Lionman II: The Witchqueen (1979) Online

Being a fan of Natuck Baitan's hugely enjoyable & crazy biblical adventure film "Lionman", I just HAD to see this obscure sequel, which seems to be some kind of Turkish-American co-production. I guess the first film must have made some money worldwide since an American film crew decided to do a follow-up. I wasn't expecting it to be nearly as entertaining as the first one, but honestly, they could have done A LITTLE better than this disappointment.

The film takes off where the first "Lionman" ended. The Lionman have defeated the evil Antoine and reigns the people from the throne of his father Salomon. But even though he now has got a woman and child he can find no peace of mind in the civilization and longs back to his former life living in the wild amongst the lions. When the Lionman finally declares his retreat from civilization and gives the throne to his best friend, Antoine's equally evil son sees the opportunity to avenge his father and conquer the land. He also uses the aid of a scantily clad witch, who try to keep Lionman out of the way with the help of black sorcery and magical monsters, while his armies invade the peaceful country. And so Lionman and his merry men begins a dull, ultra-cheap quest to regain the throne and stop the evil sorcery.

That's right, this movie tries to be a mixture of an old time historical adventure film and a typical moronic 1980s sword and sorcery flick (the IMDb must have gotten the production year wrong since the film feels very mid-80s). The story is not bad and the movie might actually have worked with better photography, a more experienced director and better actors. The lead actor Frank Morgan is a poor replacement for turkeys number one action star Cüneyt Arkin, as he lacks both the charm and energy (not to mention the trampoline skills...) to make the role work. On the plus side the film has a medieval "Defenders of the Crown"-like synthesizer score run on repeat throughout the movie (just like the first film used the same classical piece in absurdum). Also, the films offers a lot of cheap sword and sorcery silliness, like swamp monsters and magical rings. Those things are always good, no matter how crappy the movie. My conclusion: Don't expect it to be on pair with the original "Lionman", in fact don't expect much at all, but if you've endured movies like "Thor the conqueror" and "Throne of Fire" you might as well see this one too.