A tale that takes place at the dawn of history. The movie tells the story of a tribe that discovers how to fashion weapons out of iron and use them for their own survival. However, the creation of iron also causes the tribe to battle for possession of the new weapons.
Barbaren – Stärker als Feuer und Eisen, Ironmaster, la guerre du fer, Er - Stärker als Feuer und Eisen, La guerra del hierro, Ironmaster - la guerre du fer, 钢铁之战, Jernets herre, Повелитель железа
Italy 
UK18 Italy UK 
Join Umberto Lenzi and George Eastman for a journey back to the dawn of time... hey what do you mean you're not excited? You should be, if you like long scenes of muscle bound men making swords. Well if not, maybe this movie is not for you. Although it does also feature people wearing very obviously fake monkey suits and some lepers in a cave. The concept of Ironmaster is the discovery of iron, which leads George Eastman to the invention of swords, which he then uses to conquer everyone in this big field he lives in. I'm assuming that the setting is meant to be Africa given that there's lions, but with the exception of the volcano scenes, most…
The Iron Age occurred around the collapse of the Bronze Age, in the 12th Century BC. Loin-cloth clad cavemen (typically associated with the Stone Age) went out a full 9000 years previous to that.
Although lions typically make meals of Water Buffalo, they have never shared the same land mass as the American Buffalo.
Umberto Lenzi does not care about your facts.
Umberto Lenzi cares about cheap. Which is why this movie has a ten minute section that is just different characters staring off-screen, intercut with stock footage of about three different volcanic eruptions. It's why there are flashbacks to battles that, literally, happened 5 minutes previous. It's also why the main baddie spends most of the movie wearing a…
"Ironmaster" is a 1983 adventure film directed by Umberto Lenzi. Set in prehistoric times, the film focuses on the elements of tribal warfare within the dawn of civilization. Early to mid 80's gives a platform to some of the cheesy Lenzi productions, and as this film is certainly one that holds plenty of shlock, it has quite a bit of charm as it progresses. There is a bit of energy conjuring some "Land of the Lost" (1974-1976) energy, as the budgeted design calls for plenty of novelty items as part of the films production value. Background set displays is a combination of real and fake, with not a larger blending of the two. You also get occurrences of miniature figurine…
Watched this back in the day and didn't love it then... just re-watched to check out the new scan and restoration made by 88 Films. Still don't love it although there is plenty in this Quest for Fire rip-off to chuckle at.
For Umberto Lenzi completists.
The first 30 minutes of Ironmaster are actually pretty ambitious, with an interesting setup, some good ideas and a few inspired shots. It is just that there was hardly enough money or knowhow to pull it off well. But after the first half hour, this just becomes a tribe against tribe movie, with a lot of dull fight scenes.
There is a funny scene where a buxom tribe lady starts running and keeps looking down to see if her makeshift animal-skin bra is holding. It was very wise of her to check, because later in the movie, Pamela Prati has multiple serious nipslips happen to her!
George Eastman wears the most fake looking lion's head as an ornament for most of this movie!
The dialogue sounds like as if the voiceover artists held empty cans in front of the microphones.
Still a decent movie to check out, especially if you enjoy Italian/ Lenzi movies.
While not resorting to having all the characters grunt throughout the runtime, the screenwriters must have had an easy time with this one, writing the most basic sounding dialogue imaginable and then be able to get away with it sounding "authentic"!
Umberto Lenzi certainly makes this look good though, with the choice of locations and some nifty model work of the volcano that gifts George Eastman's Vood the discovery of Iron. Which is exactly what he calls it incidentally. Just plucks the word right out of the air. Fair enough. Good word for it.
Despite some intervals with lions, creepy ape people and some lepers, this is mostly scene after scene of Vood raiding neighbouring tribes, while our hero Ela…
Say what you want about Vood’s aggressive approach to leadership, but his rule did usher in advanced industrial methods, increased productivity, greater co-operation between the tribes and a truly revolutionary step forward for absurd taxidermied headware.
On an unrelated note, I also watched the excellent Vinegar Syndrome blu-ray of Sexworld today, but I can't add it to Letterboxd because of sex.
Every single time I saw George Eastman wearing that lion's head cowl, it made me laugh. I mean there's some great sets and costumes (they even gave the ape men genitalia which was a nice detail), but someone spent all of 3 seconds on that cowl. So that was great.
There's a part when the 2 blondes are sleeping at night and the ape men are sneaking up on them and they pan up into the trees and there's ape men peering out through the branches. I kinda loved that scene, especially with a weird, creepy score (I loved a lot of the music in this movie).
And the final battle with clanging iron and dudes swinging away at each…
A believable story of how modern man may have discovered iron after a volcano erupts.
Australopithecus is still around hanging furry dong and the protagonist looks absolutely ridiculous with his shaved face and shiny body but hey, it's an Italian film from 1983.
This would pair well with The Clan of the Cavebear.
Umberto Lenzi’s epic caveman adventure was a lot more fun than I expected. Since this goes more in the ‘Quest of Fire’ and less the ‘Conan the Barbarian’ direction I somehow imagined this to be less entertaining, but it’s actually a nice ride.
George Eastman is killing it as the villain – not only does he have the perfect physique for the part, he also seems to have a blast wearing his lion-head and killing people with his new invention - the sword.
There is quite a bit of blood and minor gore, which definitely makes this feel more like a Lenzi film. The biggest flaw is lead actor Sam Pasco who has the most awkward screen presence, but also…
Doesn't match the vaseline-smeared incoherence of Fulci's Conquest, but Lenzi's entry into the Quest for Fire/Conan ripoff cycle is still fairly entertaining. The roided out JCVD clone of a lead is a black hole of charisma in a bad wig, but George Eastman is clearly having fun playing the lion skin-wearing villain. Surprisingly light on gore or sleaze, especially coming just a year or two after Cannibal Ferox, but there are a few fun split-head effects. It still confuses me that these movies were even a Thing in the early 80s.
Kinda hard to take these guys seriously when they're all wearing bunny slippers.
