Customer Reviews

Hundra

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This feminist version of Conan the Barbarian from the 80s got lost in the shuffle when the director, who had a distribution agreement with Universal, went behind the studio's back to see if he could get a better deal. He should have just taken Big U's deal so people could get to see this cool movie. Laurene Landon is hot as the title character out to avenge the pillaging of her tribe. Does her own stunts and swordplay. Landon is a terribly overlooked action actress. Maybe this dvd release of one of her best films will give audiences a chance to see her shine. What we need now is a dvd release of her follow-up, the serial tribute Yellowhair and the Fortress of Gold. Here's to a Laurene Landon revival!

This film, with a slaugther of warrior women at the beginning and an other (smallest) at the end, can be comparate to the scenario of 1985 "red Sonia" with Birgit Nielssen in place of Laureen Landon. An other comparative point: the awfully hyper noisy music in "under-ride of the Walkyries" manner by Ennio Morricone !!!

Hundra has great locations and production value (leftovers from the previous year's Conan the Barbarian), plus a score by Ennio Morricone. The story, the acting, and (most unfortunately) the action are less than stellar. It's essentially a women's lib Barbarian epic. Hundra is a woman without a people -- her Amazonian tribe gets wiped out in a scene swiped from Conan -- so she goes on a quest to find a man. That's right, she'll repopulate her people one female baby at a time. Along the way, she learns that most men are pigs, but occasionally they can be sensitive and good-hearted... how sweet. After picking up make-up tips from a slave/priestess, she returns the favor by passing on some fight moves. Really, though, Hundra's fight scenes lack punch. There's no technique to the brawling, and this lack of precision ultimately hurts the film. The new Subversive Cinema DVD has a documentary, "Hunting Hundra," a commentary, a new comic book (!), and a bonus soundtrack disc. The operatic music is Morricone's repurposing of works by Verde, and it suits the swordplay genre perfectly.

In a decade filled with forgettable sword and sorcery epics, Hundra ranks near the top, in my opinion. There's convincing action, especially from the beautiful and athletic Laurene Landon, decent widescreen cinematography, a serviceable score, and a story paced mostly at the gallop. It's appropriately bloody and there's an element of cheeze, yes, especially around the John Norman-inspired Bull Cult, but it's one of the few S&S epics to hold not only my own but my wife's interest. Even the dog "Beast" has a story arc. I'm taking one star away because the battle scene at the end, though satisfying, didn't quite live up to the spectacle and creativity of the raid at the beginning, but I understand from the commentary they were shooting in sequence and ran low on money.

Give this one a try. If you're open minded and like swordplay and Errol Flynn-style derring-do, I think you'll be pleased.

I chose this movie DVD, along with another one starring Laurene Landon ["Yellow Hair"], when in quite an odd mood -- "wanting to see something like Conan/Red Sonya" -- but feeling that those were too well known to me -- familiarity having bred my contempt. I had seen some large unknown portion of the Conan/Red Sonya movie-series in a small cinema [during a mini-marathon of the Conan/Red Sonya shows]. I was there, while with "buzzed" friends having a good time [until then], at a Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Gaming Convention. We all walked-out, after some long while, in amused but heavy disgust, to another mini-marathon cinema room.

I had read somewhere online [some martial arts blog] about Laurene Landon being interesting -- very lovely, strong and athletic -- insisting on doing her own stunts and martial arts -- hand-to-hand, sword-to-sword or bow-and-arrows. I have a "soft-spot" for a "hard-case" like Laurene Landon. Well, to my happy surprise, Laurene Landon indeed is lovely, strong and athletic via her cool action stunts with skillful grace. Why, she is as "bad" [or for real] as Jackie Chan -- dancing around on cliffs and roofs -- and jumping out into space, into water, onto horses, or just onto dangerous ground. She seems to like whips, ropes, kicks, punches, head-butts and throws as much as Jackie Chan too. And, she obviously has as much happy fun during her dialog and action. This all goes for both "Hundra" and "Yellow Hair" -- and some other work of Laurene Landon.

