The Dutch government in Indonesia have been cracking down on insurgency, which means those who have not been paying their taxes and stand up to the authorities are being rounded up and imprisoned, even tortured and executed for their perceived crimes. However, one man recently captured represents a hero to the victimised masses, and he is the stoic Jaka Sembung (Barry Prima), defiant even though he is set to work as slave labour. But at the work camp the brutality gets too much, and a revolution is on the cards...
Such was the set up for the first of star Prima's series of Warrior action movies, which helped him become Indonesia's biggest film star under the guidance of producer Gope T. Samtani whose name was also made by the success of these. Not only were they hits in their native land, but garnered a following abroad as well with their peculiar mix of devout religiosity, fantasy themes and outright gory violence, all served with a straightfaced aplomb that made them either something worth cheering for or rather camp and enjoyable enough to chortle at. Although Prima had seen his star rise before this, it was the Warrior which consolidated that fame.
You can see why if you watch this as his Jaka may be a type of man of action most associated with the decade of the eighties, stripped to the waist and skilled in hand to hand combat, but these were historically set stories which in this first one meant our hero never picked up a machine gun and began mowing down his adversaries in Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger mould. Much of that was down to those trends not quite being established in 1981, but also cultural considerations had to be taken into account, and the inclusion of such a devout Muslim as the main character was not something Western efforts would have bothered with.
Indeed, even in those Western action flicks the religion of the protagonist wasn't particularly important or at least overtly emphasised, more taken as read, yet here it was what lent Jaka his mighty power, although even then it seems to come and go rather arbitrarily. After escaping the equivalent of a chain gang, he seeks refuge in a village whereupon the villainous Dutch Captain sends a firebreathing bruiser after him, though Jaka manages to best him with one notably violent move with a pole through the head. That was another aspect which stood out, the bloodthirsty quality of the action, with ambitious if none too convincing gore liberally applied to underline the strenuous efforts going in to the battle of wills.
Jaka is captured once again in spite of all that, and though he has two female admirers, one played by Eva Arnaz, one of the biggest female stars of Indonesian cinema who was briefly married to Prima, he nevertheless is subject to such indignities as being nailed to his cell wall and getting his eyes poked out by the Captain. As if that was not bad enough, and taking their cue from the excesses of East Asian cinematic weirdness, Jaka is then taken up before the resident black magician and turned into a pig! Luckily this ignominy is merely a trial our hero must endure if he is to emerge a better man on the other side, and soon a good magician has turned him back again, not to mention giving him an eye transplant. This is all leading somewhere, that being the slaughter of the cast of thousands boasted of in the opening credits, though most memorable was the duel which saw the baddie get his limbs cut off and reattached in a somewhat hilarious fashion. Jaka might succeed, but the cost appears rather high. Music by Gatot Sudarto.
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