Tomb
Who’d want to see the Stallone version after this?
God I love Turkish action movies. Watch Vahsi Kan (1983) and you’ll love them too. Seriously watch it. That is a thing that needs to happen.
To say that Vahsi Kan starts with a bang is inadequate. This movie starts with so many bangs you’ll think it’s raining landmines. The camera cuts recklessly between random scenes of brutal (yet ridiculous) violence as a gang of nogoodniks beat the living crap out of a bunch of people we haven’t been introduced to yet. There’s no establishing shots dialogue set up or explanation: BANG a guy gets punched BANG another guy gets thrown through a door BANG a guy gets interrogated at knifepoint BANG the camera stares at a pretty girl in her underwear for two seconds and then BANG another guy gets spin-kicked so hard that blood spontaneously appears all over his shirt. While we’re still trying to wrap our poor heads around that barrage of images there’s an abrupt cut to a family of three driving peacefully through the Turkish countryside. For some reason the camera is situated between the legs of the attractive brunette driving the car so the first thing we see is an upskirt shot of a woman holding a steering wheel. Get used to this folks — there’s a lot more coming.
The cute driver chats with her family and we learn that her father is going to testify against a crime boss. Suddenly she slams on the brakes because there’s a pile of shirtless dead guys lying in the middle of the road. The dead guys all get up and shamble towards the car. Aieee! Zombie attack!
The zombies seem to be taking orders from the jean-jacketed bad guy we saw mistreating everybody in the opening credits. Huh. So… is this guy a necromancer or are the zombies just a bunch of gangsters who decided to act like zombies just to mess with their victims’ heads? We don’t know and the movie won’t say. The maybe-zombies drag the woman into the woods and pretend to eat her rubbing their strawberry jam-encrusted faces against her flesh and making motorboat noises. Meanwhile the gang leader shoots the woman’s father in the head and sets fire to her eight-year-old brother. Our heroine doesn’t like that so she kills one of the bad guys with a tree branch and escapes into the woods. The camera stays focused on her panty-clad bum the entire time.
At this point who should saunter into the movie but Turkish superstar Cüneyt Arkin. Hell yes! Arkin was in his late 40s at this point and had already appeared in over 200 movies by the time he made Vahsi Kan but was still kicking serious ass with no signs of slowing down. Here he’s handcuffed wearing a nice suit and being led down the street by a pair of armed guards presumably to prison. The trio spots the burning remains of the zombies’ victims and immediately rushes to their aid. Arkin saves his two captors after they catch fire as well and ensures that they get medical treatment before continuing to walk into town unescorted. What a guy!
Ladies and gentlemen what I have just described barely covers the first 10 minutes of the film. There is a full hour of insanity left to go and what do you know it’s a direct ripoff of First Blood (1982) the film that kicked off the Rambo series. Rambo er I mean Riza (Arkin) just wants to be left alone but gets hassled by the evil gang of troublemakers we’ve already met. After the gang starts cutting him with knives for fun Arkin starts getting flashbacks about being similarly tortured in… Vietnam? Some other conflict? Whatever. It’s hard to keep track of what’s going on in the flashbacks because they’re filmed at a 90 degree angle (the camera is lying on one side) with occasional 180 flips to the other side so we can never be sure about which wall Arkin is supposed to be standing on. Anyway the baddies mess with Arkin but Arkin is not to be messed with and wrecks their shit up with his kung fu skills and his giant hunting knife. Then he retreats into the woods where he dons a makeshift burlap shirt and a headband and bumps into the cute brunette from before now clad in her own rags-and-headband ensemble. Meanwhile the crazy bad guys are still closing in….
At a scant 69 minutes this outrageous camp classic doesn’t have time to get boring. Everything about it is fast cheap and ridiculous. Remember the crazy mixed-up version of First Blood made by school children in the delightful comedy Son of Rambow (2007)? It’s like that only more so. Don’t miss it.
