Laser rays in the galaxy age

"Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam"
(aka "The Man Who Saves the World," aka "Turkish Star Wars," 1982)

Ho. Lee. Shit. This is one of those legendary films someone tells you about at a party, or if you're like me, you've at least read about it. The fictitious bootleg title "Turkish Star Wars" really puts an image in your head. This is of course a sci-fi adventure from Turkey, one infamous for stealing footage and music from famous Western blockbusters and inserting them into an insane tale of intergalactic good and evil. Let me tell you, a lot of times something with such a crazy reputation is inevitably a disappointment, because nothing can be as wacky as what you imagine. "Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam" is a rare exception. It's just as cheap, ridiculous, incomprehensible and hilarious as I hoped, and I am one jaded sonofabitch. The men we have to thank for it are director Çetin Inanç, who's amassed a minor cult following with a body of work that reads like an Italian's (westerns, murder mysteries, sex pictures, etc.) and writer Cüneyt Arkin, who also stars as the heroic Murat (and, according to the IMDB, is also a medical doctor). They begin with a prologue, a guy booming in echoing Turkish about how the Earth is strong, how it was broken into pieces but remained intact, how some kind of nuclear warriors are attacking the planet, intermittent rhetoric about the power of human willpower like something out of "Battlefield Earth" if it was written by Ayn Rand... combined with the dodgy subtitles and a montage of random battle footage from the first "Star Wars," the opening narration is more confusing than than the beginning of Lynch's "Dune."

Soon we meet Murat and his buddy Ali, two brave Turks who, along with "some others," are fighting this vague intergalactic menace. With the help of bizarre editing and rear-screen projection, I think we're supposed to believe Murat and Ali are either flying in X-wing fighters or TIE fighters, or perhaps the Millennium Falcon. Whatever they're flying, they crash on a desert planet where the swarthy starfighters joke about how it would be great if it was only populated with women. No such luck - instead, they're attacked by dudes in Halloween skeleton suits. This is where we're treated to the first of several astounding fight sequences, our heroes knocking costumed dudes off of horses with little regard for equine welfare. The editing makes everything seem super fast like a cartoon, and these two hollering and delivering karate chops make it even funnier. It seems that the planet is ruled by a bearded jerk in a mask called the Wizard, who has a cruddy robot henchman and is conveniently the same guy attacking the Earth. The Wizard thrives on human blood, which we see him drinking through an oversized crazy straw. As soon as Murat spies a cute, speechless blonde lass, he decides to fight for justice on her behalf. This leads Murat and Ali to battle a succession of the Wizard's skeleton soldiers, mummies and furry things that resemble '70s McDonaldland rejects.

An old dude on the planet, the mute girl's dad, says all of this was foretold in the Qur'an. Now, the subtitles were pretty faulty, but this is apparently the only sub available for the flick. Not only were things worded very strangely, as might be expected, but what seemed like every other subtitle would only flash for a fraction of a second before a new line appeared, making many of the conversations appear one-sided. Since the sound slips in and out of sync with the action, the already inpenetrable dialogue takes on a hallucinatory randomness that actually fits the viewing experience better than proper subtitles would. From what I could make out, I think the old guy says the universe was created according to Islam, and that there is a magical holy sword hidden away in some mountain keep, along with a brain that contains all the intellect and imagination of humanity. Murat retrieves the fakey, ornate sword and the rubbery, moldy-looking brain, but after Ali's untimely demise he somehow melts them together and dips his hands in the muck. They emerge covered with wicked metal gloves that make Murat's stiff karate chops so powerful he can cut a monster in half or knock off its head with a single blow. I won't blow the big finish, but it involves one of the flick's most dumbfounding "special effects" and more "Star Wars" footage. And the music! These guys steal famous bits from the scores to "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Flash Gordon" and "The Black Hole" throughout the flick.

I can't stress enough how bizarre and entertaining "Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam" is - even if you could understand Turkish and without all the rampant thievery, it would still be a hoot. If you don't have access to a good bootleg dealer, do like I did: watch it for free here. It's not like a higher quality copy could enhance the experience... but some cheap liquor certainly might.