"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Posts Tagged ‘female barbarians’

Boudica: Queen of War

Thursday, November 9th, 2023

I think it’s safe to say that Olga Kurylenko is one of our reigning Queens of Action. She’s been in the trenches for many years, in many different sizes of roles and films (HITMAN, MAX PAYNE, QUANTUM OF SOLACE, SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, OBLIVION, THE NOVEMBER MAN, SENTINELLE, THE PRINCESS, EXTRACTION II), and she only seems to get better and better, especially when she’s headlining.

Like some of her male counterparts she has unattainable looks but such a strong screen presence she can still read as tough and/or relatable. She’s often required to portray a wider range of emotions than the fellas usually are, while also looking good kicking and stabbing and scowling. And in the tradition of Scott Adkins and others, when they finally put her in one of the big super hero movies (BLACK WIDOW) they gave her kind of a ho-hum character unworthy of her abilities. So she’s definitely one of our people. (read the rest of this shit…)

Barbarian Queen / Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back

Monday, August 4th, 2014

tn_barbarianqueen“I’ll be no man’s slave and no man’s whore. And if I can’t kill them all then by the gods they’ll know I tried.”

BARBARIAN QUEEN (1985)

I’m not saying BARBARIAN QUEEN would be great under other circumstances either, but especially watching it right after HUNDRA it seems like kind of a waste. Obviously Roger Corman and/or his people saw that movie and thought “oh shit, we can do a CONAN rip-off but with boobs!” So it’s another sword-wielding woman who overcomes medieval evil, but you’re never really sure how pro-woman it is. As often as they have tough warrior women defeating men in sword fights they seem to have them getting pinned down and having their tops torn off. It happens so much I’m thinking maybe they think the audience is supposed to enjoy it more than root against it.

She even gets hung topless on a rack for a long period and it’s not really treated like a traumatic event. And the wort part is it seems like they could’ve done fine in the titillation department without all that shit. The costume department obviously worked really hard on all the cleavage display all throughout the movie, and then they just get shown up by these boobs ‘n torture scenes. (read the rest of this shit…)

Hundra

Tuesday, July 15th, 2014

tn_hundra“What manner of woman would meddle in men’s affairs?”

One thing I’ve noticed in these Barbarian movies, Barbaria seems to be a very male-dominated society, even more than our own. You remember what Conan the Barbarian-American said about “the lamentation of their women.” Women are treated as sex slaves, whores, treasure, at best babymakers. That’s why HUNDRA is so cool. This is the feminist Barbarian movie. This is about a woman that lives in that same savage world, but flat out refuses to take any shit.

“Many of our women preferred to bear arms rather than children,” the narrator says. “The champion of these was…

HUNDRA.”

Hundra (Laurene Landon, MANIAC COP 1-2) is from a tribe of all women. In order to keep their race going some of them periodically venture out to use men for their “seed,” but that’s not Hundra’s thing. The only man in her life is her dog Beast, who is a total coward who runs away any time in the movie that there’s danger. She says it’s because he’s a male. This is actually a very successful use of animal-related comic relief. It really made me laugh to see that little shit make a run for it before each major action scene, then conveniently show up again in peacetime.

One lady in the tribe nags Hundra about her responsibility to “bring life into the tribe” and “bring a successor,” but Hundra just makes fun of her. “I prefer the feel of a horse between my legs to that of swine, and it pleasures me instead of pains me.” If she was out trying to find some meat then who would go out and get the actual meat, you know what I mean? (read the rest of this shit…)