Knights

• Written and Directed by Albert Pyun
• November 17, 1993

A kickboxer and a cyborg lead a revolution against the ruling cyborgs. Did a toddler come up with the plot?

Albert Pyun is perhaps my favorite B-movie director. He had the ability to create a level of genuine quality that the likes of Godfrey Ho lacked. Trash but quality trash with a little something more. So it was with great hope that I approached his 1993 effort Knights.

This is an experience to be sure. It’s a mixture of fantasy dialogue and modern writing that creates a weird and inconsistent vibe yet one that strangely works in this movie. Visually what makes it to the screen is a weird mishmash of science fiction and fantasy. For every cyborg we get there is for example of clothing on the men that would not be out of place in a cinematic creation of a Middle Eastern sheiks haram. This aesthetic is broken up by the occasional short shorts paired with a post-apocalyptic crop top.

Not that Knights is objectively great nor does much of it make sense. In this the evil cyborgs to continue running must ingest human blood (somehow) because that’s what powers them. I’m not sure about the technicals because we never get a halfhearted explanation on how human blood as opposed to any other blood keeps them going let alone how this blood creates energy for their components.

Do you wanna know what a cyborg’s big weakness is? Do you? I bet you do. It is getting hit between the eyes. That strikes me as a general technical weakness for anything with a head. Hit anybody between the eyes with a club or a bullet you can be certain they will go down. That it is treated like some shocking revelation is hilarious!

We meet a cyborg named Gabriel (Kris Kristofferson) who was created to destroy all other cyborgs because cyborgs are evil. Since he cannot ingest blood, he only has one year to accomplish his goal. Kristofferson puts in way too much effort for this movie. He does his best with the dialogue given and is quite good.

If you think Gabriel is going to be a big part of this you would be very wrong. Old Gabe gets blown up and left a torso with a head while much of the action and story features Nea (Kathy Long). She is looking for her baby brother that is still pretty young when they finally reconnect even though he was a baby and she was barely beyond a toddler in the flashback.

Long had a very small acting career and this shows why. Despite being able to do the action, she cannot do the more important acting. Pyun keeps her lines lean but that does not help. Not only does she lack the type of charisma that helped Arnold in his early days, but she is devoid of any acting talent. Not even enough to get her into a high school production. No anger or joy or rage. She may have been a champion athlete but not so as an actress.

Lance Henriksen as Job is the threat of the movie who is converging his forces on the survivor settlement of Taos. A massive army is supposed to be gathering there but you never get any hard confirmation of it. I almost expected a twist where we learn it was not actually happening. Nothing outside of Pyun’s cost conscious skills but it never materialized.

Henriksen chews the scenery every time he’s on. His dialogue is probably among the more nonsensical and silly of anyone but that voice of his gives it a weight that it didn’t deserve. There is consistently a twinkle and a grin like he is in on the joke of it all while dressed as an extra in a science-fiction version of Lawrence of Arabia. Pyun worked his indescribable magic hard and makes something that you can sit down and enjoy even if you’re not proud of yourself. It’s bonkers and silly and completely nonsensical yet 100% entertainment.

The closing moments with Gabriel repairing himself and the Master Builder (creator of cyborgs) riding off with Nea’s youthful brother sets up a sequel that near as I know never came. Obviously the next film would focus on getting Nea’s brother Chance (Ben McCreary) back but given her general attitude I cannot see the character being too invested in the effort.

Despite pretensions of being a purely science-fiction film, this is much more of a science-fiction Western. Between the horses, two vengeance-driven people joining forces, and a town about to be overrun by baddies it has all the basics of a traditional story of the genre. Pyun just needed guns.

Knights is another bit of nonsense from Albert Pyun crafted into something that’s enjoyable, even though it’s the guiltiest of pleasures. It is an early 90s romp that makes absolutely no sense though.