The Sword and The Claw (1975)

The Sword and The Claw (1975)- * * *

Directed by: Natuk Baytan

Starring: Cuneyt Arkin









In Turkey at some point in the historical past, armies are fighting. When King Solomon (presumably not the biblical one) is killed during one of the conflicts, his son is spirited away to safety in the forest. While there, he is raised by lions and develops awesome strength. Of course, the new regime is still in place. Lionman, as he becomes known, develops friends amidst all the turmoil and intrigue, and they are in trouble. During a fight, Lionman’s hands are burned with acid, so he asks the local blacksmith to make him a pair of iron claws. That’s when he really gets mad and goes out for revenge. Who will win, the SWORD or THE CLAW?

THE SWORD AND THE CLAW is a ton of fun and highly recommended. The last time was saw anything from Turkey, it was Cellat (1975). But, rather than be a “Turkish Death Wish” as that film was, ‘Claw is more reminiscent of The Devil’s Sword (1984) from Indonesia. It’s a wild, wacky, and dare we say exotic adventure. Arkin plays a nonverbal Tarzan crossed with a hulking, violent Zorro. And it’s all filtered through that lens of Turkish films from the 70’s that seem quite bizarre to our modern-day Western eyes, and that provides a lot of the entertainment value. 

Of course, it has funny dubbing and messy edits as befits a drive-in-style movie. We wouldn’t want it any other way. There are also some colorful sets and many characters have some pretty fantastic headwear. Lionman sports wicked fighting moves and the ability to seemingly defy gravity with his powerful jumps. Before ‘Claw, the killer from Blood and Black Lace (1964) had a spiked glove, and after this movie, there was the guy from The Glove (1979), and Freddy Krueger of course, but Arkin may be the first in movie history to have two spiked gloves, and what he does with them is downright impressive. It’s a new kind of silly/violent swashbuckling. It works well in the atmosphere of arrow shots and sword slices.

Thank goodness for AGFA, who released this gem on Blu-Ray. We’re lucky to see it, and it seems they rescued this movie from oblivion. Or, at the very least, they made it easy for the rest of the world outside of Turkey to see it. If you’re not familiar with them, check them out at americangenrefilm.com. 

Anyway, for those interested in the more peculiar and/or foreign end of the action spectacular, The Sword and the Claw is a satisfying watch and a worthy addition to any Blu-Ray collection.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty 

Black Force (1975)

Black Force (1975)- * * *

Directed by: Michael Fink

Starring: Warhawk Tanzania, Sam Schwartz, Sydney Filson, Malachi Lee, Judie Soriano, and Owen Wat-Son








When a guy on the streets of New York is mugged and a priceless artistic artifact stolen, the whole underworld begins buzzing. A gangster named Z (Schwartz) wants this precious statue, as does a woman named Felicia (Filson). Thankfully, a team of black-belted Martial Arts experts are on the scene to stop the artifact from getting into the wrong hands: Eric (Malachi Lee), Billy (Judie Soriano), Jason (Wat-Son, whose real name is Watson but presumably he hyphenated it to look more Asian?), and our personal hero Warhawk Tanzania as Adam. 

When you have a name as awesome as WARHAWK TANZANIA isn’t it a bit of a letdown naming him, simply and boringly, “Adam”? Kind of a step down if you ask us. Anyway, what ensues is a bunch of wonderful incoherency as warring factions vie for the statue. Who will get it? The bad guys or the BLACK FORCE?

Travel back in time to the freewheeling 70’s as you boogie on down to funktown in this unconstrained, uncontrived, yet unintelligible outing. The temptation is to label this as “Blaxploitation”, but really, this movie defies all labels and is a planet all to itself. That being said, it’s very much in the vein of fan favorite Death Promise (1977) (though nowhere near as good), and fellow - and only other - Warhawk vehicle Gang Wars (1976). Even Wilfredo Roldan from that film reappears here, continuing the through-line. It’s all about grimy NYC streets, funk on the soundtrack (from a band called Life, USA), and montage after montage that seems like it was edited by people who were distracted by Watergate.

But you have to remember that this was during the Kung-Fu craze of the 70’s, and material like this made a lot more sense back then, presumably. Bruce Lee was king and everybody was Kung-Fu fightii-iin. So it follows that you’d get a bunch of non-actors and semi-pro’s together and put their Dan or belt level on the screen along with their credit. Seemingly everyone is listed that way. 

