Following in the footsteps of Conan the Barbarian and
Conan the Destroyer both starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the titular
Conan, the adult oriented realistic sword-and-sorcery epic film was debatably
at its creative and commercial height.
Drawing heavily from the writings of 1930s pulp fiction novelist Robert E.
Howard who created the characters of Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja who fought
their separate respective medieval battles in the mythic fictional Hyborian Age
filled with fantastical creatures and adversaries, the movement was arguably
jump started by John Boorman’s 1981 epic Excalibur also recently
released on 4K by Arrow Video.
Capitalizing on this movement in 1982 with John Milius’ Conan the
Barbarian co-authored by Oliver Stone and starring James Earl Jones, the Dino
De Laurentiis produced swords-and-sorcery film struck a pop cultural nerve, for
a while. Then came old Hollywood
stalwart turned Amityville 3-D director Richard Fleischer’s Conan the
Destroyer which saw diminishing returns, weaker reception but a more
overarching influence on what would or wouldn’t become the Golden Axe games.
Then came Fleischer’s follow-up to Conan the Destroyer only a year later with Brigitte Nielsen starring Red Sonya also based on Robert E. Howard’s text Red Sonya of Rogatino, one of the first real post-Conan Schwarzenegger failures in the eyes of critics and audiences. Adapted by Clive Exton and George MacDonald Fraser, its an ugly and ungainly fantasy epic featuring an otherwise pretty good ensemble cast and an overqualified score by Ennio Morricone. Made for around $18 million, the film took in a measly near $7 million and was raked over the coals by the critical establishment. While Fleischer and his ensemble cast including future Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles actor Ernie Reyes, Jr. doing some young martial arts choreography, Popeye villain Paul Smith as Reyes’ servant and not one but two Raiders of the Lost Ark stars Pat Roach and Ronald Lacey do their best, tragically Red Sonja is a slog which for whatever reason Arrow Video now saw fit to grant a deluxe limited-edition 4K UHD box unto. The best comparison one can make to the experience of watching Red Sonja is a bit like a Conan film with all the life and personality siphoned out of it.
As a youth, Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen) a redheaded young woman suffers a terrible upbringing as her family is massacred by soldiers before she herself is gang-raped and left for dead all under the order of the evil Queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergman). Vowing bloody vengeance, she is taken under the wing of a female spirit Scathach who bestows her with sword-fighting abilities provided she never lays with another man again unless she is defeated in a fair swordfight. On a mission to avenge herself and prevent Gedren from gaining control of a powerful talisman that threatens to destroy the world, she crosses paths with Lord Kalidor (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who intervenes on Sonja’s wounded sister Varna’s (Janet Agren) behalf and forms an unlikely alliance with the redheaded warrioress now known as Red Sonja. Soon their mutual paths cross with young Prince Tarn (Ernie Reyes, Jr.) and his servant bodyguard Falkon (Paul Smith in a rare heroic role). Soon much like Conan the Destroyer, this unlikely offbeat group of characters band together to take on Gedren and her evil henchman.
Initially planned with animator Ralph Bakshi in place, presumably as an animated endeavor, before production was pushed back by a year and Bakshi was replaced by Richard Fleischer following his experience on Conan the Destroyer, Red Sonya was a dude then and it still is now. Capitalizing on the success of Arnold’s star power with Schwarzenegger’s form overshadowing Brigitte Nielsen’s on the poster, it feels oddly misbegotten as a project. Called by Schwarzenegger himself ‘the worst film I have ever made’, it is a soporific stunted bore full of clunky uninteresting action scenes, rudimentary swordfights, flat humor and little to no forward momentum. Fans of the Conan films were disappointed then which begs the question from Arrow: why do a big bells-and-whistles box now? Part of their seemingly ongoing trend of releases with Warner Brothers, putting lipstick on a pig with such releases as the Clash of the Titans remake box, Red Planet, The Invasion and Lost in Space, it was just a matter of time before the boutique label would get to this one too.
While a reboot was in development over the years, changing hands between directors including Robert Rodriguez with Rose McGowan in mind as the titular heroine before years passed and Bryan Singer was briefly attached before his MeToo reckoning canceled further development on the project, the Arrow Video box for Red Sonja is a testament to why another take on the material hasn’t happened yet. Already an exploitative male creation better suited (and arguably depicted) in something like the animated acid odyssey Heavy Metal, Red Sonja for good or for ill comes to 4K disc via the boutique label in a crisp new transfer. Though the set pieces are dull and effects aren’t very good, renowned The Leopard and All That Jazz cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno’s 2.35:1 scope camerawork is more or less well represented on the disc which includes both the original mono and newly remixed 5.1 audio tracks. For a movie that’s considered to be a misunderstood gem ripe for rediscovery (which I really don’t think it is), Arrow have gone all out in terms of extras and packaging replete with a hardbound booklet, hardbox featuring a double-sided poster and six lobby cards. There’s enough here that you’re kind of curious about how they do or don’t make sense of a production like this. To each their own but Arrow hasn’t convinced me I’ve been watching a different movie than they saw.
--Andrew Kotwicki