You know, a couple of years ago, I reported on a rewatch (mostly) of all the Conan movies, but apparently this one escaped my notice. Although the main character is Robert E. Howard’s Kull the Conqueror, the IMDB entry indicates this was to be the third Arnold Schwarzenneggar Conan film, but he turned it down–so the De Laurentiis family got Kevin Sorbo, who was doing the Hercules television series at the time, and changed it to Kull so he would not have to play a continuation of the character. It blends elements from several Howard properties, but I’m not going to tease them out for you. Instead, you can read up about it on IMDB or Wikipedia.
Kull tries to join the army of Valusia, but he’s showed up a bit and is called a barbarian by the general who notes the army is all noble blood. He (Kull) somehow gets into the palace when the king is slaughtering kinsfolk who he says are conspiring to take his throne. Kull tries to stop him from slaying others, and in the ensuing fight, Kull kills the king, which should make him king, but the king’s kin don’t think that’s right. But the dying king bequeaths his crown to Kull, who starts to throw off the slaves shackles and bring a more modern barbarian sensibility to Valusia until he is corrected by the crown’s eunuch (played by the head of Rekall from Total Recall). Kull is smitten by a fortune telling slave (played by Karina Lombard), but the scheming kin of the previous king raise an ancient goddess (played by Tia Carrere) who seduces Kull but fakes his death so she can assume the crown. Kull, the fortune-telling slave, and a priest of an another god escape to find the quest object which can stop the goddess.
It blends a lot of Conan history and elements from the Hour of the Dragon but with a prettier antagonist. A scene takes place aboard ships, hearkening back to the hero’s days as a pirate and so on. It also has a sense of humor about the film genre’s conventions where the original Conan movies were more earnest–but by the 1990s, that sly humor was worked into entertainment. At one point, Carrere’s character says, “I’ve altered our pact. Pray I do not alter it further.” which is clearly a hollaback to The Empire Strikes Back.
So it did not do well at the box office–it’s more of a direct-to-video or direct-to-cable quality–and it’s a little slow, but 80s action films (which this really is despite its release date) were slower, too, so I guess that’s not much of a wash. Also, I found the fight scenes a little underwhelming–Kull prefers an axe to a sword–but in close quarters against lightly armored opponents, it’s likely to be a little more pokey than slashy. But I’ve never actually fought a real sword fight and the only time I’ve worked with weighted weapons, I’ve gotten my hands whacked a bunch. So who knows.
I enjoyed it, but it might not be for everyone.
The film also featured Karina Lombard as the card-reading slave.
She is of Tahitian birth with a variety of other flavors combining into an exotic beauty.
She looked familiar–I’ve seen her several times in the Bruce Willis film Last Man Standing and saw her in Legends of the Fall back in the day when I had a girlfriend who was into girl-movies or maybe just Brad Pitt. She was in a number of big pictures in the early 1990s (also in The Firm and The Doors) but has worked mostly in television since.
Definitely makes me want to watch Last Man Standing again, but so has watching Die Hard and Die Hard 2: Die Harder–I’ve wanted to rewatch early Bruce Willis films as well. So likely that’s in the queue for early 2025.
