''The Final Executioner'' ( it, L' Ultimo Guerriero) is an Italian post-apocalyptic film released in 1984.

Synopsis

The resulting fallout from a nuclear war has contaminated most of the cities except for a few isolated towns. The remaining society is divided into clean and contaminated people. Those "convicted" of being contaminated are moved to preserves for hunting by the elites - those ruled clean. An elite group has taken up the sport of hunting the contaminated people, and have killed almost 80 million. Alan, an elite cybernetic expert (

William Mang William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conques ...

) tries to put a stop to this, as his wife is soon to be one of those being hunted. For attempting to reveal what's really happening, he is stripped of his privileges and sent to a preserve. Alan is forced to watch several of the deprivations of the hunters, and after being shot falls into a river. He ends up in the home of an ex-cop (

Woody Strode Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode (July 25, 1914 – December 31, 1994) was an American athlete and actor. He was a decathlete and football star who was one of the first Black American players in the National Football League in the postwar era. ...

) and receives training from him. Alan and the cop then invade the citadel of the hunters. A bloodbath ensues.

Cast

William Mang ... Alan Tanner Marina Costa ... Edra Harrison Muller ... Erasmus

... Sam Margie Newton ... Diane (as Margi Newton) Stefano Davanzati ... Melvin Renato Miracco ... Louis Maria Romano ... Magda Luca Giordana ... Phil Karl Zinny ... Evan, the Boy Cinzia Bonfantini ... Alan's Wife Giovanni Cianfriglia ... Walker

Production

A certain amount of footage from this film was used in a later film ''

The Bronx Executioner ''The Bronx Executioner'' is the English title of the Italian cyborg film, ''Il Giustiziere del Bronx'', released in 1989. Plot In the post-apocalyptic Bronx, warring races of evil androids and humanoids battle each other for supremacy. Trivia ...

''. Woody Strode's footage as the character Sam is re-used in ''The Bronx Executioner'', and his character is called Warren.

Margit Evelyn Newton Margit Evelyn Newton (born Margit Gansbacher in 1962) is an Italian actress who appeared in fourteen films between 1979 and 1990. Newton is perhaps best known for her performance in the 1980 zombie film ''Hell of the Living Dead'' (also known as ...

was the only actor from this film to have new scenes shot in the second.

Reception

In a retrospective review, Jeremy Wheeler of AllMovie commented that despite the film having a "leather-clad, big-haired warrior on a sleek, black motorcycle carrying a samurai sword on the barren dunes of the future" sounding "genius enough" the film still contained "all the pitfalls of the cheap Italian post-apocalyptic flicks of this time with little of the gratuitous nature that the best of the bunch have been graced with." Kim Newman found this movie to be the "best of a bad lot" of the group of cheap, Italian post apocalyptic movies of the 1980s. Creature Feature gave the movies 1.5 out of 5 stars, noting that the violence on both sides makes it hard to feel empathy for Mang and that the direction was lacking elan.

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program TV listings, listings information as well as entertainment and television-related news. The company sold its print magazine division, TV Guide Magazine, TV Guide Mag ...

found the movie to better than most of the genre, and the Strode's performance was impressive, but gave the movie one of five stars labeling it a time killer. TV Guide: The Final Executioner Retrieved 06/08/2020 https://www.tvguide.com/movies/the-final-executioner/review/114746/

References

External links

*
''The Final Executioner''
at

Variety Distribution Variety Distribution is an Italian-based film distribution company. It distributes Italian films worldwide, produced from the 1930s onward. History Variety Distribution (formerly Variety Film and Variety Communications) has been in the film p ...