Warrioress

Description

[Between brackets, I add the clocked time of the film's Internet viewing, in the Viooz version, with end credits, and the YouTube version, without; the editing differs a little, especially in the earlier scenes.](00:00) Production presenters titles.(00:20) The Morrighan (Alison Jones), Celtic goddess of war, introduces us to the time and place: a post-apocalyptic world in which the survivors live in two small villages, mostly like in Medieval times. Once in every generation two warriors must be found to fight a sacred duel and fulfill an ancient prophecy.In times of need, one chosen fighter from each village must travel on a quest across treacherous terrain to a sacred circle formed of ancient stones, to fight a ritual sword duel, each armed with a sacred sword. If the two warriors are of equal skill and wield the sister swords, "Opener" and "Dragon Singer", they will fulfill the Prophecy, and lead the fight against the Falonex Empire. [The Morrighan's speech is mostly covered by the background music.] The goddess intones well her last sentence, "that time has come!"(02:12; 02:00 YT) Boudiccu (pronounced Boudissu, played by Cecily Fay, an Amazon 4'8" tall whom all males look down at in admiration) is taking a bath in her birthday suit (the actress was 32 at the time of filming) in the waterfall. She has to abbreviate her bath, and hastily dress in her mini blue tunic, because she hears her sister Morwenna's (Merrilees Fay, actually Cecily Fay's sister) shrilly scream for help. Morwenna is running through the forest, hunted by 5 thugs.Morwenna is tackled down and the ruffians gang on her, intent on raping her. But Boudiccu arrives in time and starts punching and kicking them, despite they're all taller and heavier than her. She breaks the necks of the first two; the third, a bald head black-man, she sends down with an uppercut and a knee to the groin; taking a knife from the fourth man, she cuts off his right ear; again, disarming the fifth man, she wounds him with his own axe; the black-man attacks her again, only to have his neck broken. Seeing the man running away without his ear, Boudiccu's does a somersault, grabs the knife from the ground and does an expert throw, cutting the man's run short.(04:30; 03:53 YT) Opening credits.(05:15; 04:33 YT) Boudiccu accompanies her sister back home, where the Danan Sidhe Fighters are getting ready for their tests. Finvarrah (Christian Howard) is a young man who looks up (pun intended) at Boudiccu, and asks her: "What happened?" She answers, "The Raiders", and that is explanation enough...Malik (Ryan Stuart) arrives on horseback, and brings bad news to the Danan Sidhe people: his village, Ragganwold, is gone, after a raid by the Falonex soldiers, who made a number of slaves.(06:15; 05:26 YT) Alone with Boudiccu, he warns her not to enter the tests against him, speaks derisively of her taking ethics too high, and states that he is undefeated. "You may be undefeated, but you have not fought me yet," she answers unimpressed.Finvarrah talks sweetly with Boudiccu during the night fire, and is worried by Malik saying that he will stop at nothing to win... Also, he is worried that if Boudiccu wins after all, she'll have to leave the tribe - and they will be set apart.(08:17; 07:00 YT) Danan Sidhe Guru (Loveday Holly) presides the hand-to-hand fights, five man-to-man and five man-to-woman . All fights are very quick, the men topless, the women lightly clad.Of the four male fights, one is Finvarrah winning fair and square against the hefty tattooed Danan Sidhe Bully (Greg Burridge), and the other is Finvarrah losing to the unfair tactics of Malik, who had warned that after winning, "I'll have your woman!"The five mixed fights are won successively by Boudiccu and a Redhead (Angelina Treva Riley); two Blondes (Sarah-Jane Honeywell, Tanya Belle-Kearns) are credited but do not appear on the final cut. The fights are shown interspersed with scenes of another test - walking up trees to retrieve cloth ribbons tied on the upper trunks - and a single dagger duel at a campfire, between Boudiccu and a man.(11:10; 09:30 YT) The last mixed fight is Boudiccu vs Malik, and the girl is wise to his foul tactics and beats him. She demands, "Yield!" and he does so reluctantly, as the repeated demand is in such a tone that he knew she would break his back if he didn't.At the campfire, the Guru announces: "The tests of strength, speed, and endurance are over. Boudiccu is the undisputed winner of the trials, and will be our champion. (Then, addressing the girl,) You've earned the honor of bearing the sister swords, the Opener and the Dragon Singer..."She shall cross the moors and go to the sacred circle to fight the champion of the northern tribes to the death. "However, if by the end of the day there is no winner, that will prove that you're two equal warriors to fulfill the prophecy." Then, she sends Boudiccu away with the blessing of the Danan Sidhe.(13:00; 11:10 YT) The Morrighan appears suddenly out of the darkness, and addresses the people in awe; then she imposes her hands to Boudiccu's head, and says, "The wilderness is within you... You'll be the last!..."Budiccu dares to address the goddess, who is already leaving: "The last!... But that'll mean I'll not fulfill the prophecy!...""The wilderness is your gift. Embrace it, let if flow through you... or it'll drag you into the dark!"