Hot Picks

- There's No Such Thing as Zombies 2020

- Ready for My Close Up 2019

- The Box 2024

- I Curse This Land 2024

- Jurassic Pet 3 2024

- Fried 2023

- Bad Guys in Hell 2000

- Charisma Killers 2024

- Broken Innocence 2024

- 9 Windows 2024

- The Bloody Baxters 2022

- Derailed 2024

- The Disposable Soma - The Little Assassin 2024

- The Last Front 2024

- Tales from the Void - Into the Unknown 2024

- Alien Country 2024

- Beautiful Friend 2023

- Aiden 2024

- Deadly Display 2023

- Sundays with Dad 2024

- Skelly 2024

- Haunted Ulster Live 2023

- Taped Up Families 2024

- Martinez, Margaritas and Murder 2024

- Crackcoon 2024

- Feet of Death 2024

- Village of Doom 1983

- Britney Lost Her Phone 2023

- Morris Men 2023

- Eldritch USA 2023

- The Bouncer 2024

- Taboo: Family Secrets 2024

- Members Club 2024

- DarkGame 2024

- Conjuring the Cult 2024

- Blood Star 2024

- Children of the Pines 2023

- The Convert 2023

- I Feel Fine 2024

- Cash Storm 2024

- Things Will Be Different 2024

- Hidden Within 2023

- Kill 2023

- She Wants Me 2012

- Psychosis 2023

- Harder Than the Rock: The Cimarons Story 2024

- Thank You, Amelia Earhart 2023

- The Unraveling 2023

- Portraits of Dangerous Women 2024

- We Were Tomorrow - Eden 2024

- eVil Sublet 2023

- Backrooms: Realm of the Forgotten 2024

- Lyvia's House 2023

- Talk of the Dead 2016

- A Killer Conversation 2014

- Cosmos 2021

- First Impressions Can Kill 2017

- Star Crash 1979

- Strangler of the Swamp 1946

Jonathan degli Orsi

Jonathan of the Bears
Dzhonatan - Drug Medvedy

Italy/Russia 1993
produced by
Franco Nero, Vittorio Noia, Alekandr Shkodo, Cesare Noia (executive), Gabriel Safarian (exexutive) for Project Campo, Silvio Berlusconi Communications, Viva Cinematografica
directed by Enzo G. Castellari
starring Franco Nero, John Saxon, Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman, David Hess, Rodrigo Obregón, Clive Riche, Ennio Girolami, Bobby Rhodes, Marie Louise Sinclair, Boris Khmelnitsky, Knifewing Segura, Melody Robertson, Igor Alimov, Viktor Gajnov
story by Franco Nero, Lorenzo De Luca, screenplay by Enzo G. Castellari, Lorenzo De Luca, music by Aleksandr Belyayev, Fabio Costatino, Clive Riche, Knifewing Segura

