It starts right at the opening and it’s hard not to turn it off. And it’s pretty fuckin good.įirst off I gotta warn you, there is some horrible fuckin music in this movie. And yet, for some reason, I bring this one home and watch it. I’m not a Schwarzenegger fan, I don’t like looking at gigantic veiny muscles, and I’m not really interested in finding out why some people are. I couldn’t tell you what made me decide to rent this one. Tags: Bruno Mattei, Cannon Films, Carla Ferrigno, Claudio Fragasso, Dan Vadis, Lou Ferrigno, Sybil Danning, Yehuda Efroni Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 1 Comment » I guess he’s not strong or immortal enough to do it on his own, so he has to put together a team which includes some gladiator friends and a badass cynical mercenary lady named Julia (Sybil Danning, who had already been in the space version of SEVEN SAMURAI, BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS). They find Han (Lou Ferrigno, also in his first movie, though he’d already done six seasons of The Incredible Hulk), a gladiator who is said to be immortal, but it’s not really explained very well. Find somebody worthy and get him to come protect the village. So she sends Pandora (Carla Ferrigno in her movie debut) and three other women into town with “the mystical Sword of Achilles,” which can only be held by the worthy. Obviously.Īn evil Ming-the-Merciless-Halloween-costume-looking-motherfucker named Nicerote (Dan Vadis from EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE and ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN) who apparently has some kind of magic sorcerer powers threatens his own mother (Barbara Pesante) that he’s gonna come back and attack the village after the harvest. THE SEVEN MAGNIFICENT GLADIATORS is the sword and sorcery version of the SEVEN SAMURAI story. Tags: Al Leong, Branscombe Richmond, Danny Trejo, James Shigeta, Jess Harnell, Lang Elliott, Lou Ferrigno, Michael Dante, Mike Moroff, Reb Brown, Summer of '89, underground fighting Posted in Action, Reviews | 10 Comments »Įnough with the cowboys. Without sound, Ferrigno and Brown pantomime a series of struggles and minor triumphs, from getting a medal to being frustrated with a puzzle to making it up a few steps. The opening credits are a comically corny rehabilitation montage set to a ballad called “Don’t Let Go” by Jennifer Green. B-movies about the Vietnam War don’t tend to be watchable, in my opinion, so thank God our boys get out of there quick.Įscaping in a helicopter, Billy Thomas (Ferrigno, between his last two Incredible Hulk TV movies) heroically saves his friend Scott Monroe (Reb Brown, UNCOMMON VALOR, ten years after his last Captain America TV movie) by having the strength to one-arm-dangle him under the copter even after being shot in the head with what, judging from the leak it springs in his temple, appears to be an adorably tiny bullet. In “VIET NAM 1969,” a bunch of army dudes run around in a field screaming and firing machine guns while the keyboards of composer Michael Wetherwax ( SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE) sort of imitate the RAMBO theme. The opening definitely had me concerned, though. The movie CAGE is alot like the character Lou Ferrigno plays in it: brain damaged, childlike, clumsy, well-meaning, and hard not to like. But I like wrestling!” Note: Box Office Mojo only lists “1988” as the release date, but IMDb says September 1, 1989. Tags: Gary Kasper, Gerald Okamura, James Lew, James Shigeta, Leo Fong, Lou Ferrigno, Reb Brown, Shannon Lee, Steven Ito, Tadashi Yamashita, underground fighting Posted in Action, Reviews | 2 Comments » Before that, while they’re giving him the eye, two smiling children skip by, holding hands! (read the rest of this shit…) And it lays it on thick how much innocence this evil is about to collide with. Their negotiations about whether or not Billy is allowed to buy a blue soft drink are intercut with ominous shots of a gang of long haired bad guys in sunglasses and black trenchcoats walking toward the store. CAGE II (subtitled THE ARENA OF DEATH on the VHS packaging) reintroduces Billy and Scott while they’re out grocery shopping. In 1994 Elliott returned with a sequel, so far his final directorial work. And I got even more entertainment reading about director Lang Elliott’s later business ventures, including taking over a smoothie chain in a failed attempt to produce a Dorf feature film and build a theme park. It was enjoyable for its cast, its warm-hearted tribute to friendship, and even its naive-feeling sincerity about the uncomfortable premise that Billy acts like a child because of a brain injury. One of many underground fighting movies I took a look at in my action movies of summer ’89 retrospective was CAGE, a cheapie starring Lou Ferrigno and Reb Brown as Billy and Scott, two Vietnam buddies forced into a cage fighting circuit.
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