Warrior and scavenger Deathstalker (Daniel Bernhardt) is pulled into the "machinations of the gods" when he steals a magical amulet from a dying prince on a battlefield.
Teaming up with goblin-dwarf wizard Doodad (Laurie Field, voiced by Patton Oswald) and thief Brisbayne (Christina Orjalo), this trio of rogues have to first undo the curse on Deathstalker that has bound the amulet to him.
Then they have to find an (impractical) four-bladed magical sword and thwart the apocalyptic plans of the evil sorcerer
Nekromemnon (Nicholas Rice), his right-hand goon, the undead Jotak (Paul Lazenby) and their legions of monstrous Dreadite soldiers.
Written and directed by Psycho Goreman's Steven Kostanski (who was born three years after the original Deathstalker was released) Deathstalker (2025) is a loving tribute to vintage, low-budget, swords-and-sorcery flicks.
It is set in a land awash with Hawk The Slayer mist, and our heroes fight their way through a never-ending onslaught of Power Rangers (and Psycho Goreman) style rubber-suit monsters and Evil Dead-style stop-motion creations.
And, yes, the infamous porcine-faced humanoid makes a return appearance, although he's had a bit of a glow-up since the original movies. You may call him a pig-man, but to me he's a Gygaxian orc.
In fact, the only thing that really differentiates this from the earlier Deathstalker movies is the total absence of sleaze. There's no nudity (gratuitous or otherwise), not even a hint of sexual tension between Stalker and Brisbayne. Instead, they are treated as <shudder> equals!
And, you know what, I didn't miss it. Deathstalker's linear plot is a blood-spattered, non-stop riot of over-the-top cartoonish violence, interspersed with some witty dialogue, subtle foreshadowing, and a cavalcade of rubbery monsters that could easily have just rolled out of an old school Dungeons & Dragons adventure.
You may recognise him as Kirill from John Wick or Agent Johnson from The Matrix Reloaded, but Daniel Bernhardt, who has a definite air of Jon Hamm in his mien, is superb as the titular antihero and the door is definitely left wide open at the end for sequels.
I, for one, would welcome further adventures with Bernhardt reprising the role.
The only nit I would pick with Kostanski's script - and this is as much personal taste as anything - is giving Deathstalker a backstory that necessitates him having a "pre-Deathstalker" name.
Honestly, this is completely unnecessary as the name could have been excised from the script and it would have read just as well if he was a "man with no name" type.
The film was part-funded by Kickstarter in 2024, but (for reasons) as there were no Blu-Rays (or even DVDs) on offer as incentives I just chipped in at the lowest level to get my name in the credits... because I'm easily pleased.
This did mean I had to import the Blu-Ray off my own back this week - thanks to eBay.
I know there are going to be those who moan about what's missing from the traditional Deathstalker formula (even though, surprisingly having now seen the film, it is front-and-centre in the comic book spin-off released by Vault Comics in the wake of the Kickstarter).
However, if anything, 2025's Deathstalker proves you can still make outrageous, trashy, dark fantasy sword-and-sorcery movies in this day and age that cater to audiences both old and new.
My "thank you" in the credits: best $10 I've ever invested in a Kickstarter 😉
It may have taken me several years to track down a physical copy of this Russian superhero flick - that I first learned of it back in October 2015 - but now that I've finally gotten to see Guardians I have to say I wasn't disappointed.
It's far from perfect, but as silly fun goes it's hugely entertaining, and coming in at under an hour-and-a-half knows not to outstay its welcome
Whether due to budgetary cuts, poor editing, or something simply got lost in translation, the story's all over the place; ultimately feeling more Power Rangers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles than Marvel Cinematic Universe.
During the cold War, mad scientist Avgust Kuratov (Stanislav Shirin) pioneered experimental techniques to turn civilians into superpowered Soviet soldiers - aka The Guardians - but then went too far, resulting in his own transformation into superstrong villain, with the power to control technology with his mind.
Kuratov has now returned, at the head of an army of clones and stolen military technology under this psychic control, and laid siege to Moscow.
The Russian authorities track down four of Kuratov's experiments - Ler (Sebastien Sisak Grigoryan), who has the power to telekinetically move rocks and earth; speedster and blademaster Khan (Sanzhar Madiev); werebear Arsus (Anton Pampushnyy); and amnesiac Kseniya (Alina Lanina), who can turn invisible and has resistance to temperature extremes - enlisting them to fight their creator.
The backstory connection between the villain and the members of The Guardians brings a strong Fantastic Four vibe to the proceedings, and while not much time is spent on sub-plots at least some effort is made to add a modicum of depth to the main characters.
Massive kudos to whoever realised the only way you could improve on having a hulking werebear as a main character would be to equip him with a frakking big machine gun, instantly turning the otherwise amusingly-named Arsus into a cult hero for the ages. With its very simplistic, linear, storyline, Guardians is pulptastic, weird science at its finest, with surprisingly effective special effects that only occasionally feel overextended.
While best watched in the original Russian with sub-titles (the dubbing is reminiscent of cheesy '70s Hong Kong martial arts movies), this requires an extra level of commitment that I'm not sure the film truly warrants.
