Search - Samson and the Seven Miracles of the World on DVD

Interesting, mostly because you've seen it all before

S. Gustafson | New Albany, IN USA | 10/16/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a Maciste picture, actually. The original title in Italian was "Maciste alla Corte del Gran Khan" (Machiste at the Court of the Great Khan).

What makes it interesting is its mediaeval Chinese setting, with Han Chinese versus evil Mongol invaders. If you're even looking at this review, you've likely seen this done a hundred times before in martial arts films. Here we have a far more naive presentation of the same setting by Italians. Instead of martial artistry, you get a muscleman hero who knocks down trees and wrestles tigers. A pleasant and amusing sensation of cognitive dissonance will be induced by watching this picture, because you've seen it all before, and yet this version is strangely different. The plot itself is the same one you have seen a hundred times before in Maciste/Samson/Goliath/Hercules pictures, but this time it has been removed from its usual locus in classical antiquity.

Gordon Scott, former Tarzan, provides Maciste/Samson beefcake. The Chinese setting makes for some weirdly cool soundtrack music, and allows slightly interesting variations on the mandatory hooch dancing scenes. The mighty Mongol warlord is as usual the cat's-paw for his much more interesting beautiful and evil queen. The adventure is reasonably well paced, and the special effects slightly less amateurish than usual. Both sword and sandal fans, and kung fu fans, might get a kick out of this."

It was better in my mind,,,

Have Gun | Bowdoin, Maine | 09/12/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I viewed this film at my local theater when I was just a youngster. At that time I was inthralled by all things "sword and sandle". Steve Reeves (Who was a good friend and work out partner of Gordan Scott.) had captured my imagination and inspired me to begin a life long love of body building/weight lifting with his portryal of, Hercules.

"Sampson and the Seven Miracles of the World" was one of the countless such films that I watched each and every Sat. afternoon. Gordon Scott has always been one of my favorite body builder turned actor. He can actually act !! He also had a build that was on a par with the late great Steeve Reeves and knew how to make the best use of those massiive lats in the scenes where he up roots trees or moves huge boulders. He knew how to make us kids think he was actually lifting something in humanly heavy. As a kid I ate it up.

As an adult, I enjoyed watching this gem because I rememberd all the "Muscle" scenes. That was why I watched it after all to begin with. However, with dubed voices, white actors playing Mongols with little or no Mongol make up a (Sampson himself hardly looks like a native.) obviously rubber boulders, a story line that even as a kid I had trouble taking seriously, stunts that were so poor the union would have walked off the set, sets that were obviously left over from another sword and sandle saga set in a completey different culture,,,

It was better in my mind or rather in a child's mind. Still, I give it five stars because as a kid I thought it was great, Gordon Scott was great in it and the "muscle scenes are still fun to watch as I fast forward through the rest of the film to watch those.

If you can suspend critical observation and slip back into the mind of a child, you ought to buy this movie. If you can't, buy it any way and fast forward away !

The Shootist"

When I Was Young

Curly Q | Hammond, IN. United States | 03/22/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When I was young I would watch these types of films. Movies
like this was a way to just let yourself go.Let yourself escape
from your everyday life.
Then being a kid I would go out to play, stick my chest out and
try to be as strong as I could be. Great fun and memories.
Buy it and feel like a kid again."