Review of A Man Called Blade

A bounty hunter (Maurizio Merli) arrives in a town to confront the man responsible for his father's death years earlier. He finds him broken down and agrees to take the ransom gold to get the man's daughter (Sonya Jeannine) back who has been kidnapped by the man's most trusted guard (John Steiner), planning to keep it for himself. However, he finds the daughter in cahoots with the guard and are lovers. Blade is captured and left for dead. Although the hey day of the spaghetti western was long finished this typically violent example of the genre was made and is actually quite decent albeit derivative, with music similar but inferior to Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), and clichéd (flashbacks depicting the reason for revenge) elements. There are stylish moments such as the juxtaposition of massacre scenes with boisterous dance sequences and Blade's reneging on his quest for revenge is refreshing if unlikely. The most violent scenes include Blade's first victim having his hand severed by the flying tomahawk, his weapon of choice, and Blade left for dead, buried up to his neck in the sand, in the desert his eyes pinned open and made to stare directly at the sun, whilst his head is kept up by a spear protruding from the ground aimed at his throat.