And Hundra actually emerges as the most enjoyable of all the cheap Conan ripoffs. And what makes it so is a wholly tongue-in-cheek attitude. The female warrior character has a wonderfully funny series of cod feminist poses – “No man will ever penetrate my body with his sword or himself,” or “I prefer the feel of a horse between my legs than that of swine [ie men],” pronounces Hundra at various points while remonstrating her dog, “I think fear would not run so deep in you if you were not a male.” The acting is all bad and there isn’t much of a plot, just action, but at least when it comes to the action this is conveyed with a great deal of enthusiasm, if not exactly skill, on the part of the actors. Director Matt Cimber rises above himself to turn the opening slaughter of the village and Hundra’s climactic decimation of every man in the temple into a series of quite exciting set pieces.

Matt Cimber is an American director who has developed a minor cult with various films. He emerged in the late 1960s, making films that caused some controversy with their sexual content and then moving into Blaxploitation cinema. He is best known for the Pia Zadora erotic classic Butterfly (1982) and one other genre film, the really strange The Witch Who Came From the Sea (1976).