Today's review continues with our recent Indiana
Jones Retro Reviews. We've already took a look at
Indy and
Belloq.
The
focus for this is review is the Cairo Swordsman. Indy was
chased by a number of turban clad mercenaries through a Cairo
marketplace in the original film. One particular foe stood
out. The Cairo Swordsman.
He stood out for few different reasons.
One he was dressed in all black. The rest of the gang was
dressed in white robes with black turbans that covered their
faces.
Second, he had an absolute wicked looking sword.
I believe technically this is a scimitar, but we're going to use
sword in this review to match his name.
Lastly, he's probably most remember for the way
Indy dispatches him. After setting up what looked to be an
incredible fight with a swinging sword, the hapless Swordsman is
stopped by a single bullet from Indy's revolver. This scene
would be mirrored in Temple of Doom with different results.
The original script had called for a big battle
for the two adversaries. However, food poisoning was rampant
during the location shoot, which caused the cast and crew to find
a quicker way around the Swordsman obstacle.
Appearance:
Yep. he looks like the guy
for the film for the most part. All ten seconds worth of
film we see him in. Black robe, turban, and a red sash.
The thing is this guy's look sets him apart from the rest of the
thugs in the marketplace scene.
I'm not normally a big fan of soft
goods. But I have to say, Kenner pulled it off back in the day.
Considering some of the later day Jedi Robes, this guy's duds are
pretty well tailored. The one down side of the robe is the huge
snap on the side. At least it's tucked on the side in the back.
The one thing the robe does that isn't perfect, is that it bulks
up the swordsman. The guy in the movie doesn’t appear to be as
bulky as this guy.
This is more evident without the robe. The swordsman doesn’t
appear nearly as big without the robe. His head looks huge on the
nearly naked body. Speaking or which, I doubt the swordsman would
have been this ripped.
With the robe though, while not screen accurate, the swordsman
appears to match up to my memories of what Indy's sword swinging
nemesis should be. He has so little screen time, It's hard to get
a good bead on him. I think the face might be a bit off, but does
anybody really care? It's almost like the head was made a little
oversized to match the bulk of the robe.
Fun:
The swordsman shares the same articulation as Indy,
Belloq and the rest. I can't imagine why you'd put him on a horse,
but you can.
His right hand is permanent posed in a complete circle to hold his
sword. This limits his posability a bit, but most of the time he's
going to be holding his weapon.
Speaking of weapons, the swordsman comes with two a knife and his
trademark sword. Matching this up with a Lucas film achieve
photos, it doesn’t do too bad. Especially if you consider other
figures of his era. The sword and knife are molded in black with
silver paint applied. How many Star Wars figures had weapons this
accurate with painted details?
The
knife reminds me a bit of the one Marion is threatened with buy
another baddie. It's a nice little added accessory, though.
Overall:
If you have seen Raiders, you'll remember the
swordsman represented by this figure. For a character with minimal
screen time, he created a huge impression. While he's probably not
the most screen accurate, I would imagine he's close enough to
fool our memories of him.
There were quite a few of the white robed, black turbaned bad guys
in the market scene. It seems Kenner would have picked one of
those, since there are a bunch of them. If you want to change the
swordsman, get the map room set. Give him Indy's robe and voila!
Another bad guy! Plus, you can swap Indy heads, and have a
marketplace Indy, as well (See Below).
Engineernerd Score: 90/100
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