In the style of Cimmeria.

In the early 1980s, John Milius and Dino de Laurentiis teamed up to bring the inimitable adventures of Conan, a character created by the tortured Robert E. Howard in 1932, to the big screen - the boy shot himself with only three Thirty years into the coconut - which switched from novels to comics in the 1960s through the Marvel publishing house and became the most famous barbarian in the world. Milius, a filmmaker of irrefutable talent (despite the irregularity of his career), brought his vision of the epic into production and brought the film to the altars of the best fantasy adventure cinema. After its premiere "Conan the Barbarian" It became a cult film for innumerable followers and today it is a benchmark in the sword and witch genre. It could even be considered the most emblematic title in this section.

After winning the Oscar for "The Midnight ExpressOliver Stone joined the project as a screenwriter. Stone knew neither the character nor the reference material and opened the possibility to stop the action in the future in such a way that Conan would face mutated zombies. These first incidents did not happen considered - don't ask me why - and Milius finally pecked from a handful of sources. Without going further, the sequence in the Serpent Tower results from the stories "Thieves at Home" and "The Tower of the Elephant" Valeria (the blonde with the arms of Sandahl Bergman) appears in "Red Nail" and the plot villain Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) jumps out of another Howard piece, "King Kull of Atlantis." The resulting mess is an adventure that is so powerful is like a cimmerian steel sword.

But perhaps the greatest virtue of this medieval pseudo-epic is its undeniable protagonist Arnold Schwarzenegger. To be practically unknown in those years, even after appearing in the infamous "Hercules in New York," it wasn't until his appearance in "Pumping Iron," a bodybuilding documentary that the muscular Austrian noticed to producer Edward Pressman. Schwarzenegger was physically spectacular and was famous for an inimitable role. A few years later with the success of "Terminator", he was consolidating his Hollywood hunk career in direct competition with Sylvester Stallone.

Milius' film is an entertaining show with a more than interesting plot that was developed efficiently and with a lot of rhythm - every new scene is a brand new collection of emotions - and is characterized above all by its striking action scenes that are strong and drenched cruel violence that can fill the narrative with adrenaline and blood. Power, steel, muscles and sweat, magic and imagination, with the great and thundering accompaniment of the epic soundtrack by Basil Poledouris, a score that further improves the quality of an essential work.

Manu Castro (8/10)

@ManuCastroLSO

(18-01-2002)

• The best: Schwarzenegger's jerk. Sandahl Bergman and Thulsa Doom. The amazing soundtrack from Poledouris.

• The worst: what came next?

Did you know…? The locations through which the film runs are shot in Spain. The city that appears at the beginning of the adventure was built on the northern slope of the Puerto de Navacerrada in Madrid. Jorge Sanz plays Conan as a child and Nadiuska plays the barbarian mother. The film is full of memorable dialogues; to show one of the most famous: "Conan, what's the best thing in life?" To which the Cimmerio reacts: "Destroy enemies, see them destroyed and listen to their women's complaints."

Original title: Conan the Barbarian | Genre: Action / Fantasy / Adventure | Nationality: USA | Director: John Milius | Actors: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, Max von Sydow Producers: Raffaella De Laurentiis, Buzz Feitshans | Script: Robert E. Howard, John Milius and Oliver Stone Photography: Duke Callaghan | Music: Basil Poledouris | Editing: Carroll Timothy O'Meara

Summary: Arnold Schwarzenegger makes his extraordinary debut as a legendary on-screen warrior and hero in "Conan the Barbarian" Conan is kidnapped by the chieftain (James Earl Jones) and his gang of brutal murderers and leads a childhood that of ruthless slavery is shaped. It has only one purpose: a gladiator for fun? to become his kidnapper. He is sent to the Far East to develop his fighting skills. Conan is released there and begins a dangerous and bloody search to avenge the massacre they committed with his parents. Now this sword-wielding warrior must destroy his bloodthirsty enemies in a death-defying action adventure in which courage, strength, character and where he is put to the test will triumph the good over the evil.