The Sword and the Claw Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

The Sword and the Claw Blu-ray Movie Review

A Turkish turkey?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 27, 2018

The Sword and the Claw is the kind of film where, due to what I assume was it being ported over into English speaking countries from its native Turkey, the credits music just ups and stops for a second or two while the English language title card appears. Then, just as if nothing had happened, it returns, mid cue, as the rest of the Turkish credits appear. That’s not the only kind of funny sound mix issue going on, since the English dub (the only language available on this new Blu-ray) kind of picks and chooses whom to dub in an opening skirmish between two tribes that plays under the credits. Therefore, there are lots of goofy effects of guys getting hit with arrows, and yet several shots that clearly show commanders shouting out orders have nary a sound emanating from those characters’ avidly moving lips. All sorts of other weirdness ensues in this gonzo offering, another totally bizarre release from the American Genre Film Archive, an organization that is evidently mining the scrap pile of little remembered films from days of yore for those tired of cookie cutter entertainments crowding their local cineplexes. And, for all its patent oddness and even its patently derivative elements, The Sword and the Claw is hardly a cookie cutter entertainment, especially in this English language version, for better or worse.

The basic story of The Sword and the Claw is virtually Biblical, and indeed involves a king named Solomon, though it’s not that one. A ruthless tribal leader named Anton doesn’t want the peace that Solomon has forged (since Anton isn’t in charge of it), and, as might be predicted, stages a coup, where Solomon meets his fate. Solomon’s been busy, though, including with a local princess who gives birth to his son after she’s able to escape the mayhem. That boy is raised in the wild by animals (in a kind of Tarzan-esque plot point), and of course grows up to be a fierce warrior hell bent on revenge. A little disabling “accident” leaves the so- called Lion Man (one of the film’s previous titles in home video releases) with claws in the place of hands, which effectively aids him in his attempts to vanquish his enemies.

The Sword and the Claw is so completely inept on so many levels that it just kind of requires its audience to surrender to its inanity. It’s almost hard to know where to start with this film — the editing is preposterous (not helped by the shape of the badly damaged element used as a source for this transfer), the underscore choices are almost willfully wrong (a bunch of Khachaturian’s bouncy major key tunes are used to “support” fight scenes, to spectacularly anachronistic effect), and the English dub is just full of non sequiturs and other oddities that make the film play kind of like a shared hallucination.

The Sword and the Claw Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Sword and the Claw is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of AGFA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The back cover of this release touts a 4K scan off of the only known 35mm print in existence, and this release serves as a potent example of "how does it look" vs. "how accurate is the transfer". As I tend to do, I've split the difference in my score above, since, while I have no doubt that AGFA has done a splendid job in their handling of the source element, with no signs of any artificial digital tweaking or compression anomalies on display, there's simply no denying that the source itself has some fairly recurrent issues that probably would have been cost prohibitive to address. The opening few minutes (which include the opticals during credits) are probably the worst looking moments, with quite a bit of speckling and scratching in attendance. While things improve after that, there is still pretty regular damage on display, along with occasional moments of warped and/or missing frames. The best thing about this transfer is arguably the palette, which still resonates with some vividness, though I personally thought things were a bit too much on the blue side, something that tends to give a curious undercoat to things like flesh tones at times. Grain looks natural and encounters no compression issues.

The Sword and the Claw Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Sword and the Claw's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track is, like its video counterpart, a victim of the source, which, while arguably not in as bad a shape as that video element, still has a pretty tinny sound, especially when some of Khachaturian's jaunty melodies are playing. The dubbing is often less than artful, and that, along with occasional missing snippets, leads to some disjointed feeling moments. That said, the bulk of the presentation doesn't have any huge issues, with decent enough fidelity and no actual distortion.

The Sword and the Claw Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Brawl Busters (1080p; 1:23:08) is a bonus film that has some of the same plot mechanics, including a focal character (in this case, female) out to avenge her father's death. I'd be happy to try to give you more information on the plot of Brawl Busters, but I'm frankly at a loss, since the whole thing seems like a hodgepodge designed solely to provide minimal context for nearly ubiquitous fights scenes (which frequently simply break out shorn of any context, anyway). This was scanned at 2K from a 35mm print (2.40:1 AR), and shows much worse wear and tear than even The Sword and the Claw. Almost psychedelic looking green scratches run through this presentation, both vertically and horizontally, and there are numerous specks, flecks and other damage almost always on display. Screenshots 11 - 14 of this review are from this film.


• Face Smashing Trailers from the AGFA Vault (1080p; 10:22). Regular readers of my reviews know I tend not to include any extraneous trailers not directly tied to whatever particular release I'm writing about, but in this case this is kind of a like miniaturized version of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury and will be enjoyed by certain genre aficionados.

The Sword and the Claw Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you've had enough time to recover from AGFA's release of Bat Pussy (if there's ever enough time to recover from having seen that "film"), you may be ready for the one - two punch of The Sword and the Claw and Brawl Busters. These are inherently wacky efforts that should certainly appeal to certain genre aficionados, and for them the less than optimal condition of the source elements is probably only more of a selling point.