We practically know the skill level of the best boy grip for godsakes. Or best boy Kung-Fu grip, as it were. We’re even informed via an on-screen title card before the movie that “no trick photography was used” and high-speed cameras were on hand to capture all the action. And this was decades before CGI trickery and quick cuts. Such was the reverence for the craft at the time. The problem, if it is indeed a problem, is that because of their focus on the Martial Arts, literally every other facet of the movie suffered. 

The result is a disjointed, incomprehensible mishmash of scenes of our heroes “hitting the streets”, with a bunch of post-dubbed dialogue that is unhearable because the music drowns it out. The only thing louder than the music are the shirts the characters are wearing. The fight scenes have no pretext before they spring up, and what dialogue you can hear is classic jive talk. You have to love it. Or maybe you don’t, it’s entirely up to you. We found it entertaining for most of the running time.

 Tailor-made for drive-in’s, Black Force was from a different time, when even the priests had very wide collars, even the baddest bad guy had a walrus ‘stache, and Martial Artists took their loud exhaling VERY seriously. There’s even a “greatest hits” segment at the end where we can see all the moves yet again. At least the music is good quality during all this madness. 

Besides, you know a movie is going to be good when a credit appears beforehand stating “Produced by Landfall Systems, Inc.” Apparently this wasn’t produced by a human being, but maybe a laundromat or something. Seeing as we also have a movie on the site called Whiteforce (1988), we figured we’d be fair and balanced.

Released on VHS with an unrelated guy on the box cover, the same company actually released Black Force 2 - a retitling of another film that came out two years BEFORE the original Black Force! Maybe the fans were just clamoring for more during the video store era of the 80’s. For a classic example of bellbottom-Fu - with no regard given whatsoever for coherent consistency - look no further than Black Force. And why don’t guys keep their afro-picks in their hair anymore?

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty 

Cellat (1975)

Cellat (1975)-* * *
AKA: The Executioner 

Directed by Memduh Un

Starring: Serdar Gokhan












Orhan Polat (Gokhan) is a mild-mannered architect who enjoys his relatively posh, safe life. He loves his wife Filiz, and they both spend a lot of time with Sevgi, Orhan’s sister, and her husband Jahit. But as Orhan’s co-workers ominously discuss, crime is on the rise in Istanbul where they live. When Orhan’s family is personally attacked by a trio of pot-smoking scumbags, he takes the law into his own hands - where it belongs. Soon he’s going out on the streets looking to clean things up his own way. His methods of “shoot first and escape into the night” are so effective, police Commissioner Nejati forms his own task force to try and stop the vigilante, in an attempt to prove the old methods of police work are still relevant. With a score to settle, and with bad guys as well as cops hot on his trail, will Orhan complete his mission before it’s too late?

It’s not every day you get a chance to see a movie like Cellat. At least not here in the USA. So we’re grateful to Onar films who released this gem on DVD in a hand-numbered, limited edition. Apparently there is something wacky with the copyright laws in Turkey, because they’re allowed to make “Turkish versions of...” pretty much anything they want and get away with it. Probably the most famous ones are the Turkish Star Wars (1977), Star Trek (1979) and Spider Man. Cellat is known as the Turkish Death Wish and it follows the storyline fairly closely. But the things that make it special aren’t the similarities, they’re the local differences.

Starting with the opening title cards, which are uniquely artistic in their own right, and continuing on through to the fascinating locations and memorable music, we totally applaud the rough and tumble style in which this movie was “executed” (no pun intended). Serdar Gokhan has a lot of screen presence, almost like a Turkish Maurizio Merli. Let’s not forget this was the mustache-and-bellbottoms era, and there are some great 70’s fashions on display, including some ties so wide they seem to be bending the laws of physics. The film also features more things we love, such as the club/disco scene (at Club Love Story), and the time-honored Middle-Aged Punks. In this case, to prove the point that crime is rampant, they graduate from playing keep-away with a lady’s head of cabbage, to stealing apples off a cart, to torture, rape and murder. When they say crime is escalating, they’re not kidding. This movie as a whole may have the same blueprint as Death Wish, but Cellat features more cabbage keep-away than they were able to fit into five installments of the original series. So take that. But that ties into our final point, which is that there is so much about Turkish culture we don’t know. Never is that more evident while watching this movie than the funeral scene. We get to see their own rites and practices which are never seen by Western eyes, which only adds to the exotic and unique feel this film exudes.

