Amazons and Gladiators (2001)

User Rating:

2.7/10   

Director:

Zachary Weintraub

Writer:

Zachary Weintraub (writer)

Genre:

Drama | Action | Adventure

Tagline:

The fight is just beginning.

Plot:

During the Roman Empire, General Crassius ruled a small province with an Iron fist. Serena, a young girl in a village...

Plot Keywords:

Gladiator | Amazon | Roman Empire | Nudity | Female Nudity

Cast

Patrick Bergin	...	Crassius
Jennifer Rubin	...	Ione
Richard Norton	...	Lucius
Nichole Hiltz	...	Serena
Wendi Winburn	...	Gwyned
Melanie Gutteridge	...	Briana
Mary Tamm	...	Zenobia
Janina Matiekonyte	...	B'Shara (as Janina Matekonyte)
Darius Miniotas	...	Dance Master
Rona Waddington	...	Lead Dancer (as Rona Wadington)
Tomas Ereminas	...	Gallo
Gabija Danileviciute	...	Young Serena
Lauren Wilcox	...	Young Briana

MPAA:

Rated R for sexuality and violence.

Runtime:

Canada:94 min | Spain:89 min

Country:

USA | Germany

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Singapore:M18 | Australia:MA | Germany:16 | Spain:13 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Vilnius, Lithuania

Company:

MBP (Germany)

Quotes:

[A slave discovers Serena and Briana disguised as dancing girls:]
Briana: "It's okay: we're Amazons!"

Movie Connections:

References C'era una volta il West (1968)

A modern and better than 'middle of the road' B movie

This little sexploitation film, which was presumably designed for TV and direct to video release, has already secured two pages of comments, many of them very erudite, from IMDb users who say all that needs to be said about the film itself. The comments fall into two groups, viewers who fully recognised what it was about and settled down to enjoy it just for what it provided seem to have rated it very generously, but a larger group appear to have expected a poor man's "Gladiator" and to have rejected it totally when they realized this was not what they were viewing. Currently IMDb user ratings show peaks at both 10 and 1 - this is an interesting although not unique situation, but my sympathies (although not my judgment in so far as any rating near ten is concerned) lie entirely with the first group. I find it very hard to understand how any viewers would have had expectations of watching an historically viable film, rather than what is so clearly a work of fiction that has been set in a recognisable historic period.

Historically we are only very gradually beginning to learn something about the legendary female warriors we know as Amazons. Early European settlers followed a largely matriarchal form of society in which women took a prominent role; but these were later often absorbed by incoming Indo-European tribes, who traditionally gave women a much more subservient role. Archaeology largely replaces history for this period but these two very different cultures intermingled for a long period before many of the matriarchal groups were absorbed by the dominant Indo-Europeans and there is general recognition that many of the matriarchal groups resisted male dominance to the point of migrating and fighting for their independence. The Greek legends about Amazons, a name possibly coming from the Greek "a mazos" (without breast), appear to relate to groups which settled in Asia Minor as female warrior tribes that played a significant role in very early history, but these were almost certainly wiped out long before they could become entangled with the legions of the Roman Empire. There has been a great deal of controversy about the legend that they cut off the right breast of their female children to enhance their future capabilities as adult fighters. Given the medical standards of the time, this would almost certainly have been a fatal procedure and it has therefore been discounted by most historians - which has unfortunately led some of them to discount all reports about even the existence of such female warriors. However Hippocrates has described in some detail how this was not a surgical procedure but was the result of applying an iron hot enough to inhibit normal anatomical breast development to female babies whilst very young in order to encourage the muscular development of their right arm. This is quite compatible with the many early legends (and even semi-historical reports) of Valkyrie like one breasted female warriors who were active in Asia Minor, probably until shortly after the founding of Troy - long before Rome was founded or Gladiators appeared. I am not a student of archaeology but I have read somewhere that at least one archaeologist claims to have discovered a bronze 'branding iron' device the right size and shape to have been used for this purpose. Other IMDb users could probably provide more accurate information about this.

Even ignoring the dates, the idea of such a tribe of female warriors encountering and disrupting a force of almost invincible Roman warriors should provide great fun whether it is presented as a novel or as a film - neither should be expected to have any pretensions to being historical, and rejecting either for historical errors is I feel only laughable. But, certainly in the case of the film, part of the appeal the promoters would depend upon for recovering their investment would involve transmuting the Valkyrie like warriors into attractive (and probably scantily clad) young women that young male viewers would enjoy watching and young female viewers would wish to emulate. Clearly therefore any legends about disfigurements intended to enhance fighting performance would be forgotten - we are in the realm of neither history nor mythology - but straight fiction. Judged on this basis, I would regard this film as a very commendable 'B' movie, distinctly superior to many of its genre. Comparisons with 'Gladiator', which has pretensions to being a historically based film, cannot be made in any meaningful way. But I very much preferred 'Amazons and Gladiators', because it showed much more ongoing character development than was allowed by the pointless and unceasing violence in 'Gladiator', and could even be regarded as providing role models for young women who feel they are being exploited and victimised by the society in which they live. Further reasons for this preference can be found in my user comments on 'Gladiator' in this database.

IMDb does not list any alternative versions for this film, but there appear to be two very different versions. I saw it on Public TV in a 90 minute PG version totally without nudity, but the large screen version was given an R rating for nudity, and both IMDb users and external reviewers have commented that many topless extras were featured. Although this may explain wide differences in the ratings received from IMDb users, the large number of one ratings seems inexplicable. What do these reviewers do when they see a really bad film? I would have rated it at five, but this led me to award it a marginally justified six.