Lionman (1975)

Best movie of this year hands down!

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The Sword and the Claw (1975) ** (out of 4)A King is brutally murdered so an assistant takes his young son and hides him in the woods. The young boy is raised by lions and when he reaches an adult (Cüneyt Arkin) he is thrown into battle against the man who murdered his father.If you're unfamiliar with the world of Turkish cinema then sadly I'm not good enough of a writer to fully explain how bizarre and outrageous their movies are. If you thought Edward D. Wood, Jr. and Jerry Warren were bad filmmakers then the next time you view their work you might put them in the same league as Hitchcock and Kubrick. I say that because films from Turkey have gained a reputation for being some of the worst ever made and that certainly fits THE SWORD AND THE CLAW.Technically speaking, this movie deserves a BOMB rating unlike any other. There's honestly not a single good thing to be found here. The performances are beyond awful. The dubbing makes those old Godzilla movies seem like masterpieces. The music score is embarrassingly horrific and doesn't fit anything in the movie. There's a really awful screenplay and even worse is the editing, which is perhaps the worst I've seen from any movie. All of these things makes this one of the worst movies ever made but.... We're talking Turkish cinema and this stuff helps make it entertaining.Yes, this film certainly fits into the "so bad it's good" category because there are some major laughs to be had here. All of the stuff I mentioned will make you laugh as long as you enjoy these types of bad movies but where the film really comes to life is in the final ten-minutes when it's an all out assault as the "lionman" goes full vengeance and takes out dozens of bad guys. The lion claws put on his hands are just priceless and adds a lot of entertainment value.

Cüneyt Arkin is the godfather of Turkish Trash - or Turkploitation, as some might want to call it. His performance alone is worth seeing this incredibly funny movie about a baby, who gets raised by lions after his parents were killed. Surely he develops superpowers that should be helpful in avenging his parents deaths...You think this sounds familiar? Well, forget everything you´ve seen, cause when Cüneyt strikes, nothing will be the same. His ways of getting rid of his enemies make Steven Seagal look like the easter bunny. With the power of a lion in his hands (???) he does severe damage to the stupid faces of hundreds of extras. But the greatest thing is his way of moving around: In the final 20 minutes of this little gem Cüneyt barely touches the ground. You see him flying around like there´s no tomorrow (with the catapults just out of the frame). I´ve never seen anything like this before - it´s like watching a rabid dog (frog?) in a drug frenzy thirsting for blood...but you´ve to see Cüneyts silly face. One of the funniest films I´ve ever seen

Hilarious film, I had a great time watching it. The star (Cuneyt Arkin, sometimes credited as Steve Arkin) is a popular actor from Turkey. He has played in lots of tough-guy roles, epic-sword films, and romances. It was fun to see him with an international cast and some real lousy looking pair of gloves. If I remember it was also dubbed in English which made things even more funnier. (kinda like seeing John Wayne speak Turkish).

A nice and involving tune takes you along while Lionman (which is a big boy with stupid gloves which he wears when he wants to use his "powers") and his fellowmen. He must rescue the ugly princess passing the Dead Man valley.He nearly cannot speak and uses a stupid expression all the time , not speaking of the utter cry he cast whenever he gets angry for something (lions roars are being heard in the same time). He was grown up by lions in the forest and this gave him "great" powers , which are those of using his stupid hands with gloves when he wants to fight or climb. A must for trash.