Iron Warrior (1987)

Iron Warrior (aka Ator 3: Iron Warrior) is the third installment in the 4-film Ator film series, and the first not to be directed by Joe D'Amato (instead it was directed by Alfonso Brescia). While Miles O'Keeffe played Ator once again, the character looks drastically changed from Ator 1 and 2.
Joe D'Amato never recognized this film as part of the Ator series, since it was the only one of the four films that he did not work on at all.

Joe D'Amato dropped the Ator franchise in 1986, around the same time when it became public knowledge that there were no plans to make a third Conan movie. Instead, in 1987 Brescia wrote and directed the film. The film abandons the continuity of the first two films (even so far as to completely contradict Ator's established back-story of having been adopted as a baby, instead opening with him playing as a child with a twin brother). Brescia turns the film into an art house picture, utilizing a variety of cinematic techniques and camera tricks to act as symbols or give deeper meaning to the film. Ator's character is also drastically changed: Here, he has black hair in a ponytail, and speaks roughly 50 words in the entire movie.

The film pay homage to a number of popular films from the time, including the first Superman film, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Excalibur, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. The film's score is, as with the first of the series, provided by Carlo Maria Cordio - one of his themes for the film is a simple reworking of a very similar cue heard throughout Joe D'Amato's 1981 film Rosso Sangue (also scored by Cordio).

Synopsis

Ator The Fighting Eagle returns again, sans sidekick Thong, to the legendary realm of Dragor to do battle with Phaedra, an evil sorceress. Her main weapon is an unstoppable warrior, known as the Master of the Sword, who continuously battles Ator to a draw, until finally revealing his secret connection to the Blademaster.

Actors