The Sword and the Sorcerer: Collector's Edition - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Sword and the Sorcerer: Collector's Edition



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
Good old Albert Pyun. Pyun is really only known for two films other than his endless supply of low budget DTV films that he’s made a career of churning out. The first is the criminally underrated Cyborg starring Jean Claude Van Damme (the only actual GOOD movie of his career), and the second is the cult classic The Sword and the Sorcerer, a movie that is so incredibly awful that it ended up being a massive cult him simply because it’s one of those movies that you need to drink a LOT in order to make it through. Otherwise Albert is your typical DTV director that has spent 40+ years churning out schlock film after schlock film.

I honestly in a million years didn’t see a special edition of 1982’s Sword and the Sorcerer, let alone a 4K UHD disc of it either. It’s just one of those “lost in time” movies that could have been released by Vinegar Syndrom, or Arrow in a Blu-ray, but for some reason Scream Factory got their claws into the rights and ended up doing a 4K master and gave it the white glove treatment.

The Sword and the Sorcerer is about as awful as the trailer clues you in, and in many ways worse. The film revolves a mad king named Cromwell (Richard Lynch) who raises from the dead a super powerful sorcerer named Xusia (Richard Moll) to help him take over the neighboring Kingdom lorded over by King Richard. After slaughtering Richard’s forces, Cromwell turns on Xusia and sends him back to the underworld (or so he thinks) and continues in his quest to obliterate King Richard. However, Cromwell misses one member of the royal family, the young prince Talon (Lee Horsley as an adult), who escapes into the mist with his father’s 3 bladed sword (which actually shoots the side blades like a rocket).

Years later, Talon has grown up to be a legendary mercenary, general, buccaneer and all around scoundrel while Cromwell sits on his thrown. However, his kingdom isn’t exactly happy with the tyrant, and the people have formed a rebellion around the old King Richard’s advisor’s children, Mikah (Simon MacCorkindale) and Alana (Kathleen Beller). However, Cromwell already has a spy in their midst, and ends up capturing Mikah and scattering their forces. That is, until Talon comes meandering into town to drink and eat his way to the next village. Alana sees his skill with a blade when she’s rescued from Cromwell’s men, and “offers to pay him” in order to break Mikah out of the castle. Talon agrees to do so as long as she “gives him whatever he wants” *wink *wink and off he goes to stab, kill, and generally lay the smackdown on everyone who gets in his way. Simultaneously the sorcerer Xusia is still alive, and he’s got his OWN plans for the kingdom, and soon it’s a three-way tryst of power as the mad tyrant, the swashbuckling prince, and the powerful sorcerer fight over a kingdom, a babe, and generally their desire to kill the other in what is known as one of the most hilariously awful fantasies of all time.

The Sword and the Sorcerer is an INCREDIBLY bad film. IN fact it’s so bad that you can’t stop laughing at the entire production. Albert Pyun was intent on making a film to rival Conan: The Barbarian and The Beastmaster (both coming out the same year as this) and ended up making one of the best worst movies ever created. It’s a train wreck of awful dialog, dick jokes, talking about wenches harlots, men running around with nothing but a loin cloth and a shirt, and a sword that has 3 blades, and can fire said blades like rockets (hmmm, I wonder if Zelda and Final Fantasy borrowed a little from this film). It honestly is so bad that it’s good. I wanted to hate this movie, and I just can’t. I haven’t seen it for probably 25+ years (it was on VHS, let that sink in) and remembered loving it as a child, only to hate it as an adult. Now I’m warmed up to the “so bad it’s good” crowd and was just having a ball with how insane things are.

Albert Pyun really wanted to make this a series back in the 1980s. Known for his erratic behavior, and getting bored with making his own movies, he made this and teased the sequel, only for said sequel to sit in production hell until 2010. Then it gets made as a DTV SyFy film with Kevin Sorbo as the lead (you know, the king of DTV sci-fi and fantasy?). Ironically that was a total train wreck that teased ANOTHER sequel in the series which never came into fruition because Albert got bored with it while filming, and then tried to turn it into a prequel to Cyborg, only to get bored of that, and ended up shelving the entire project. Supposedly there’s been a tease for YEARS that there would be a director’s cut with an hour of unseen footage, but sadly I doubt that will ever see the light of day. Albert Pyun has been crowing the same thing for decades about a massive re-cut of Cyborg which has also never seen the light of day with over an hour of extra footage. With his penchant for getting bored and not ever doing anything, I think it’s safe to say that both cuts are probably a pie in the sky scenario.




Rating:

Rated R by the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

The new 4K remaster for The Sword and the Sorcerer is actually really good considering this was a grungy low budget fantasy flick from the 1980s. The film features a lot of soft photography and a heavy heavy layer of grain in some shots (such as when Cromwell is looking down over his carnage before killing Xusia), but overall shows off some impressive details. Check out the shot where Talon rescues the rebellion fighters and they’re walking out by the sea side. It looks FANTASTIC with great depth). The filming style was that ruddy orangey/red earth tone that was so prevalent in the 1980s, and even though there’s a lot of grain, it’s usually never obtrusive (outside of those heavy grain scenes I mentioned). The imagery is smooth in panning shots and the whole thing has that sort of low budget filmic look that was so iconic 40 years ago. Maybe not perfect, but waayyyyyyyy better than the Blu-ray and the aging DVD.



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Audio:

Here’s the one weak spot in the disc’s armor, and that is the audio tracks. Scream Factory put a blurb out in the front of the movie, as well as talked about it a bit in regards to the poor shape of the original audio. Supposedly it was basically non-existent in original form, so they took a 2.0 stereo optical and did the best they could restoring it. There’s some hiss, some tinniness, and the entire thing feels very thin in sound quality. Voices are a bit harsh (but not too harsh), but overall a decent attempt considering what they had to work with.

Now, there’s also a 5.1 DTS-HD MA track that was used on a previous home video release back in the day, and while it sounds fuller, and a bit more rich with the surrounds and bass, it has it’s own share of problems. The biggest one is that channel bleed is a huge thing, and you end up with sounds and directional shifts that were meant to be in one speaker ending up in the other. Multiple times you can hear dialog coming from the two mains, and even sometimes in the back as well. AS such, I agree with Scream Factory’s recommendation that the new 2.0 track based is the superior listen, even when you sacrifice some of the richness and depth of the 5.1 mix that they were able to source.











Extras:

Disc One - 4K

• NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
• DOLBY VISION/HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
• NEW Audio Commentary with director Albert Pyun
• Audio/Subtitles:
  • English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
  • Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature

Disc Tw0 - BLU-RAY

• NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
• NEW Audio Commentary with director Albert Pyun
• NEW Tales of the Ancient Empire – an interview with director Albert Pyun
• NEW A Princess' Tale – an interview with actress Kathleen Beller
• NEW Mightier Than the Sword – an interview with co-writer/co-producer John Stuckmeyer
• NEW Master of the Blade - an interview with editor Marshall Harvey
• NEW The Specialist and the Effects - an interview with special makeup effects artist Allan Apone
• NEW Brothers in Arms – an interview with special effects artists the Chiodo Brothers – Charles, Edward and Stephen
• NEW Dedicated to Jack Tyree, Stuntman – the cast and crew remember stuntman Jack Tyree
• Trailers from Hell – editor Marshall Harvey on The Sword and the Sorcerer
• Theatrical Trailers
• TV Spot
• Still Gallery
• Audio/Subtitles:
  • English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
  • Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature

Final Score:
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As is the case with many “so bad it’s good” movies, I’m taking a middle of the road approach to the film scoring. By any objective standards it’s a 1.5/5 rating at BEST… but by entertainment standards it’s a good 4/5 flick that I’ll split right down the middle and give a 2.5/5 score. It’s a film that you go into knowing that it’s sooooooooooooooooo bad, but soooooooooooooo much fun. Pyun tried his best to make a serious contender to The Beastmaster and Conan, but ended up making a laughably insane film that is more known for being bad than anything. Scream Factory did a great job with the special edition 4K UHD though. It’s got the remastered Blu-ray and 4K disc, as well as a whole HOST of brand new extras and fancy cover art that really make this special. The audio IS a bit of a downer, but it’s a side effect that we’ll have to live with considering how poor the original elements were there. Definitely check it out if you’re at the LEAST morbidly curious, and fans will love this set.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Lee Horsley, Kathleen Beller Simon MacCorkindale, George Maharis, Richard Lynch, Richard Moll
Directed by: Albert Pyun
Written by: Tom Karnowski, John V. Stuckmeyer, Albert Pyun
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Scream Factory
Rated: R
Runtime: 99 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: March 15th, 2022

Recommendation: Hilariously Awful Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I am sure this didn't age well. lol.

I can't really remember seeing this but I suspect I did when it originally came out.

I may check it out on a lazy Sunday..