) and that if she's too weak she'll be left behind. But before they leave, Mila must prove herself to be the daughter of the great one in a test that involves using dirt to explode her way out of a prison cell. That accomplished the three warriors depart.

As soon as they head off, Ator, Mila, and Thong are pursued by three unidentified soldiers of Zor - all of them donning funny hats, including one that is, in fact, Zor's. Back at the castle Zor is introducing Akronas to an old bearded guy named Sandor who is apparently the exact opposite of Ator - he looks it as well - in that he is a master of the unnatural world. Sandor is ordered to neutralize the threat posed by Ator - and presumably neutralize Ator himself - and does so by creating a fog bank (?) that temporarily confuses our heroes. Ator and Thong are separated from Mila and enter into a cave where they must do battle with invisible monsters. This involves a lot of shots of both characters falling on the ground a lot before finally using they're cloaks to 'reveal' the beasties and stab them to death. Oh budget, how we miss thee. Mila manages to get herself captured by the same pack of cannibalistic cavemen that appeared in the opening scene of the film, as do the three soldiers who were following her. The tribe sacrifices one of the soldiers to their esteemed leader, who is offered up the man's heart for dinner (and gladly accepts, I might add). It seems that Mila will be next until - boom! - Ator leaps from behind a cave wall, accompanied somehow by an explosion, and scares the primitive men away, thusly saving Mila from becoming dinner meat. The two then catch up with Thong and continue on their way.

Sandor has failed - his fog bank just wasn't mighty enough - and Zor is not happy about it. He orders the creepy old man to be imprisoned and flogged, but is talked out of that last part by Akronas. Why anyone on Earth, much less the men who work for him, would continue to be frightened at Zor from this point on is honestly beyond me. Ator, Thong, and Mila are making their way through the forest again when suddenly - samurai! Three mighty Japanese warriors appear - including one swordsman who looks to be painted up like a mime. Our heroes draw their weapons - including Ator, who draws 2 swords... they didn't rechristen him THE BLADE MASTER for nothing - and an inevitable battle ensues that is only mildly interesting because more of Zor's soldiers show up to hamper the proceedings. All of the enemies are vanquished, unsurprisingly, and the three, once again, head on their way. We are treated to some back story on Zor from Ator, who tells Mila that the three samurai were the last of the noble tribe of Hun. The Hun were ruled by Soko, who's brother was - ding ding ding! - Zor! Zor massacred the tribe and used the three surviving warriors to kill his brother and take control for himself. This story, obviously meant to give the impression that Zor really is a terrible horrible evil man ends up coming of as just being silly instead. It's also here that we're given one of the few mentions of the name of the device around which the plot of the film is loosely hung - the geometric nucleus. Maybe it's better that they don't mention it so often after all. . .

That 'night' Ator and Thong catch two strangers spying on them - it turns out they are from a village who's name I can't spell. What's important about it is that its the place where Ator's parents were born. Whether these are the real parents or the foster parents is never explained, but I suppose it hardly matters since all of them are quite dead at this point. According to the two villagers a great evil has descended upon the town - a cult that worships the mighty serpent god (my that idea sounds familiar) that demands a sacrifice of several of the villagers on every full moon. One wonders how there's even a village left at that rate. Ator and his two fellow warriors head to the village, conveniently on the morning before one of those sacrifices, and convince the villagers there to fight. . . or so it seems. As celebratory wine is being offered to Ator, Thong sneaks off and finds a poor sick man who says, "My name is Ravani, tell Ator they're going to trap him." That's enough to convince Thong that something is amiss but, sadly, Ator has already drunk the drugged celebratory wine and fallen flat on his face. Thong escapes but Ator is captured along with Mila and a man who looks like the blond guy from ZOMBI 2 [1979]. The snake people show up on horseback with all of their goons to collect them and, as payment for the villagers' complicity, proceed to massacre the entire population. This is the second hometown Ator has seen slaughtered and it's easy to see that he's none too happy about it.

Ator and the rest, sans Thong, are taken by the snake people into what I assume is their temple - though it looks more like an old basement some place. Zor shows up (???) from out of nowhere and pays the high priest with a box of treasure for capturing and doing away with Ator and his buddies. The world's worst villain hams up the screen for an inordinate amount of time, talking about evil beating goodness and poking Ator provocatively on the chest, before heading out of the place and, presumably, back to Akronas' castle. The high priest says some goofy stuff about the snake god and then starts shoving girls down a hole in the floor. Thong sneaks into the snake temple and makes his way sloooowly towards Ator, giving the high priest plenty of time to sacrifice each and every girl ahead of Ator and Mila. The man who looks like the blond guy from ZOMBI 2 is sent down to his death and, as Mila is about to be sent down as well, Thong frees Ator and a brawl ensues. Mila is knocked into the snake pit in the confusion and Ator, after defeating the high priest himself, must jump down the hole to save her. He reaches her just in time for the giant floppy rubber snake god to make his appearance - and what a mighty giant floppy rubber snake god he is! The effects work here is even less convincing than that which is showcased in the exciting conclusion of ATOR L'INVINCIBLE and Ator is forced to wrap the snake around his body himself before removing a pointy stake from the pit wall and shoving it into the poor puppet's head. And so the three heroes head off once more to the castle.

