lah%ucbmiro@Berkeley (07/12/85)
From: lah%ucbmiro@Berkeley (1st Lt. RYN Leigh Ann Hussey) The poor guy always gets to die horribly in searing pain, doesn't he? I think he was far more effective in Raiders of the Lost Ark as the Nazi torturer, Todt. There is something terribly evil about a grown man with a soft baby face -- makes one's flesh creep. Has he shown up anywhere else? Is he always a villain? By the way, does anyone know if the "Grandmaster" is the sensei who's been teaching them all in reality? I know he appeared in the first Conan movie, but I didn't recognise him behind all that hair and un-swordsmanlike trapping. Finally, a note on the swordplay itself. Much less satisfying than Conan I. These folks haven't been doing their kata! Nonetheless, we're still seeing the same linking of forms from iai-do (usually a solitary art, involving many different draws, cuts, ways of getting the blood off your sword -- shaking or whatever -- and resheathings. All of these parts are important, but in the Conan movies many of the blood-shakes appear to have become cuts, and resheathings become merely confusing unexplained pauses). Y'all might be amused to learn that the ad in Variety (I think), re- printed in the Society for Creative Anachronism's quarterly, "Tournaments Illuminated" read something like "Wanted: Actress with knowledge of swordplay, acrobatics and horsemanship, no models or female body-builders need apply". I wonder how many SCA fighters are among the priestesses, if any (judging from their styles, I'd say few. I've never seen more clumsy, ineffective sword-waving). The best part was the fight in the "Chamber of Lights". "Yahoo!" I said, "It's Robin and the Sherriff slicing candles again!" :-) En garde! Leigh Ann