1971-1980 Adventure Cult Natuk Baytan Turkey

Natuk Baytan – Kiliç Aslan AKA Lion Man AKA The Sword and the Claw (1975)

adminApril 4, 2021

0 1,545

Synopsis:
When the king is murdered, his baby son and heir is hidden in the forest where he is abducted and raised by a pride of lions. As an adult he uses his beastly strength and claw-like hands to take revenge against the new king and his armies.

Review:
The The Sword and the ClawAmerican Genre Film Archive The Sword and the Clawgoes international with this oddball action-fantasy release, whose title confused drive-in archaeologists for years when it appeared on posters combined with other martial arts pickups in the early ’80s from the infamous American distributor William Mishkin. As it turns out, this is actually the insane Lionman, a Turkish stunner that caught more than a few hardy VHS hunters off guard and spawned a more widely available sequel, Lionman II: The Witchqueen.

Things start off fairly normally with a desert battle establishing the turf war that ends up taking out a mighty king (an assassination sequence that must be seen to be believed). In the ensuing melee the pregnant princess escapes and dies in childbirth, leaving behind a baby son who’s spirited away and raised by a pride of lions. When he reaches adulthood, Lionman (busy Turkish action star Arkin) sets out to fulfill his birthright by taking down the evil Antoine, whose regime has turned the kingdom into a despotic nightmare, as well as the rebels who made it possible for him to survive in the first place. He can also bloodily scratch open his enemies’ faces and throats, which comes in handy!

Very fast paced, utterly The Sword and the Clawridiculous, and technically lacking, The Sword and the Claw is exactly the kind of insane discovery people hoped to find back in the days of video shelf rifling.

— Nathaniel Thompson (Mondo Digital)