Robin Hood, Arrows, Beans & Karate

Robin Hood, Arrows, Beans and Karate (Storia Di Karate, Pugni E Fagoli) (1974)

Runtime: 80 minutes (at least that's the version I watched)

Directed by: Tonino Ricci

Starring: Dean Reed, Cris Huerta, Iwao Yoshioka, Alfredo Mayo, Fernando Sancho

From: National Cinematografica/Producciones Cinematograficas Balcazar

My apologies for this being up a little bit late. It just happened that way and plus, I won't be back until Friday night as among other things, I need to thoroughly clean my room and if I do watch anything it'll likely be something I've seen already and reviewed here but will do for my Letterboxd page for the first time.

Here's a random movie which I'll explain why I watched. Last month I talked about a Dean Reed documentary and I explained how a singer from Colorado ended up becoming a huge star in the Iron Curtain countries during the Cold War, only to die a few years before the Cold War ended. He acted in some movies during his life and looking through his filmography on IMDb, I noticed that there was a movie with this title and I laughed hysterically, as it is a rather incredible title. I mentioned the title of this Italian/Spanish motion picture last month.

I am not sure if this person wanted to be ID'ed by name but I'll say that someone from Germany who had e-mailed me before sent me another e-mail to inform me someone uploaded the movie onto YouTube recently, under the title Karate Fists & Beans. As I HAD to watch a movie with such a title, I thanked them and this is what I did tonight.

The plot, from the IMDb: “Sam and Buddy, two highway robbers, join with Colonel Quint, a big crook, who sold his services to Morgan, the banker, in order to free Baby, the banker's daughter, abducted by Espartero and his killer gang.” There's also such things as Sam and Buddy becoming a part of a religious order just for some food, and Baby of course not actually being an infant. It's so obvious it isn't even really a spoiler.

Overall... what a wacky and unsubtle film, at least as presented in the English dub. I am just glad there was an English dub to watch rather than it being in another language; the YouTube copy also has hard . The movie is more of a comedy than anything else, which is fine. Sam and Buddy are like Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. Buddy is also a fat bearded dude. Once he finally eats food he chews loudly and burps. Like I said, unsubtle. Hell, there's an Asian cook (Yoshioka) who cooks a dog (hmmm, THAT is not racist at all...) and his dubbed voice is really stereotypical, and not in a good way. Then again, this is a motion picture where there's a joke about a horse being gay. Really. How it's done was amusing but that was the joke.

The movie, I say that it's goofy but it is entertaining and while I don't know if I'd watch it again I have no complaints about seeing it one time. I did laugh often enough and I was amused at other times so it definitely isn't a bad film... it's just that at times it's obvious it is an edited version as there are some hard transitions.

Like I said I'll be back Friday night.