Turkish Star Wars!

The Man Who Saves the World (a.k.a. Turkish Star Wars! Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam) (1982)

Runtime: 91 minutes

Directed by: Cetin Inanc

Starring: Cuneyt Arkin, Aytekin Akkaya, Fusun Ucar, Huseyin Peyda, Necla Fide

From: Anit Ticaret

Things got delayed a day due to me suffering from food poisoning last night; more details on that Tuesday night. For now, I finally talk about an infamous movie:

Personally, I rate this highly in the same fashion that I gave the same to movies like Miami Connection and Samurai Cop: sheer entertainment value due to the WTF nature of what they made. I had seen this before, albeit a long, long time ago; this seemed like the best time for a revisit. To think that this movie's infamy came because the sets they built for the space scenes were accidentally ruined so the director decided to bribe a film projectionist so a print of A New Hope could be copied and used in the beginning, end, and a few times in the middle. I don't know what the explanation is for the soundtrack consisting of score from movies like Flash Gordon (which has a plot that more resembles this movie than A New Hope), Moonraker, The Black Hole, Battlestar Galactica and most blatantly of all, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The plot is a gigantic jumbled mess, and it's not the subtitles that I can't verify are 100% accurate; apparently it was cut before release instead of the bootleg prints being sliced and diced after the fact. At least the general idea is easy enough to understand, even if it's told in a brain-melting fashion. Two space pilots end up on an alien planet, and the villain wants to use their brains for the purpose of destroying Earth. Thankfully for the planet, our heroes are a guy who looks like Ronnie Wood-to steal a line-and the alpha male known as Cuneyt Arkin, who I've previously seen in the movie I'll always know as Lionman and something that became known as Turkish Mad Max, although that is a misnomer & not the most accurate way to describe what is now referred to as Last Step to Death... it's a rather loony story about three people rescuing a doctor that discovered the cure for leukemia and features many leering shots at women who are not wearing much in the way of clothing. Anyway, another good thing is that the two know what I like to describe as TURK-FU.

The movie has its share of surprising reveals concerning the innocent victims of the planet that are being ruled by the jerk bad guys; there are monsters that appear to come straight out of Sesame Street, rock creatures, “skeletons” that are guys in black bodysuits where a white skeleton is drawn on... it is utter lunacy and for me, the sheer entertainment value of all the bonkers moments & sometimes amusing or badass dialogue moments supersede how this is technically a pretty terrible motion picture with the awful effects and overall primitive filmmaking. For certain, more gonzo movies like this from Turkey need to be viewed w/ my own eyes... Turkish Exorcist, Turkish Wizard of Oz, and all the rest.