Red Sonja (film)
| Red Sonja | |
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Theatrical release poster by Renato Casaro
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| Directed by | Richard Fleischer |
| Produced by | Christian Ferry |
| Written by |
Clive Exton George MacDonald Fraser |
| Based on |
Red Sonya by Robert E. Howard Red Sonja by Roy Thomas Barry Windsor-Smith |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Ennio Morricone |
| Cinematography | Giuseppe Rotunno |
| Edited by | Frank J. Urioste |
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Production
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| Distributed by | MGM/UA Entertainment Company |
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Release date
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Running time
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89 minutes |
| Country | Netherlands United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $17.9 million |
| Box office | $6.9 million |
Red Sonja is a 1985 Dutch-American sword and sorcery action film directed by Richard Fleischer. The film introduces Brigitte Nielsen as the title character with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sandahl Bergman, Ronald Lacey, Ernie Reyes, Jr., Paul L. Smith and Pat Roach in supporting roles. The film features the sword-wielding Marvel Comics character Red Sonja, created by Roy Thomas, who first appeared in Marvel's Conan the Barbarian series (#23) in 1973. The film's character of Red Sonja was based on Red Sonya of Rogatino, a character created by Robert E. Howard appearing in his short story "The Shadow of the Vulture" (1934). The film acknowledges that it was "based on the character created by Robert E. Howard" in the introductory credits.
As in Howard's stories of Conan, the film takes place in the Hyborian Age, a fictional prehistoric time that had been depicted previously in the films Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer. The film was shot in Italy, on location in Celano and the rest of the Abruzzo region, and in the Stabilimenti Cinematografici Pontini studios near Rome.
After being raped by the soldiers of Queen Gedren, a despot who had her parents and brother murdered for scarring the queen's face while rejecting her sexual advances, Red Sonja is visited by a spirit who grants her the strength to seek revenge. Having trained under a sword master and becoming distrustful of most men, Red Sonja is found by Lord Kalidor, who takes her to her dying sister Varna. Varna is a member of an order of priestesses who were preparing to destroy a light-powered relic known as the Talisman that created the world and whose growing power now threatens it. However, Gedren's army and her aide-de-camp Ikol slaughtered the priestesses and took the Talisman while Varna was fatally wounded by the time she found Kalidor. Before dying, Varna tells Sonja of the events at her temple while urging her to find the Talisman and destroy it. After turning down Kalidor's offer to accompany her, seeing a storm in the distance, Sonja arrives to the now-ruined kingdom of Hablock. There she meets the young Prince Tarn and his servant Falkon, learning Gedren completely wiped out Hablock when Tarn refused to surrender. Tarn announces that he is raising a new army to crush Gedren and invites Sonja to work for him as a cook. She declines while told that Gedren is based in Berkubane, the Kingdom of Eternal Night.
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