Return of the Ghost of the Son of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 21 - Hundra

The films plot is very simple – a tribe of only women exists deep in the mountains of somewhere primitive. They keep their numbers up by going amongst men and mating with them (the films term) keeping the child if it is a girl giving it away if it is a boy.  Into this quiet village come barbarians under the sign of the Bull who slaughter the whole tribe. All but Hundra who is away hunting that day.

Hundra comes back too late to help and is instead pursed by some 15 warriors. Hundra eventually kills all but one – the leader – in a battle set piece that reminds one of the first Conan film – heck a lot of this 1983 film reminds one of the Conan Film.  

After that Hundra distraught seeks guidance the last of the elders – (so Hundra isn’t the sole survivor sue me) who lives in a village of dwarfs – she is told to seek a mate in the land of the Bull –Hundra isn’t too hip on this but the elder insists it’s her destiny.  So off she goes – not before she ends up in an absurd fight with a dwarf Warrior on a pony. 

After a rather disjointing attempt to mate with the first man she finds on the trail she enters the city with seems to be the headquarters of the cult of the Bull. Virgins are taken from families from the city and elsewhere and are used as offerings and sex toys to the I guess barbarian chiefs – the high priest of the bull has an obsession with washing and his assistant is sort of a grima worm-tongue with a sexist attitude.

Hundra comes into this milieu and well basically is a bull in a china shop but as she as the advantage of novelty the high priest thinks she’ll make a wonderful offering to the barbarians.

There is toing and frowing and upping and downing and long chase over castle walls which leads to her falling through the roof of the city’s healer – Hundra is quite taken with him but he’s not really ready to have sex at knifepoint. 

So in order to make herself more interesting to him – like the painted woman she has seen – she surrenders and is giving training on how to be a woman and how to please a man by Tracima who is sort of the temple lady trainer of virgins or something. There the usual ugly duckling to swan training montage along with a more standard training montage where Hundra shows Tracima how to fight.

Eventually – Hundra is now hot enough for the healer and they have sex – and Hundra finds hey this isn’t bad when it’s not rape and eventually – this film plays around with time a lot – a) gets pregnant and b) has a daughter (which was the plan) but she doesn’t leave right away and well ends up being forced to appear before the barbarian generals (the worm-tongue guy has kidnapped the baby along with Tracima’s child – to boring to explain) Hundra is forced to bow to the brutes but before she bows to the bull – Tracima and the healer bust in – T has killed Worm-tongue and rescued the kids – and the healer tosses Hundra her sword (a left over Conan prop it seems).  She then lays waste to the group – including the leader of the band that attacker her village in the first act.  The high priest is killed by the temple virgins en mass. 

With baby born and the bad guys dead – and a seeming power vacuum at the top of this city –like who is running the place now?  Hundra rides off into the sunset to show the elder the girl – one assumes she will have to have more to help the tribe repopulate but that isn’t mentioned.

It’s rather a weird film – said to be a feminist one in tone – it rather sounds more like what the screen writer thought was feminist – and one must admit most of the men in this film are just awful people – but that’s not quite the end all and be all of feminist thought – Rush Limbaugh notwithstanding.    That said it is fun at times but really doesn’t quite click and the alas the actor playing Hundra doesn’t quite have the upmph needed to pull off the part.

I will give this movie props for just this once not using the name Amazon’s to describe an all woman tribe. That was a refreshing change to be honest.

Enjoy with beef.