review by
Mike Haberfelner

Quick Links

Abbott & Costello

The Addams Family

Alice in Wonderland

Arsène Lupin

Batman

Bigfoot

Black Emanuelle

Bomba the Jungle Boy

Bowery Boys

Bulldog Drummond

Captain America

Charlie Chan

Cinderella

Deerslayer

Dick Tracy

Dr. Mabuse

Dr. Orloff

Doctor Who

Dracula

Edgar Wallace made in Germany

Elizabeth Bathory

Emmanuelle

Fantomas

Flash Gordon

Frankenstein

Frankie & Annette Beach Party movies

Freddy Krueger

Fu Manchu

Fuzzy

Gamera

Godzilla

Hercules

El Hombre Lobo

Incredible Hulk

Jack the Ripper

James Bond

Jekyll and Hyde

Jerry Cotton

Jungle Jim

Justine

Kekko Kamen

King Kong

Laurel and Hardy

Lemmy Caution

Lobo

Lone Wolf and Cub

Lupin III

Maciste

Marx Brothers

Miss Marple

Mr. Moto

Mister Wong

Mothra

The Munsters

Nick Carter

OSS 117

Phantom of the Opera

Philip Marlowe

Philo Vance

Quatermass

Robin Hood

The Saint

Santa Claus

El Santo

Schoolgirl Report

The Shadow

Sherlock Holmes

Spider-Man

Star Trek

Sukeban Deka

Superman

Tarzan

Three Mesquiteers

Three Musketeers

Three Stooges

Three Supermen

Winnetou

Wizard of Oz

Wolf Man

Wonder Woman

Yojimbo

Zatoichi

Zorro

As a kid, little Jonathan (Igor Alimov) saw his parents being killed by outlaws before his very eyes, and he only managed to escape because he hid in a bears' cave - where he soon enough made friends with a young bear. Later, Jonathan hooked up with a tribe of Indians who brought him up like one of their own.

When Jonathan has grown up to manhood (and is now played by Franco Nero), he set out to avenge his parents, and soon he had shot most of the outlaws who killed them and quite a few others as well ... When Goodwin (John Saxon), the leader of the outlaws, brutally gunned him down and left him to die ... which is when Jonathan, who mysteriously survived the shooting, realized that by trying to have his revenge, he has become no better to the outlaws himself, and he turns his back on his path of vengeance to live with his Indian tribe and be one with nature ...

In the meantime though, Goodwin and his army of henchmen moved to the vicinity of Jonathan's Indian village to dig for oil, and wouldn't you know it, they find lots of it right at the Indian burial ground ... and to get to that oil, Goodwin just orders the Indian village to be attacked and erradicated - something though Jonathan has expected, and thus he has told his brothers to build all kinds of traps ... and so the supposed massacre on the Indians turns out to be Goodwin's Waterloo, but he goes on undeterred: Soon enough, his men have captured Shaya (Melody Robertson), the chieftain's daughter and the fiancée of Jonathan, and this way Goodwin lures Jonathan to him, into the white man's city, where even his master marksmanship can't save him from being captured, being dragged behind a horse as a sign of humiliation and then being tied to a cross and hung up, as an example as to what happens to those who cross Goodwin's path ...

However, Goodwin's black henchman Williams (Bobby Rhodes) starts seeing parallels in what happens to Jonathan and what happens to the blacks all over the country, so he smuggles a knife to Jonathan so he can free himself ...

The finale has Jonathan and his Indians attack the white man's city and have their revenge on Goodwin's men, Goodwin though is killed in a man to man duel with Jonathan in a dark warehouse, when exactly the compass he once stole from Jonathan's dieing mother and has since worn as a talisman betrays him ...

 

Basically, Jonathan of the Bears was intended to be Enzo G.Castellari's long-awaited companion piece/semi-sequel to his masterpiece Keoma from 1976 - and comparing the two films directly, Keoma is without a doubt the better film, an immensely tight and atmospheric and very unusual Western. 

However, taken by its own merits, Jonathan of the Bears isn't bad at all, an epic Western that for a change takes the side of the Native American and trades in (and deconstructs) Western myths, a bit like other then recent Westerns like Dances with Wolves (1990) and Unforgiven (1992) - plus the film does not try to look like a spaghetti Western (a style that went out of style years ago) but tries (and succeeds) to create an atmosphere all of its own that is as far removed from the Italian Western from a quarter of a century earlier as it is from, let's say, John Ford ... and the whole concept actually works, too ! Sure, the film might not be a masterpiece like Keoma, and it definitely has its lengths (especially at the beginning) and cheesy bits (the whole boy/bear subplot), but it also features a well-told story, extremely well-staged action (one of director Castellari's specialities), and a bunch of memorable actors, especially Franco Nero and John Saxon as the hero and villain ...

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

Feeling lucky?
Want to
search
any of my partnershops yourself
for more, better results?
(commissions earned)

The links below
will take you
just there!!!

Find Jonathan of the Bears
at the amazons ...

USA  amazon.com

Great Britain (a.k.a. the United Kingdom)  amazon.co.uk

Germany (East AND West)  amazon.de

Looking for imports?
Find Jonathan of the Bears here ...

Thailand  eThaiCD.com
Your shop for all things Thai


Thanks for watching !!!

 

 

In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

Amazon

Amazon UK

Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
Amazon!!!