With the help of the dead sorcerer Husia, raised from the grave by black magic, King Cromwell conquers the neighboring kingdom of Edan, annexing it to his lands. However, the usurper’s warriors fail to reach Prince Talon, who flees to his father’s former allies. Years later, the matured Talon returns to Edan as a mercenary, selling his magical three-bladed sword to all comers. At this point, a rebellion is being prepared in the capital of the former kingdom, led by the son of the former king’s first minister, Mika, and his sister Alana. But treachery puts the leader of the rebels in the hands of Cromwell. Talon agrees to help the rebels free their leader. But neither he, nor Cromwell, nor Alana suspect that the dead sorcerer Husia has not returned to the grave and intends to regain his former power.
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A long time ago, in those distant times from which only legends remain, there lived an evil king who dreamed of enslaving the whole world. These words begin almost every self-respecting epic fantasy, which boomed in the world film industry in the late ’70s and ’80s. One after another appeared similar in style and plot movies in which a brave warrior successfully fought the forces of evil and freed the beautiful princess – later this will be massively exploited by the creators of computer RPG, but so far the computers were used for calculations, and to play them – it occurred to only the most daring users. And if some fantasy films were lucky enough to become a cult, about which almost everyone has heard, as, for example, the epic of Conan, the others were lost against the background of their more successful brethren and are now almost forgotten.
But, it’s a strange thing – if in America, the home of the film, sometimes only specialists know about it, in our country the situation is somewhat different. Some, forgotten in their homeland, have been able to reach almost cult status in our country – of course, this does not apply to the case in question, but what can be the reason for such a strange phenomenon? Is it not the VHS-era, which the older generation recalls with nostalgia and which does not say anything to the young people, who are used to dubbing – sometimes very, very mediocre – all to blame? Perhaps – when you see a movie in the translation of the maestro after it is very difficult to even imagine that it can be translated differently. The Sword’ is even lucky in a way – Gavrilov was clearly on fire that day and if we judge by the translation quality scale, we can give it a full 10 points. But in spite of the situation described above, Albert Piun’s debut was still not well known to the public.
Having assembled a cast of actors not grabbing stars from the sky and having a hand in the creation of the script, the director began shooting, probably from time to time glancing enviously towards the editing room, where the process of creating the already mentioned “Conan”, which had a much higher budget, and behind a strong support towering giant Universal, was being completed. “It’s all right, we’ll see where we’ve been, the young and daring Pyun thought so, creating his first pancake of his career. The pancake didn’t even come out with a bang, and such a successful start did not foretell that Albert would eventually slip into trash, not so much because of the budgets of his films, as because of the excessively delusional plots. And in the end, the director’s creation proved the validity of the expression about gods and pots – at the U.S. box office, The Sword and the Sorcerer grossed only slightly less than Conan, which was released a couple of weeks earlier.
The evil King Titus Cromwell, played by Richard Lynch – yes, that’s what the scriptwriters called him, but he has nothing in common with the historical character, except his surname – dreaming of conquering the whole world, he awakens the sorcerer Zaxius, killed a thousand years ago – Richard Maul – and soon his hordes conquer the richest kingdom of Eden. But Cromwell miscalculated – after piercing Zaxius with his sword in the heat, he lived more than ten years in fear that the mighty sorcerer would return, saw him in every enemy, looked for something snake-like and jackal-like in their faces, but did not notice the true danger. Coming from the surviving prince of Eden Talon, Lee Horsley, turned barbarian and mercenary. Of course, they didn’t run into each other right away. There was a rebellion in Eden, led by Prince Mike- Simon McCorkindale, a peculiar rebellion. A small band of Cromwell’s opponents against his army-not for nothing did every innkeeper offer the first person he met to join the rioters. And it’s a miracle that at this very moment Talon has arrived in Eden – or else we don’t know what would have happened to the rebellion – where would we be without a hero?
On one hand the plot is straightforward, but on the other it sometimes takes unexpected turns. Even if one knows from the very beginning that the good will win and the evil will be defeated, the fantasy base is obligatory, but the director and the scriptwriters did their best not to bore the spectator even for a minute. There is magic, good humor, duels, the beautiful princess Alana – the future “Dynasty” star Kathleen Baller – all components of the genre which have not yet become boring stamps and this movie looks easy and unpretentious. Yes, even if at times the actions of the characters seem a little illogical, but the impression of “The Sword and the Sorcerer” does not spoil it at all. Speaking of the sword, if it comes first in the title, the plot does not devote much time to it, the sorcerer had more time, but we leave it to the conscience of the screenwriters.
Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (75.9 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Audio
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
Subtitles
English SDH.
