Barbarian Queen (1985) Movie Review

Barbarian Queen was a 1985 sword-and-Sandal fantasy action film directed by Héctor Olivera, written by Howard R. Cohen and produced by B-movie king Roger Corman as part of his nine picture deal that included shooting several films in Don Torcuato, Argentina. The cast includes six foot bombshell Lana Clarkson, actress turned writer/director Katt Shea, Frank Zagarino, Dawn Dunlap, Armando Bó's son Víctor Bó, Susana Traverso, Andrea Barbieri and Tony Middleton. The film was one in a series of fantasy films Corman shot in that country throughout the 1980s, including Deathstalker (1983), The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984), Wizards of the Lost Kingdom (1985), Amazons (1986) and Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans (1987). Most of these films recycled the same sets, props, costumes and even footage, each movie recycling more and more resources.

The wedding of Queen Amethea is interrupted by a gang of bloodthirsty soldiers following the orders of Lord Arrakur. Her groom is captured and her sister is raped. Amethea unites with her handmained, Estrild, and a warrior, Tiniara, in order to rescue her loved ones and defeat the man who caused her such pain.

Without much to brag about, Barbarian Queen functions very smoothly and without issues as a likable and fast paced fantasy flick with all of the ingredients that make this type of formula work: cheap attires that add to the drab ancient look, lots of violence and nudity for the sake of exploitation that makes the whole ordeal sleazy, captivating characters that fall into archetypes but that are decently played by the cast, a simple but ultimately engaging storyline that has all the emotion and rawness needed to entertain and a particular rhythm that makes things more digestable. It's a pretty complete package, it goes along well with the technical skills of Hector Olivera and his wonderful directing as the film is well blocked and expertly lit, giving a lot of texture and grittiness to the images.

While the characters are not profoundly explored they are very well defined, which gives the routine plotline some more substance. The performers do their job very well and the three main ladies stand out both because of their skills and their physicality seen on the frame. They really do have some screen presence. We also get some cheap and silly but endearing special effects that are not that bad considering that it's such a meager production. The film's biggest flaws are the more misogynistic components and the lack of investment in the bonding or interactions between the female leads themselves.

The fact that this was a low budget genre film should already give you a hint of how sleazy this film is going to be. Some will find shocking the fact that a film with a semi-feminist message ends up exploiting women and has some lurid nudity and sexual assault as a form of spectacle for the public but a lot of these contradictions are why exploitation movies are fascinating. By having to appeal to the market they can also inject some thoughtful commentary or ideas without having to lose the audience. Nothing wrong with touching upon subjects directly, but having this distance and paradoxical nature does give us some very interesting results. It should also be said that this is a common thing for Corman, especially considering how there's small remains of The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957) throughout this film, only updated and modified to fit the Conan rip-off mold. 

Overall, this is a good sword-and-sandal item of the eighties with enough virtues and interesting implications in its subtext.

Gall Force: Earth Chapter (1989-1990) Anime OVA Series Review

Gall Force: Earth Chapter was an action sci-fi war anime OVA series that was released from 1989 to 1990 and functions as a continuation to Rhea Gall Force (1989) and it's the fifth installment in the Gall Force franchise. The same creative team with Katsuhito Akiyama and Hideki Kakinuma was incharge of it, with the voices of Naoko Watanabe, Michie Tomizawa, Eriko Hara, Yuko Mizutani, Maria Kawamura, Hiromi Tsuru, Chieko Honda and Naoko Matsui.

We follow the same human resistance against Paranoid machines. Sandy leads her group of guerrilla fighters to face off against their non-human foes traveling across Earth and uniting the entire race against the menace, awaiting Martian reinforcements and meeting a group of ecological christians, the Geo Chris, as the MME menace approaches.

I do think that the post-apocalyptic setting was a nice modification to the Gall Force formula, it was a fun way to show a needed counterpart to the space setting of the first trilogy, but while Rhea benefited from a short runtime and wonderful action this sequel OVA three-parter isn't as fortunate, even with its merits. The drama is pretty weightless and most of the plot points don't really have much staying power with you, the personality of the characters has also been put on a secondary plane, with the exposition-heavy talks taking the majority of the screentime.

It's a shame that they didn't explore more of the characters considering that this time we follow the exact same ones for an increased amount of time, would have been neat to see more of Score and Sandy developing as friends, or maybe the vagrant Mitty could have been fleshed out or could have been given a bigger role in the narrative but not much is done with them. Score never really does anything else besides being a badass chick with weapons who says one liners and mocks others, but she is very good in that role so I cant really complain about that. At certain moments they make her more sensible and she begins to worry a lot about her companions, giving her a bit of character, stopping her from becoming some sort of walking cliche for some brief scenes. Sandy is the same optimist and the intimate relationship she feels, the responsibility, is very palpable and allows her to reflect on the relationship between her enemies and herself as well as her kind. This pays off to some degree in the climax of the series.

We have some pretty awesome action but the overall animation kind of varies in quality throughout the three episodes, it never reaches the level of incompetent but you can tell there were some shots and scenes that feature some stilted or downgraded animation. Nothing awful but it's a bit distracting. The rest of the OVA series has some delightful sci-fi action that keep you entertained, but they aren't the most impressive or fantastic out of the franchise and might not be enough if you want to binge the series.

It's nothing stellar but it gets the job done as a light action anime. It's a bit convoluted at times, which hurts the engagement and the pacing, but in general I believe that even non-fans of the franchise can jump on either Rhea or Earth Chapter and get something out of it, considering that most of the essential elements were removed or altered.

I mostly recommend the show to those who are already into Gall Force and are completists, stick with it until the final OVA to see how the conflict from the previous chapters gets resolved but don't expect a breathtaking script or outstanding animation.