As for "Hundra" in particular -- it really is like very-well-done Conan/Red Sonya sword-and-sorcery. Which is not too surprising -- as "Red Sonya" is stated by both producers to be an attempt to upstage "Hundra". "Hundra" was made just after "Conan" using similar settings and much of the same production material [clothes, items and props]. I feel that "Hundra" is uniquely fine-and-fun -- indeed upstaging other movies in its genre -- including "Red Sonya". Why "Hundra" [her and the whole show] even stays very interesting, colorful and fun -- with great grand scenery and music -- while a "new-balance" of diversity, equality, and especially feminism, is "worked-on" and "worked-out". So gals and guys can easily enjoy this Sword-and-Sorcery. Mean Macho Men-aces BEWARE -- "Hundra" gonna collect yo' hair -- and have FUN too +++

I speak for myself I love this movie.I love their portral of a woman as being strong and independant as well as being passionate and loving,which
Laurene Landon enacts beautifully.As for the animal trainers they did a superb job especially with Laurenes Horse and Dog.

Wow. This movie rocked. Some might call it a Red Sonya knock off, but they aren't noticing that it was actually filmed BEFORE Red Sonya. And in the making of the director even says that Red Sonya was actually made to be the Female Conan as a response to his film, because the director of Red Sonya didn't think he did it justice... Well I own both films and will actually side with Hundra. The actions is great for a low budget 70's film. VERY WELL SHOT. The costumes were very Hun-ish, but not in the lame XENA in the orient way. The acting was just plan perfect! For Spanish people speaking phonetically (I only noticed it with 1 actor and was quite shocked to learn that most of the actors were Spanish and not fluent English speakers) the casting was excellent! To be honest... This was a GREAT movie. I'm really really surprised, but very happy. Showed it too a feminist friend of mine and she loved it too. Me? I'm a 26 year old male. I'm just letting you know that it was something both male and females can enjoy immensely. You'll either love it or laugh at it. It would be hard to hate.

Nothing wrong with the item (package-wise) but this sorry flick is garbage! Instead of exploiting women in a porn movie Matt Cimber and John Ghaffari do it in an awful attempt to cash in with a "Lost Ages" female Conan who is the champion of an Amazonial all-female (except when it's mating time!) nomadic tribe. Predictably evil men of a predictably evil male-dominated aggressor, and resentful, tribe wipe out (by predictably fighting dirty) all but one predictably absent member of the Amazonials. The absent female is predictably the chief butt-kicker of the tribe and she goes on an extremely unlikely, and predictable, quest for revenge; and a donor in an attempt to start renewing her tribe. Of course, the buxom "heroine" does have her nude body flaunted a few times, as do a few other women in the cast, then there is the predictable women out-fighting their male adversaries (who continue to fight dirty), a predictably ineffectual evil male king, a predictable donor is found and there is plenty of maddening, unneceesary, unwarranted slow motion slaughter to fill time due to lack of any solid story-telling capabilities, real-time mindless slaughter to accomplish same, a staid, unoriginal script...

A full-blown porn, or an "Emmanuelle"-ish style soft porn, movie would have been more honest and (ahem) exploited the females in this tripe more effectively. Kind of neat music by Ennio Morricone wasted here.

Watch "Red Sonja" instead!

We seem to put aside what we see for the thrill of the film. This film is more then A Women killing men, because she is headed for a concept that she knows little of......Be coming a mother!

She is a strong women and tells everyone that she will not bow her knee to a man, BUT as a mother she will be made too.

In the end she completes her mission with out giving up who she is.

I bought this move with conquest and it turned out to be dumb, but this movie was good.

John...Ga..USA

Okay, so the first half hour is pretty entertaining. After that it descends into tedious boredom. Not enough fight scenes, not enough T&A, and no monsters. There is a cowardly canine companion, however. So yeah, skip it unless your a die hard 80s sword and sorcery completist. If youre interested in exploring director Matt Cimber's work, I suggest you start with his crucial work; The Black Six.

The package is awesome. Nice print, widescreen, good special features, a CD containing Ennio Morricone's score, and a somewhat amatuerish comic book. I almost kept my copy just for the audio CD, as I'm a Morricone fan, but in the end this one got traded in.