But if you're in the right frame of mind, and looking for a superhero film that isn't traditional American fare (but also doesn't stray too far away the standard tropes of the genre), then Guardians is well worth 86 minutes of your time.
The ending - and then the mid-credit scene - are clearly opening the door for sequels, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
It's worth noting that while the blurb on the back of the DVD packaging references a long history of "superpowered characters" - going back to Nazi experiments in the Second World War and then spreading around the globe - none of this is ever mentioned on screen. This was either something invented by the DVD distributors, to possibly broaden the film's appeal, or backstory lifted from the original script that never made it into the actual movie.
Although officially licensed from Marvel, Toei's 1970's live-action Spiderman (not Spider-Man) show, aka Supaidâman, is way more Power Rangers than modern Marvel Spider-Man movies; his powers come with their own transforming robot (Leopardon) and flying car... because Japan!
Beyond his hyperagility, the majority of Spiderman's powers also seem to originate from his alien suit, the Spider Protector (Venom-much?), and include "spider sense", which acts more like a radar, and a variety of vintage powers such as "spring string" (rope-likeprojectile webbing) and "spider netting" (for capturing bad guys in).
For a Westerner it's weird, earnest, fun, mixing a character we know so well with the established tropes of Japanese super sentai sci-fi to create a truly unique and wonderful show.
And there's something deliciously camp about the way Spiderman likes to bust a move and strike a pose at every opportunity - even when it serves absolutely no purpose.
Each episode is less than 24 minutes long, including a trail for the next instalment, and tears along with the speed and careless abandon for logic that makes certain old children's shows so enjoyable.
Occasional bursts of dialogue border on the nonsensical, but this could simply be a mistranslation in the subtitles, and there's certainly never any doubt what's going on in the very simple storylines.
Beyond the costume, and the odd refrain from the classic Spider-Man theme music, there's very little of Peter Parker's DNA in this iteration of the character.
Even his supporting characters are wildly different. Although, in his secret identity, the protagonist is a bit of a waster and coward, he's also the "man of the house", looking after his younger sister, Shinko (Izumi Oyama), and little brother, Takuji (Yoshiharu Yabuki).
I'm guessing their late parents had good life insurance as no-one in this family appears to have a steady job, yet putting food on the table doesn't appear to be an issue.
These first four episodes establish a simplistic formula and stick to it, while still drip-feeding the audience with more and more information about Spiderman's backstory and powers.
But in the meantime, here's my summary of these episodes...
EPISODE ONE: The Time Of Revenge Has Come! Attack The Iron Cross Army! The origin story - it's soooo different to that of Peter Parker's Spider-Man.
Shinji Tôdô stars as Takuya, the motorcycle-racing son of space archaeologist Dr Hiroshi Yamashiro, who receives a psychic summons from a stranded alien Garia (sometimes called Galia).
Garia has been on Earth for 400 years, having chased Professor Monster (Mitsuo Andô) and his duck-billed Iron Cross Army here after their conquest of Planet Spider.
Professor Monster
Garia is seeking revenge for the devastation of his homeworld, but has been trapped underground by Professor Monster until Takuya came along.
Not sure what Professor Monster was doing for those four centuries if his plan, as stated, is to conquer the Earth? Perhaps he was waiting for humanity to just wipe itself out?
In a very Yoda-like move, Garia passes on the power of Spiderman to Takuya then appears to die, instantly reincarnating as a spider that spouts motivational commentary to Takuya.
Takuya's father is killed by Professor Monster's forces when Takuya's family are investigating a crashed UFO, which is actually Garia's ship, the Marveller (see what they did there?) and so now he has two reasons to seek revenge on Professor Monster.
EPISODE TWO: My Serious World! The Man Who Lives According To His Destiny: Professor Monster has started to derail trains, using a giant flying brain creature, for reasons...
Takuya wanders into a church and recounts his origin story to a statue of Christ (bit odd), giving us some more information about Garia and Professor Monster's feud and how they both ended up on Earth.
There's a suggestion that after Garia and Professor Monster fought in the samurai era, leaving Garia trapped underground, Professor Monster went into hibernation until recently.
Back in the 1970s, the arachnid Yoda, Garia, decides he's done enough, curls up into a spidery ball and dies - for real.
After this things start to slot into a formula: Spiderman fights some of the duck-billed Iron Cross Army ninjas, the creature-of-the-week appears, the creature grows to kaiju size, Spiderman hops into his flying car and summons Leopardon.
The giant robot and the kaiju fight, then Leopardon throws its sword at the monster - which explodes.
The end.
EPISODE THREE: Phantom Thief 001 vs The Spider: In a plot eerily reminiscent of the 2018 season of Daredevil, Professor Monster uses one of his creatures - a large insect that projects powerful light beams from its bug eyes - to bust Phantom Thief 001 from police custody, then brainwash him into thinking he's Spiderman.
The notorious thief then goes round tagging all his burglaries with Spiderman's name, and ruining our hero's reputation.