We would say “they broke the mold when they made Cellat”, but in actuality the mold was pretty much set. But what they did with it is very entertaining and enjoyable, especially if you are a fan of the Death Wish series or revenge films in general.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

The Man From Hong Kong (1975)

The Man From Hong Kong (1975)-* * * *

Directed by: Brian Trenchard-Smith

Starring: Jimmy Wang Yu, George Lazenby, Rebecca Grilling, Hugh Bryne, and Grant Page













The biggest criminal in Australia is one Jack Wilton (Lazenby). He has his hands in everything: drug running, gun running, prostitution, and he even cheats when he practices Kung-Fu. Inspector Fang Sing Leng (Yu), of the Hong Kong Special Branch, has traveled to Australia to take him down. Working with the local police, Fang infuriates them because he has no rules and is a one-man wrecking crew. All of Wilton’s forces are after Fang - but can any force on earth stop THE MAN FROM HONG KONG?

Wow. They truly don’t make ‘em like this anymore. What a shame. Starting from the great opening sequence with no dialogue, on through the exciting climax, The Man From Hong Kong delivers the goods and then some. The plot is perfectly simple, enough so that the movie can be packed with interesting locations, cool music, exciting stunts, tons of Martial Arts and car-chase setpieces, and still have likable characters as well. Not only is it well-shot, it’s all directed and edited with verve and energy. We salute the great Brian Trenchard-Smith, who, despite anything else he will ever do, will be a legend for this movie and Stunt Rock (1980).

The movie is rife with 70’s style - just check out Lazenby’s “’stache-fu”, and his baddie pad (not to be confused with a bachelor pad). Also we get an excellent knock-down, drag-out fight between Yu and the great Grant Page which is as enjoyable as everything else in this superb movie. And there’s still time for some romance, as represented by the beautiful Rebecca Gilling as Angelica. On top of that, there’s some humor, mostly represented by Hugh Byrne and his great hair as cop Morrie Grosse. Because it was the 70’s, the stunts are real, and there’s no political correctness. It’s all just a perfect cocktail of pure, enjoyable entertainment. It’s just comforting to know there are writer/directors out there that GET IT. That understand great audience-pleasing tactics.

Everyone here is at their best, and of course it doesn’t skimp on the action. Sammo Hung is even on board, no doubt due to the fact that this movie was co-produced by Raymond Chow and Golden Harvest. It’s filled with “yes!” moments, which we believe we’ve mentioned before, where as a viewer, when something so cool happens, you just have to yell out, “yes!”.

Everything is done right in this awesome film, and the 2-disc Australian DVD pays this great movie a nice tribute. If you can find it, it seems to be the ultimate way to own this classic. Shockingly, this movie was not released on VHS in the U.S. until Tai Seng did a quiet, under-the-radar release in 2001. Because it didn’t receive a golden-age VHS release on, say, Vestron, Paragon, Lightning, or a label like that, the movie’s cult stature grew, but mainly in other territories around the world. With the advent of DVD, this can be rectified, and all can now see this fine film.

Featuring the ultra-catchy, legendary song “Sky High” by the great band Jigsaw, The Man From Hong Kong is a must-see.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Woman For All Men (1975)

A Woman For All Men (1975)- * * *

AKA: Deadly Intrigue

Directed by: Arthur Marks

Starring: Alex Rocco, Andy Robinson, Keenan Wynn, Peter Hooten, and Lois Hall. 










A Woman For All Men  AKA "Deadly Intrigue" is a good movie. It's what you might call a "drive-in drama".

It's about two brothers: Steve (Robinson) and Paul (Hooten) who work for their father Walter (Wynn). When Walter brings home the beautiful Sarah (Hall), everything spins out of control. Soon, blackmail, double-crosses, and murder become family traits.

The whole thing is well-acted, and the plot has some fun twists. Alex Rocco is only in it for 10 minutes, but his presence is always welcome. The only problem with the movie is that the 2nd half drags a little. It was released on VHS under the title Deadly Intrigue.

In the end: If you can locate this movie, it's definitely worth watching.

Comeuppance review by: Ty