Review of Hundra

Hundra (1983)
6/10
The world's first feminist?
4 April 2006
After her all-woman tribe gets wiped out by some nasty men for no reason, Hundra takes off in search of a man to impregnate her (hopefully with a girl) to ensure the tribe does not die out for good. After giving the aforementioned men what-for, Hundra, her horse and her pet dog that follows her around everywhere, travel in search of the perfect man for the job. After a failed attempt with a drunken slob who Hundra ends up thumping, she arrives in a near-by desert village run by a chauvinist pig and his merry men. This "prince" likes to select the most attractive-looking female residents of the village and uses a hot mistress to teach them how to be the perfect woman, so they can then serve the drunken, brutish town aristocrats. Hundra stumbles upon the plot and tries to stop it, but is abducted and forced to undergo the same "training". Meanwhile, she falls for the village doctor and wants him to be the father of her child, but he is not very willing...

Hundra could possibly be the world's earliest feminist. She hates men and is strongly for women's rights, trying to force her beliefs on every woman she comes across later in the film. She is also well-versed in fighting and weaponry, making her no novice when it comes to taking-on these men. After she is forced into "training" by the prince, she discovers that her teacher has an illegitimate son, which the prince would kill her for. In exchange for keeping this secret, the teacher agrees to help Hundra win-over the doctor so they can make a baby. Hundra tries and tries and finally convinces the teacher to fight back against the prince and his merry men, and stand-up for her rights. There are many women's lib speeches from Hundra, almost as much of that as there is sword and sorcery, so you get my drift when I say feminism...

As for the sword and sorcery, it's a grand old fare with much slicing and dicing. There's a fair amount of blood and heads coming off, and even the poor old pet dog gets into a fight with a prince! There also seems to be a few horses who didn't get the good end of the bargain, falling all over the place. Speaking of horses, there's a strange scene where Hundra rides her horse through the ocean naked, presumably to bathe them both? You've also got a tiny bit of slap-and-tickle and the acting is fairly ordinary. No one stands-out much. The ending is what you'd expect, with the oppressed women rising up against those brutal men. None of them just seem to be as good with a sword as our Hundra! She also does it with the doctor and gives birth to a baby, but when she says "Give me my daughter", the doctor and the teacher exchange concerned glances, as if the baby's actually a boy. But Hundra says nothing of it later, so who knows what that scene was about... It must have been a girl, then! Doing her bit for the women of the village, Hundra takes her baby and rides off into the sunset, ready to try and replenish her tribe so that they may thrive again...

With the feminist themes, this film is an interesting twist on the abundant sword and sorcery plot. The locations were very well used and the film was well edited. Can't say much of the music, but there's nothing there that will truly annoy you, except for some of the storyline, of course! Not a bad viewing.
6 out of 15 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed