Movie Review: Kingdom of Gladiators

Kingdom of Gladiators
Starring: Leroy Kincaid, Matt Polinsky, Annie Social, Suzi Lorraine, Maurizio Corigliano, Bryan Murphy, Sharon Fryer
Director: Stefano Mila
WonderPhil Productions, Claang Entertainment, Animoka Studios, USA & Italy 2011

In medieval times king Wolfkahn (Bryan Murphy) gets tired of war and makes a pact with a demon to end the war and rule the continent. In exchange he must sacrifice his descendants to Dark Lord. Years later the king arranges gladiator games in the kingdom of Keemok. Luna, king's daughter (Suzi Lorraine) appears just before tournament. Witch Murrigan (Sharon Fryer) suspects that Luna is Dark Lord Hel in disguise. The blood spilled on arena starts to revive a big stone demon.

King Wolfkahn

Princess Luna acting cute

Gladiators with various types of armour

For some reason the king lets the games continue. Gladiators Kayne (Leroy Kincaid) and Gunnar (Matt Polinsky) are old rivals. They get a vision and go searching for a magic sword. The idea is that the sword can be used to win the tournament and also to save the kingdom.

Gladiatrix Teela with chainmail bikini

Another movie with fashionable goggles (see also Death Hunt)

Gladiatrix Teela (Annie Social) is Kayne's sparring parther and also his girlfriend. Kayne, Gunnar and Teela go searching for the gates of Hell. Teela goes to Hell to help Kayne fight the demons. Meanwhile an evil gladiator Har (Maurizio Corigliano) working for Hel is about to win the tournament.

Gunnar, Teela and Kayne strolling epicly

Har the Evil Champion

The castle and sceneries look good. The acting is mostly amateurish and looks like LARP. Since many of the actors are professional wrestlers there is also some WWE style action. The gladiator fights look mostly okay, albeit many times the ending of the fights are left open. There is also a unintentionally funnily edited montage of the fights. The music is good sounding epic sounding classical, but for some reason at the middle point it changes to generic heavy metal. Also the ending seems rushed.

Weird montage

Derp!

Despite the flaws it has some entertaining moments. For a direct to video movie the picture quality is good. The movie might just go as a weaker episode of Xena or Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

Luna putting on some demon makeup

Also Teela is now demon, but a good demon

Rating: Bad

Movie Review: Apocalypse Earth

Apocalypse Earth
Starring: Adrian Paul, Richard Grieco, Bali Rodriquez, Gray Hawks, Erik Werther
Director: Thunder Levin
The Asylum, USA, 2013

After a lost war with aliens, the remaining humans send spaceships to colonize other planets. Two of the spaceships crash land to wrong planet where invisible aliens (Chameleons) are hunting the survivors. On the planet are living also pale aliens who are also escaping the Chameleons. Lieutenant Frank Baum (Adrian Paul) tries leads the survivors to safety. Other soldier of the group is Captain Sam Crowe (Richard Grieco), there are also other survivors with orange jumpsuits. There is also a helpful Transhuman Interactive Machine or TIM (Gray Hawks) that reminds of Data but can also fight.

Humans evacuating the Earth

Lt. Frank Baum tries to keep the group alive

Lea with natural camouflage

They meet pretty camouflage skinned alien girl Lea (Bali Rodriguez) who can speak English and help them to survive. In addition the Chameleons the group has to fight giant bugs and lizard. 

Big can of Raid would be useful

TIM waves to giant lizard

The influences of the film seem to be Star Trek, After Earth, Wizard of Oz, Avatar, Predators, Planet of the Apes and The Time Machine. For a Asylum film the film is quite good. The story is coherent and acting is better than usual. The CGI effects are of variable quality, suffering from small budget. Especially the spaceships and lizard look nice. It is also nice that the film was shot in a real jungle instead of some studio backdrops. Despite the scifi clichés, this is the best Asylum movie yet.

Long Way to Tipperary

Space shuttle saves the day

Rating: Good (if you remember that the budget was really low)

Book Review: Enter the Dragon

Enter the Dragon (book)
by Mike Roote from the original screenplay by Michael Allin
Universal-Tandem Publishing, Great Britain, 1974

Evil crime-lord Han holds a martial-arts tournament on his island. Master of Shaolin kung fu Lee is assigned to infiltrate the island fortress and report of illegal activity. Lee must also avenge the death of his sister.

Other notable invited martial artist are indebted playboy Roper and black karate instructor Williams. On the island beautiful women entertain the guests on leisure time. One of the girls is undercover agent Mei Ling who is helping Lee. Basically the story is a bit like James Bond story with martial arts. However the main character Lee is more of a philosophically oriented hero, whereas Roper in more of a ladies man.

Novelization of Bruce Lee kung fu classic follows the movie quite closely. It was quite entertaining to read. The main flaws are the same as in the film. What happens to Mei Ling is again left unknown. The main difference is the end battle, in the book there is no mirror hall. Also Han's Chinese henchman Bolo (in the film performed by Bolo Yeung) was changed to Turk.

Rating: Good