The Barbarians Studio: Kino Lorber Studio Classics / Scorpion Releasing
Jan 05, 2021 net exclusive by Austin Trunick
The Ragnicks are a tribe of peaceful, touring circus folks, and guardians of the sacred "belly Stone": a magical ruby that holds the secrets of artwork, tune, and laughter. They're ambushed by means of a bunch of raiders led by using the evil Kadar (Invasion united states's Richard Lynch), who plans to take their queen for his bride, and capture the belly stone for his sorceress ally. among his captives are Kutchek and Gore, younger twins who are sentenced to be raised in his treacherous mines – who grow up to be performed by using the ever-beefy Barbarian Brothers, and develop into the saviors of their individuals.
Peter and David Paul, also referred to as the Barbarian Brothers, have been twin bodybuilders who appeared in a string of unique, twin-centric novelty movies within the Eighties and early '90s. The story goes that the producers at Cannon spotted them in a Playgirl pictorial, saw some capabilities, and introduced them in for a meeting. possibly figuring that they may get two Lou Ferrignos for the expense of 1, they went about constructing a film especially across the two, handing screenplay obligations to condominium author James R. Silke (Revenge of the Ninja, Ninja III: The Domination, King Solomon's Mines) and directorial control at their Italian division to Ruggero Deodato, the director of Cannibal Holocaust.
The results are low-cost and best semi-critical, however exciting. The film opens with a in actuality pleasing buggy chase, as mutated raiders do battle on horseback with the Ragnicks' cadre of knife throwers, fireblowers, and acrobats. the primary third or so of the movie seems like a grim, straight-forward sword-and-sorcery flick, but that each one falls away as quickly because the orphaned twins grow up and open their mouths: The Barbarian Bros bicker and banter like a couple of up to date-day meatheads. (according to the late David Paul, there became a language barrier between the celebrities and their director, who allowed them to advert-lib a lot of their goof-off lines.) It transforms into greater of a comedy at this point, but that definitely plays to its identical stars' talents.
Scorpion and Kino Lorber have executed a nice job bringing this to Blu-ray; i will be able to't vouch for any DVD variants, however the widescreen picture does the film much more justice than the cropped VHS edition I'm used to staring at. It's definitely decent-looking movie, especially since Cannon's typically tight budgeting; the set design is visually enjoyable, from Kadar's castle (Kadar's Kastle?) to the Hieronymus Bosch-like battlefield we see in the movie's opening credit. The costume design is… smartly, diverse. The physique-painted circus people show up well on-digicam, but Richard Lynch's blond, dreadlocked wig makes him appear to be a persona David Bowie would have abandoned in the dressing room, and the ram horn-like hairdo on the Emo Philips-searching friendly wizard raises greater questions than it answers.
The disc comes with some trailers and a pleasant commentary by means of Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson, and spends a lot of time exploring the movie's many ties to the Euro exploitation scene of the 1980s. Cannon-heads will want this liberate, for bound, and it's value a look from any person else who enjoys inexpensive, '80s delusion.
(www.kinolorber.com/product/the-barbarians-blu-ray)
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