The Warrior and the Sorceress

In a distant galaxy lies the desert planet of Ura, which has two suns. There, two rival warlords, Zeg and Bal Caz, constantly fight against each other in a battle over the village's only wellspring. The mercenary warrior Kain emerges and announces that his skills are for hire to the highest bidder. Naja, a beautiful sorceress that has been taken captive by Zeg, changes Kain's original purpose of taking the well for himself to saving Naja and the village people. Kain starts to tangle the situation, taking advantage of the ongoing feud while seeking to debilitate the rival warlords and defeat them.

• David Carradine ... Kain the Warrior
• María Socas ... Naja the Sorceress
• Luke Askew ... Zeg the Tyrant
• Anthony De Longis ... Kief, Zeg's Captain (as Anthony DeLongis)
• Harry Townes ... Bludge the Prelate
• Guillermo Marín ... Bal Caz (as William Marin)
• Armando Capo ... Burgo the Slaver (as Arthur Clark)
• Daniel March ... Blather, Bal Caz's Fool
• John Overby ... Gabble, Bal Caz's Fool
• Richard Paley ... Scar-face
• Marcos Woinski ... Burgo's Captain (as Mark Welles)[9]
• Cecilia Narova ... Exotic Dancer (as Cecilia North)
• Dylan Willias ... Zeg's Guard
• José Casanova ... Zeg's Guard (as Joe Cass)
• Miguel Zavaleta ... Zeg's Guard (as Michael Zane)
• Herman Cass ... Zeg's Guard
• Arturo Noal ... Zeg's Guard (as Arthur Neal)
• Hernán Gené ... Zeg's Guard (as Herman Gere)
• Gus Parker ... Zeg's Guard
• Ned Ivers ... Slave
• Liliana Cameroni ... Zeg's Drowned Slave (as Lillian Cameron)
• Eva Adanaylo ... Woman at Well (as Eve Adams)
• Noëlle Balfour ... (uncredited)

The film was originally known as Kain of the Desert Planet. Corman developed it for Millennium Pictures, the company he formed after he sold New World Pictures. Millennium was subsequently renamed "New Horizons".[10]

The exterior shots were made in Ischigualasto Provincial Park in San Juan, also known as Valle de la Luna ("Valley of the Moon", due to its otherworldly appearance). Most of the film was shot inside Estudios Baires Film S.A. and Campo de Mayo, in Buenos Aires Province.[11]

Before production started and during a discussion with his girlfriend, David Carradine punched a wall and fractured his right hand. To conceal the plaster for the hand, Carradine used a pointed black glove on his right arm while filming.[11] In Carradine's memoirs the actor states he broke his hand three days into filming, but he doesn't say how.[12]

The outfit that Carradine uses for his character of Kain is the same he wore for the B movie/post-apocalyptic action film Dune Warriors (1991).[13] In a rather obvious coincidence, Luke Askew again played the antagonist/villain role in the latter film.[14]

Carradine says the director "was obsessed by the body of the actress who played the priestess so he costumed her in a topless outfit. Everywhere you looked there was this barebreasted woman."[15]

Carradine liked the movie because of its sword play and the fighting style he helped design but says "don't expect a great movie" because the director quit during editing after a fight with Corman (which erupted because he had gone two weeks over schedule), meaning the editing was finished by two teams in two different countries. "It's a little uneven", said Carradine of the film.[15]

According to David Carradine's book Spirit of Shaolin, it was clear before production started that the film was going to be a version of Akira Kurosawa's 1961 Samurai film Yojimbo, and Carradine talked about it with executive producer Roger Corman:

The Warrior and the Sorceress) was essentially a remake of Yojimbo, the samurai movie by the great Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa. I called up Roger and told him I loved the script; but what about the Yojimbo factor. Roger said, "Yes, it is rather like Yojimbo." I said, "It's not like Yojimbo. It is Yojimbo." Roger said, "Let me tell you a story. When Fistful of Dollars opened in Tokyo, Kurosawa's friends called him up and said 'You must see this picture.' Kurosawa said, 'Yes, I understand it is rather like Yojimbo.' 'No, it's not like Yojimbo, it is Yojimbo. You have to sue these people.' 'I can't sue them', he responded. 'Why not?' 'Because' -Kurosawa confessed-, 'Yojimbo is Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest.'" I went for it.[12][16][17]

The story however appears to be apocryphal, as Kurosawa and Toho Studios did in fact successfully sue Sergio Leone.[18][19]

The Philadelphia Inquirer called it "an unashamedly sordid rehashing - and retrashing - of Akira Kurosawa's samurai classic Yojimbo, via Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, with a little Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian tossed in for good measure."[20]

The Los Angeles Times also noted the similarities to Yojimbo and said the film had "awkward action, a general air of determined viciousness and (Carradine excepted) so much overacting that it sometimes seems that a new dramatic style is being forged."[21]

Footage of the film later turned up in Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II.[22]

• Carradine, David (1995). Endless Highway.

• The Warrior and the Sorceress at IMDb
• The Warrior and the Sorceress at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Warrior and the Sorceress at AllMovie
• The Warrior and the Sorceress at the TCM Movie Database