Local badman has his dirty fingers in every crime in the
neighbourhood imaginable: He robs people of their land, enslaves them to
work in his goldmines & steals their daughters to rape them, keep
them as mistresses or sacrifice them.
But fortunately,
swordsfighter Barda Mandrawata (Ratno Timoer), blind but endowed with
supernatural powers (he even can fly on occasion), drops by, & even
though he can't save some villagers who begged for his help in the
beginning, he then challenges Raden Parna to a duel, that he seems to be
bound to win, since not even Raden's private dark god is a match for his
powers. But Raden wouldn't be a good villain would he not set a trap for
Barda that would have our hero fall into a hellhole, where he has to
fight some female embodiments of evil (!). Barda's example though
has given some of the villagers the courage to rebel on their own against
Raden's evil reign, freeing the slaves from the goldmines & attack
Raden's palace when he's about to marry an abducted girl.
During the
final battle, where many a man get decapitated (in gory detail) or
hacked apart, also Barda turns up again, to lead the villagers to
victory at last, fighting Raden's evil magic powers with his own & a
helping of martial arts. Very colourful
swordsplay-fantasy-movie with a gratuitious helping of gore effects
& a hero of almost mythological proportions (actually, Barda
Mandrawata originated in a comic-strip in 1968). It's great fun to watch
in a somewhat mindless way, comparable maybe to Italian peplums of the
1960's. Ratno Timoer actually also played Barda Mandrawata in a pair
of movies from 1971 (Si Buta Gari Gua Hantu & Misteri di
Borodudur), while the character was reused in a Jaka Sembung-film, The
Warrior and the Blind Swordsman in 1983, then played by Advent
Bangun though. |