Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam AKA or Turkish Star Wars

The man who saves the world!

Anyone who has seen this movie can't help but give a wide grin upon the mention of its name, but it means more than "just another low budget Turkish rip-off" to me. It is an artifact of great pride, the proof of what can be achieved despite having no money to make a film and/or no respect for copyrighted material.

Movies somehow have a great effect on contemporary Turkish culture, much more than in any other country. Turkish people love movies. They love their actors, themes, they never get tired of watching the same movies over and over (so do we, don't we?). Like anything else that has the "Turkish" brand upon it, this is rather difficult to describe to someone who's never been to Turkey. But let me just say that, an old Turkish movie which has been run, say, 50 times on TV, still gets the highest rating on its 51st run, and even if it's broadcasted a second time within that week, it will still remain as the rating lead.

 

official promotional pictures.

These aren't the stormtroopers we're looking for.

Cuneyt Arkin, probably the best-known and loved Turkish actor, is known for such movies. Although most of his movies are no less cr*ppy than the linguistic skills of some of my fellow reviewers here, he has also made some remarkable films and has won awards. He can do circus acts (he's worked in a circus) like no Hollywood actor can do, does his own stunts, he's very good-looking and a better actor than most of his contemporaries. However, most of his filmography consists of no-budget films (Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam is one of the highlights) therefore he sometimes gets reviews that he never deserves, which is the case about this movie.

In a period when making a high-budget Turkish movie was virtually impossible (even if you had the best actors, producers, directors) Arkin took the low-budget to an art form. All funny stuff aside, the so-called Turkish cinema (!) of the 90's-2000's is virtually no better than Arkin's films. Apart from a handful of exceptions, these late-era Turkish movies have never been able to reach the audiences' hearts and minds, and will probably be forgotten in a few years. But Arkin's films, no matter how ridiculous they may look at times, have caught the spirit of his people, grabbed their hearts and benumbed their senses, and are being discussed on the internet even 30 something years after they've been made.

 

The bad guy that kinda looks like The Mandarin.

Damsel in distress.

As for the movie itself... It's unbelievable, that can't be denied. And unless you've lived for at least some months in Turkey, some of the things you'll see will pop your eyes out of their sockets, like scenes copied/pasted from Hollywood favorites (something that will shock the copyright-sensitive Americans and Europeans). This movie is certainly something that no modern moviemaker would dare make, and although a truly unforgettable experience, it's not Cuneyt Arkin's most incredible film.

That's right, at least in this movie there's a rather straightforward story, you know who's good and who's bad, what they're trying to do, etc. But Arkin has some films (the populist reviewers who only know Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam must surely be ignorant of these) in which you never know if he's good or bad, if he's the brother of the star actress or if he's her husband, in some movies even his character's name is never mentioned. He's Cuneyt, he beats the crap out of everyone and saves the girl, that's enough. He doesn't need a name. In some films, the plot twists so radically that you sometimes wonder if you're still watching the same film. Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam, AKA The Man Who Saves The World, AKA Turkish Star Wars, is not that bizarre, but it experiments with something that Turkish cinema rarely deals with: special effects, and perhaps that's what makes it so funny. Other than that, I (and probably most of you) can name quite a few Hollywood movies which, in terms of content, are far worse than this movie.

 

The production team decided to market the film primarily to older children, and to cut the running time by about 1 hour because the studio was concerned that the 2-1/2 hour length of the original cut--far longer than the typical 75-minute Turkish film--would hurt the film's market potential. This resulted in the film's disjointed and frenetic pacing, its emphasis on action, and its lack of on-screen plot exposition, with major plot points only being explained in voiceover.

The film was reportedly embraced eagerly by its youthful target market, and was very successful in Turkey. 

 

Kung Fu in space!

Cardboard sword V/S oversized Teddy bear.

Now, moving on to what really made this rather freaky film so popular, let's take a look at how many times this film breaks the legal barrier by "borrowing" intelectual property:

 

1. The decision to incorporate pirated footage from Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) was made after elaborate spaceship film sets constructed on a Turkish beach were destroyed by a storm before shooting was scheduled to start. The studio refused to finance the sets' reconstruction and did not want to delay the film's release, leaving the producers with no feasible way to create all-new space battle footage. Çetin Inanç solved the problem by bribing the night watchman at a Turkish film distributor to let him borrow a print of Episode IV, which was hastily copied overnight. Moreover, the material from Star Wars was spliced in from an anamorphic print, while this movie was shot in academy format, resulting in a non-correct aspect ratio during the Star Wars footage (e.g., the Death Star looks more like a Death Egg).

 

2. The movie also includes soundtracks from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) (throughout the film), Moonraker (1979), Flash Gordon (1980), Planet of the Apes (1968), and The Black Hole (1979). 

 

3. The Wizard's wife's transformation into an old hag and a spider, the swirling yellow vortex that turns men into burnt, shambling zombies, and a character turninhlg into a hairy ogre are all taken from Bert I. Gordon's The Magic Sword (1962). 

 

Promotional poster.

Millenium what?!

Think you've seen it all? Well then don't hesitate to try watching Dünyayi kurtaran adam not only borrows but begs and steals elements and music from "Star Wars" (natch), "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Flash Gordon"; many scenes simply run clips from "Star Wars" interspersed in otherwise non-space scenes, probably just to keep reminding you this is taking place in a galaxy far far away.

The "original" special effects scenes are perhaps the funniest this film delivers. From red-cell tints, back projection, stop-motion brains, shag-rug aliens, party masks (one alien is a red-colored devil mask, complete with goatee, widow's peak and horns! MAN!!), toilet paper-wrapped zombies, and the Star Wars stuff again where there are a lot of SW clips played through a partially blocked-out screen.

And the heroes? Two non-Solos who wear polyester shirts (that blue one with the two yellow flowers on the chest - STYLIN'!) and give karate kicks and chops and sport physiques like any well-schooled middle-aged banker would possess. Nice hair, though.

As far as the dialogue goes, couldn't get a word of it. I don't speak Turkish, but who needs dialogue; this is apparently not a movie that takes great pains to make a brave new world.

The fan made trailer with English subtitles:

Here's the film for your viewing pleasure, and no, you don't need subtitles, the film is pretty self explanatory:

 

Next week: Turkish Superman!