Finally they are in sight of it - after a lengthy and awkwardly written conversation about what to do Ator sends Mila and Thong inside, telling them that he'll keep the guards busy out there. Ator runs off and Mila and Thong gaze up at the castle, pondering their next move. Suddenly there's a cut and from off the top of a cliff comes Ator - complete with a modern hang-glider with a bit of grass stuck to the metal bits in a feeble attempt to make it seem plausible. Needless to say those attempts fail hysterically. We are treated to endless scenes of Ator floating above the countryside as stock footage shots of the surrounding landscape play on - including what is reported to be footage from WHERE EAGLES DARE [1968] presenting a fly over of what is supposed to be the castle in beautiful unformatted anamorphic! To make matters all the worse, Ator is armed with homemade bombs that he proceeds to drop on the guards as they gawk in 'wonder' at the man who's mastered the mysteries of flight. Bringing this laughably ridiculous scene to close is a continuity gaff so bad that it fits perfectly with the scene - Ator, in a wide shot, is landing in an open field while, in the successive close-up, he is shown landing on the castle. Ho hum.

Anywho, Ator enters the castle from the top while Mila and Thong do the same from the bottom - none of them have any real issues dispensing with the guards they come across. Ator's attack on the castle from this point on is rather reminiscent of Lancelot's attack on the wedding in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL [1975] and is reasonably as hysterical. Ator finally catches up with Zor, who is finally starting to act a bit like the villain he's supposed to be in beating up on the old and feeble Akronas. Zor taunts Ator into throwing down one of his own swords to make the fight more fair (!!!) and promptly picks it up himself to reverse the odds. The ensuing fight is as terribly staged as one can expect, with Zor being about as proficient at his swordplay as Miles O'Keeffe is at his acting. In the end Zor is disarmed and, before Ator can kill him, Akronas announces that he should be tried by the 'League of Peaceful Nations' - that such a thing could exist in a world populated by giant snake worshiping cults and cave people is patently absurd. Zor doesn't give them the chance, however, as he immediately starts to sneak up on Ator, who is saved when Thong throws a big knife-thing into the villain's back. Mila and her father are reunited and Ator, after a bit of lovey-dovey talk with the daughter, heads off with the geometric nucleus. What follows is a rather jarring cut to stock footage of a thermonuclear explosion and some more narration:

"Lest the nucleus fall into unscrupulous hands and the Earth and all living creatures be consumed in a seething cauldron of annihilation, Ator destroyed it. Perhaps in the future man would be wise enough to use this Promethean discovery. Wherever evil threatens to overwhelm the peace and inherent goodness of man, Ator shall ride to do battle. Wherever man shall oppress, Ator will answer a call for help and to be free from bondage. No one is too powerful and protected to avoid his rightful punishment. He is the guardian of knowledge and the hope of the future - Ator the avenger!"

And so the harmlessly goofy offspring of ATOR L'INVINCIBLE ends. THE BLADE MASTER takes everything that made the first film as illogical as it was, mixes it up with cavemen, hang gliders, and thermonuclear weapons, and serves up, in the end, the second most enjoyable film of the series. This is the only sequel out of the three that even attempts to establish a connection with the original film with both the third and fourth offering up new beginnings for the hero. Sadly missing from the production this go around is Carlos Maria Cordio, who provided the soundtrack scores for the remainder of the series. Filling in for him here is Carlo Rustichelli who contributes a synthesizer score that tries hard to be every bit as terrible as the film it accompanies and, on that level, succeeds in full. Sadly, it's the most irritating aspect of the film - stock cues from the first film would have been a welcome addition in place of it. The budget for the shoot was obviously rather constrained, with both Ator's home and the laboratory of Akronas being the same set redressed and the interior of the cannibal cave showing its face in several different scenes as well.

Scripting continues to be an issue with this film, though that certainly shouldn't surprise anyone. Characters continually refer to how far away Ator's domain in the 'Eastern Lands' is from Akronas' and how difficult the journeys between them are while Mila manages the entire trip in a single afternoon with the added bonus of having an arrow sticking out of her chest. Dialogue is a real treat at times as well - highlights include the story of Zor attacking the noble tribe of Hun and the two non-mute heroes discussing how to get into the castle for the final showdown. Budget constraints lead to some unforgettable moments as well, including the battles between the invisible monsters and the giant-floppy-rubber-snake god. It's good to have O'Keeffe back for continuity purposes - he's poorly replaced in QUEST FOR THE MIGHTY SWORD - though his acting chops certainly leave a lot to be desired. Lisa Foster, playing Mila, is also nice to look at but hardly fits the part of a warrior while Charles Borommel as her father, Akronas, was much better suited to the inspector role he played in D'Amato's earlier film ROSSO SANGUE [. Chen Wong, who had the unfortunate experience have having to play a character named Thong, does well enough given that his part has no lines. The real star of the show is David Cain Haughton playing the mighty (chuckle) Zor - he never once manages to evoke a reaction other than gut-churning laughter for as long as he's on screen.

Amazingly enough, New Line Cinema released this film theatrically in the United States and, reportedly, even aided in financing the production. New Line Cinema was in its early stages at this point in its career, having only been in the business of production since 1968 and, in the time span between then and 1984, only produced 6 other motion pictures. The majority of people who have seen the film, however, have done so via the magic of Mystery Science Theater 3000. THE BLADE MASTER played there under the highly inappropriate video title of CAVE DWELLERS in the first episode of season 4 of the show. While the film itself never really reaches the same level of bemusing ineptitude that the first achieves so beautifully it's still quite an amusing experience and the added MST3K commentary definitely enhances the experience. If you enjoyed the first film then by all means check it out - just make sure you catch Joel and the 'bots taking their jabs at it as well.