Sword of the Valiant (1984)

Loosely based on the late 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

At a royal feast, a man accepts the challenge of an intruder, involving a beheading attempt, the result of which sends him on a journey which entails many adventures.

Christopher Mulrooney has a nice text about this film (link):

[begin quote] A grand work, stylistically at the center of a constellation including Boorman’s Excalibur, Battiato’s I Paladini, Hodges’ Flash Gordon, and Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs for the comedy of Fortinbras storming the toy castle, etc.
Tessari’s Zorro is another kindred work, also Desmond Davis’ Clash of the Titans.
“The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”.
The four-part riddle is the sole governor of form, after the prelude at the King’s court of well-fed drunken knights he takes issue with.
The parody materials and general good humor give way to the essential poetry of the riddle, the Green Knight’s twelvemonth “game”.
The extraordinary, increasingly rapid treatment of action scenes is only one part of the adroitness that went entirely unobserved by critics, notably in Time Out Film Guide.
The romance of Gawain and Linet in the lost land of Lyonesse, at the castle of Fortinbras, the castle of Bertilak, the Green Chapel. An unreal place, a dark place, a golden place, each with its contrary, and the place of loss, wisdom there. [end quote]

This film belongs to the genre known as sword and sorcery. For some reason, this genre had a big surge in the eighties, after having been all but completely forgotten in the preceding decade. Though it has evolved since (and I haven't followed it in its recent shapes), it hasn't yet fallen out of fashion altogether.

(pan-and-scan copy)

Rating: 51