This is all a cunning plan to lure the real Spiderman out and, when he confronts the hypnotised Phantom Thief 001, he is ambushed by Iron Cross Army ninjas and the insect creature.
There's a nice touch where the real Spiderman saves the impostor, after the Iron Cross Army decide they have no further need for him, but then the story segues into its formulaic final act.
Ninja fight. Kaiju. Flying car. Giant robot. Power sword. Explosion. The end.
EPISODE FOUR: The Terrifying Merman! Silver String That Brings A Miracle: Takuya Yamashiro wakes from a prophetic nightmare that Professor Monster has written a computer program which has divined - after studying all the available film footage of his fights - the ultimate way to kill Spiderman.
Then, Takuya sees a death announcement for Spiderman in the newspaper, complete with funeral arrangements set for a couple of days' time.
The Spider Bracelet
This is, of course, part of another plan by Professor Monster to lure Spiderman into a trap.
The Professor has created a wicked Merman to attack innocents, and chasing this creature Spiderman falls into a cage... and has his first face-to-face meeting with Professor Monster!
After being severely wounded in his cage fight with the Merman, Spiderman escapes, but is later lured into another trap when the Merman and the Iron Cross Army kidnap freelance photographer Hitomi Sakuma (Rika Miura), Takuya's younger sister's best friend and the closest this Spiderman gets to having his own Mary Jane... but without any overt romance.
In this episode we learn a bit more about Spiderman's powers: with his suit he can see in the dark, but the alien injection that made him Spiderman has also granted him superhearing and a rapid healing ability.
I'm not sure if the prophetic dreams are a new power or simply a plot device for this episode as they're never explained.
It's also amusingly bizarre that Takuya wears a huge bracelet (with Spiderman written on it) - which contains the Spider Protector and has other gadgety uses - on his wrist, but no-one ever notices this!
After rescuing Hitomi, Spiderman heads into the final act and you should know the score by now:
Ninja fight. Kaiju. Flying car. Giant robot. Power sword. Explosion. The end.
The Marveller transforms into Leopardon, which has a spectacular array of anti-kaiju weaponry
Hong Kong's first superhero movie, Infra-Man (aka The Super Inframan or Chinese Superman) is everything you would expect from a mid-70s Asian martial arts/sci-fi mash-up.
The Earth is threatened by the subterranean Glacier Empire of Demon Princess Elizebub (Terry Liu), also known as Princess Dragon Mom, recently awoken from 10 million years of hibernation and now keen to conquer the Earth with her legion of monstrous henchmen.
Earth's best defence is China's Science Headquarters, run by the genius Professor Liu Ying-de (Hsieh Wang).
Using "science" he transforms one of his staff, the heroic Rayma (Danny Lee), into the superhero Inframan - using bionic-like implants, hormone injections, and high-tech gadgets.
Princess Elizebub's legion of rubber-suited monster lieutenants
China's Superman then uses a variety of powers to take on Elizebub's monsters, so the wicked demon queen kidnaps the professor's daughter, Liu Mei-Mei (Man-Tzu Yuan), in an attempt to blackmail him into making her an Inframan of her own!
The iron-willed professor refuses to capitulate, meaning that he and his daughter end up frozen in ice... and it's left to Rayma and the Science Headquarters' army to storm Elizebub's underground base, rescue their colleagues and save the world.
The frenetic pace with which the story moves suggests that Infra-Man could easily have been storyboarded by a six-year-old kid and their box of action figures.
From the film's fit-inducing psychedelic title sequence, Infra-Man is a brilliantly bonkers blend of 1970's Doctor Who and Power Rangers, with cheesy, cheap and cheerful special effects slammed up against campy rubber-suited monsters.
Given the slightly garbled English of the sub-titles, a particularly magical thing about this movie, directed by Shan Hua, is that you could watch it without any dialogue at all and still follow what's happening.
It's the spoken words of the script by Kuang Ni that lead to all the head-scratching and misunderstandings.
Witch-Eye (Dana Shum)
We don't actually need all the ridiculous, mumbo-jumbo scientific gobbledegook explanations of how Inframan's powers supposedly "work" because they are pure technobabble and bafflegab.
On the other hand, I cannot tell a lie, I was rather distracted by Princess Elizebub's second-in-command, the scantily-clad Witch-Eye (Shu-Yi Tsen aka Dana Shum), who was able to shoot green beams from the eyes embedded in the palms of her hands.
For a film presumably aimed at a young audience, her fate was one of the most unexpectedly shocking.
In fact, while there's a lot of talk by the villains about 'killing', I'm pretty certain they only actually kill one person onscreen, whereas Infra-Man gets quite brutal in his treatment of the monsters from the get-go, blowing them up, melting them, severing limbs etc
Produced and distributed by Shaw Brothers Studio, the martial arts fight sequences - which are plentiful - are top notch and help distract from the largely nonsensical, yet wonderfully over-the-top, plot.
My pop culture Odyssey: a slice of super-powered geek life with heavy emphasis on pulp adventure, superheroes, comic books, westerns, horror, sci-fi, giant monsters, zombies etc
