''Gunan, King of the Barbarians'' ( it, Gunan il guerriero) is a 1982 film directed by

Franco Prosperi Franco Prosperi (2 September 1926 – 17 October 2004) was an Italian film director and screenwriter, active between the mid-1960s and the early 1980s. Born Francesco Prosperi in Rome, Prosperi began his career as an assistant director with ...

Production

''Gunan, King of the Barbarians'' uses footage from ''

One Million Years B.C. ''One Million Years B.C.'' is a 1966 British adventure fantasy film directed by Don Chaffey. The film was produced by Hammer Film Productions and Seven Arts, and is a remake of the 1940 American fantasy film ''One Million B.C.''. The film star ...

''.

Release

''Gunan, King of the Barbarians'' was released in Italy on 9 September 1982. The film has also been released as ''The Invincible Barbarian''. As of 2016 the only available copies of ''Gunan, King of the Barbarians'' were home made DVDs sold on

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...

that are sourced from

pan-and-scan Pan and scan is a method of adjusting widescreen film images so that they can be shown in fullscreen proportions of a standard-definition 4:3 aspect ratio television screen, often cropping off the sides of the original widescreen image to focus ...

transfers from VHS tapes.

Reception

Colin Greenland Colin Greenland (born 17 May 1954 in Dover, Kent, England) is a British science fiction writer, whose first story won the second prize in a 1982 Faber & Faber competition. His best-known novel is ''Take Back Plenty'' (1990), winner of both majo ...

reviewed ''The Invincible Barbarian'' for ''

Imagine Imagine may refer to: * Imagination Music Albums * ''Imagine'' (Armin van Buuren album), 2008 * ''Imagine'' (Eva Cassidy album), 2002 * ''Imagine'' (Janice Vidal album), 2012 * ''Imagine'' (John Lennon album), 1971 ** ''Imagine: John Lennon' ...

'' magazine, and stated that "What makes this Invincible Barbarian invincible? Probably the fact that everybody he comes up against is even more stupid than he is. See how long you can watch this one without giggling." From retrospective reviews, the German book ''Lexicon des Fantasy-Films'' referred to the film as a rip-off of ''

Conan the Barbarian Conan the Barbarian (also known as Conan the Cimmerian) is a fictional sword and sorcery hero who originated in pulp magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, films (including '' Conan the Barbarian'' and '' Conan the Destroyer'') ...

'' but "only dumber".

References

Footnotes

Sources

* *

External links

* Peplum films Sword and sandal Sword and sandal films Films directed by Franco Prosperi 1980s Italian films {{1980s-Italy-film-stub