Hundra (1983)

Hundra isn’t quite a sword-and-sorcery movie. There’s no sorcery, but lots of swordplay. It is however an amazon warrior woman movie and the setting is what you’d expect in a sword-and-sorcery movie so it’s at least a first cousin to the sword-and-sorcery genre. It’s a 1983 Italian-Spanish-US co-production.

It’s very much a feminist movie and it certainly bludgeons the viewer with its message.

Hundra belongs to a tribe of amazons. The only contact they ever have with men is for the purpose of mating and they only keep the girl babies.

One day they get raided and wiped out by a tribe of bad men. Actually all the men in this movie are evil, except for one, and he’s totally ineffectual.

There is one survivor among the amazons. Hundra, the tribe’s greatest warrior, was out on a hunting expedition. Now she sets off for a cave in the hillside to ask the old wise woman for advice. The old woman informs Hundra that it’s her duty now to bear children. Hundra is horrified. That would mean, you know, doing it with a man. Hundra has always said that she’d rather have a horse between her legs than a man.

But Hundra cannot escape her duty and her destiny. She sets off to find a man with whom to mate.

She takes her dog with her. He’s a nice dog but he’s a male dog so he’s cowardly (all males being cowardly).

She doesn’t have much luck, owing to the fact that all men are rotten and evil. She journeys to the city of the bull-worshippers. In this city girl children are kidnapped by the high priest and sold into slavery for the pleasure of men. Hundra decides to start a feminist rebellion.

She also meets a nice guy. He’s entirely lacking in masculinity which makes him, as far as Hundra is concerned, the perfect man. He’s a healer (he’s a nurturing male). He’s also incredibly boring.

Along the way Hundra has lots of battles with bad men. Fortunately, being a woman, she can easily defeat a dozen or even two dozen strong armed men.

She makes a friend, one of the high priest’s slaves. Hundra instructs her in unarmed combat and sword-fighting.

Hundra succeeds in getting herself pregnant to the healer. I have no idea how, since there’s so little chemistry between them.

Eventually she’s going to have to do something about the wicked high priest.

Laurene Landon plays Hundra. For a movie such as this you need someone who looks like she might be an amazon warrior woman, with some screen presence and the ability to give a good war-cry. Acting ability is not crucial. Which is just as well, since Laurene Landon has no discernible acting ability whatsoever. She does kinda look like maybe she could be an amazon warrior woman and she gives a terrific battle-cry. Screen presence is however something else that she lacks.

Nobody else in the movie can act either but since the characters are cardboard cutouts (the women are all noble and virtuous and the men are all evil) it doesn’t matter. The best actor in the movie is Hundra’s faithful dog.

The movie suffers from having the most boring villain in screen history. Nepakin (John Ghaffari) is evil but we have no idea why he’s such a nasty fellow and he’s so terribly dull about his villainy that he simply makes no impact.

You also don’t get any real feeling that this world is a real place. There’s no texture to this imaginary world. It’s totally generic.

Visually this movie is not too bad at all. The opening extended battle scene is very effective. It makes use of some obvious clichés (such as slow-motion) but it’s exciting and atmospheric. Director Matt Cimber handles the action scenes extremely well. He was obviously going for goofy comic-book style violence and mostly it works.

Hundra suffers from the problem that afflicts all message movies. The message is delivered in such a clumsy heavy-handed way that it has no impact. Had Hundra been a slightly likeable character or slightly believable the movie might have been a bit more enjoyable. The spectacularly awful manner in which Laurene Landon delivers her lines doesn’t help. She doesn’t just sound like she’s delivering speeches, she sounds like she’s reading speeches from a cue card.

The action scenes however are genuinely excellent and clever. Hundra is not a complete washout but it is a disappointment.

My copy of this movie is a Spanish DVD which offers a lovely 16:9 enhanced transfer and both English and Spanish language options.