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It's Earth 1000 years into the future, the nuclear holocaust is long a thing of
the past, & now the population is divided into 3 races, the evil Statesmen,
the good Range Guides & the very evil Mutants. The Statesmen live in Helix
City, &, being evil as they are, want to of course attack Triton City, home
of the Range Guides - & they have a sinister weapon to do so, the Death
Machines ... which are essentially motorbikes with a jazzed up front.
But since the leader of the Satesmen, Zirpola (David McLean) does not want
to send the Death Machines into war untested, he has a few Range Guides
captured to fight the Death Machines, driven by local prisoners, in gladiatorgames
called (you might have guessed it) Deathsport.
& the Range Guides he has captured to put into the arena are Kaz (David
Carradine) & Deneer (Claudia Jennings), while the Statesmen prisoners
include doctor Karl (William Smithers) - for having diagnosed Zirpola's brain
tumor, caused by radiation poisoning (of course) - & his son Marcus (Will
Walker) - who wanted to break his father free.
However, the 2 Range Guides prove far too clever for the Death Machines,
elimintating their adversaries pretty soon, but not only that, they manage to
steal 2 of the motorbikes, race to freedom, & even invite Doc Karl &
son to come with them.
But Ankar Moor (Richard Lynch), an evil guard, is hot on their trail with
his soldiers, & when he learns about Zirpola being killed - he is, rather
inexplicably, assassinated by a nude dancer (Valerie Rae Clark) -, he is only
spurned in his chase - thinking if he brings home the body of Kaz, he will be
the new leader of Helix City (don't ask).
Of course, our escape-party, in the meantime, face not only the dangers of
Ankar Moor, but also those of storms in the desert they have to cross, & of
the Mutants - who for some reason hold a kid hostage they have to rescue.
Of course they succeed in freeing the girl, &, at a fuel base, Kaz
singlehandedly eliminates all of Ankar Moor's soldiers. Beaten, Ankar Moor
challenges Kaz to a sword duel, which Kaz wins of course.
Rather badly made science fiction-actioner, with many impressive motorbike
stunts ruined by bad editing, while the plot fails to build up & sustain
any reasonable suspence - if the Death Machines are so darn good, why are the
Range Guides eliminating them singlehandedly by the dozen, & why do the
Statesmen rely on prisoners to drive the Death Machines instead of qualified
bikers ? & if the Mutants are so darn dangerous, why can our heroes just
walk in & save the girl without even being scratched ? All questions that
are not answered but that ultimately bring the film down.
The final duel between Kaz & Ankar Moor though, with the 2 opponents
contemplating large parts of the fight in their heads before actually starting
to fight, predates similar scenes in Zhang Yimou's The Hero by some 25
years (though I'm rather sure - without proof - this device wasn't used in Deathsport
for the first time).
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