Amazons and Gladiators

2001 "The fight is just beginning"
3.5| 1h34m| en
Details

During the Roman Empire, General Crassius ruled a small province with an Iron fist. Serena, a young girl in a village, watches Crassius kill her parents. Crassius and Serena's destiny would lead them to the Gladiator ring; the Amazons Warrior vs the Roman General.

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Reviews

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.
Michelle Ridley The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity
Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
ReginaSH This movie was terrible. You can see better acting and conviction in porn.... like the really low budget made in somebodies bedroom porn. Awful awful awful. The entire movie looks like the actors aren't sure what they are supposed to be doing and only know that they are supposed to say the lines but after that they don't know what to do. This movie sucks. Like another person said just watch Xena instead because at least it has better actors. This movie is like a sad attempt to mix Xenas Callisto with Starz original Sparticus. Think Xena with Calistos issues and a best friend who isn't gay then add in an attempt to make a show like Sparticus. So if you make it past the first 10 minutes of this movie you have no taste in movies or really want to cause yourself pain.
L. Denis Brown 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.
erinbear80 Historically inaccurate in every aspect. Corny dialog. Unbelievable characters. Generic sound effects. Horribly choreographed fight scenes. Shoddy camera work. Nudity at every turn, probably only put in to keep the audience on it's toes, because nothing else will. Don't watch this unless you want a movie to make fun of! I bought this DVD in Spain, hoping it would be a good souvenir. I have an interest in the Roman Empire and it's offshoot stories, and this one only disappointed me. Yes, I know that they are few and far between, but believe me when I say that you would be better off not watching this one. Xena is more entrancing.
ada-p Feminism and misogyny at the same time! I'm all for a movie that depicts womyn standing on their own two feet and kicking patriarchal butt. But, and this is a big but, the movie managed to be exploitive of womyn at the same time. For some strange reason Serena always wore tight boob-raising body armour, there were constant scenes of naked and half naked womyn, the female leads were all unbelievably beautiful and the men (with the exception of the fairly attractive Nortin) were all rather ugly or... out of shape.I honestly don't know if I love this film or hate it with a passion. It has Thelma and Louise appeal, but also appeals to male sexual fantasies by making womyn sex objects. But the idea that it spaws Satan or other such extremes is a little gynophobic and paranoid. If you feel this way then I suggest you stay clear of "8 Mile" and Britney's "Crossorads". The only movies worse than those that spark thoughtful debate, ie A & G, are those that are mind numbing and appeal solely to...... easily controlled minds.