(14:34; 12:27 YT) The Falonex Emperor (Will Brenton) has a conversation with Valexia (Penni Tovey), a blonde who seems to be his best aid. She tells him that taking the swords from the rebellious people, will leave them without the source of their faith, and faith is the only thing they have. Valexia takes leave to go on the mission with other Assassins to rob the swords.(15:32; 13:18 YT) Next morning, Bouddicu says her good-byes to the Guru, her sister, and Finvarrah, who hugs her dearly, then gives her a chaste kiss on the lips.(16:23; 14:00 YT) Meanwhile, in a tavern far from the Danan Sidhe fields, a pretty but strong looking blonde, White Arrow (Joelle Simpson) is being accosted by two Drunkards (Justin Gibson and Barry McGinley).She out-drinks them, and leaves when the tavern has no more than another Tavern Customer (Aslom Ullah) with a little beard, asleep at the end of the room. She goes through the men's belongings, emptying their pockets of money and valuables.(17:55; 15:20 YT) Boudiccu walks through the forest, and starts feeling uneasy as she feels the sensation she's being followed. Then, a white arrow plunges in a nearby trunk. Boudiccu turns and sees Valexia and her four Falonex Assassins: Djhan (Helen Bailey) in the central position and an attitude of command, with her hair falling over her right eye; Valexia and another with red shawls over their leather tunics, and two in plain sleeveless, black outfits. (None has a bow and arrow.)Assassin 1 (Zara Phythian) and Assassin 3 (Lora Dunning) are the first to attack and are both beaten in hand-to-hand combat. Djhan throws them weapons for a second try: they are both disarmed and killed with their own weapons.The other three walk together versus Boudiccu, but neither their kick-boxing nor Valexia's long pole save them from being grounded one after the other.(19:10) Boudiccu walks away holding a sword and is charged by Valexia with her long pole; swiftly she turns away, wrenches the weapon from her, trips Valexia, hits her on the belly with half of her own staff. Falonex Assassin 2 (Diana J. Sigston), the long hair brunette, and Djhan attack again with bare hands, and are again beaten down with the long staff. Boudiccu is not making use of her sword, yet.Assassin 2 stands up menacingly, with a mace at the end of a metal chain she whirls about. Budiccu manages to stay away from the encircling, trapping weapon for a while, but then, she loses her sword, wrenched from her hand by the chain. Now it's long pole versus metal chain, and when it seems that Boudiccu has been trapped and forced against her opponent, she manages to grab the chain and pass it round Assassin 2's neck, and strangle her from behind, to the death.She tells the two survivors, Alexia and Djhan, "You're disgraced. Leave this place!" They stand up quietly and obey, leaving behind the bodies of their companions.(20:30; 17:27 YT) Boudiccu continues her journey. In a flashback, Boudiccu recalls a conversation with the Danan Guru in which she is told that "the prophecy may be more than we know" because "the prophecy is incomplete... the Elders translated all they could but there are... substantial gaps".Yet, the Guru refutes that the prophecy is a lie, and adds more mystery and faith to the matter, convincing Boudiccu to take the tribe's faith as her own.(22:00) Falonex Messenger (Simon Feilder) stutters, which does not help him deliver the bad news to the Emperor... He says that the Raiders' attack on the village met with fierce resistance (that being the earlier scene), but the Djhan and her Assassins are devising a new strategy.(22:34) Three Raiders in the forest are about to be robbed by White Arrow (Joelle Simpson), but one of them, a man, sees her. She knocks him out.The others are Female Raiders (Tracey Carron? Jennie Flader?), and they attack her with long poles, but White Arrow prevails again. She takes a purse, and goes her way. (Three other women are credited as Raiders, but they don't seem to have taken part in the final edit: Danielle Minns, Nina Silvert, Loveday Holly.)(24:45) And Boudiccu's journey continues, until night falls. In a dream, we see Finvarrah making love to the female champion and she riding him until they both fall asleep satiated.(27:10) White Arrow comes across the remains of the village that was razed and set afire by the Falonex army. In a flashback, Tetherin (Brendan Carr), with his trade mark biker glasses on his forehead, leads the operation... Picking up some trinkets from the ground, she seems to guess how Tetherin rounded up a number of Ragganwold girls and made them slaves (Annie Innes, Kathleen Innes, Pam Innes, Hannah Lucas, Lauren Lucas, Linneke Sprinks), then harassed her own sister, Silver Rain (Jennie Flader).(28:50) Days pass, in a arduous journey and sparse food. Then, Boudiccu's finds another person hiding from her behind some rocks - but it's Morwenna, who's came from their village because she stubbornly insists in helping her sister along the way, though she accepts that for the sacred duel it'll be up to Boudiccu alone.Finvarrah has come with her, and his kiss also convinces Boudiccu to accept their company in the next - and most dangerous - part of the way.(31:30) They happen upon an abandoned tower, and Finvarrah says those towers are the towers of the dead, "No one who enters them ever leaves." This said, looking across at the pacific Atlantic Ocean, he and Boudiccu do not find Morwenna behind them. Obviously the girl has gone inside the building, and they've got to go after her. They find nothing interesting except: a couple of swastika symbols on the wall; and banners with the F of the Falonex Empire ("A dark empire is rising that seeks to destroy us," as the Guru said earlier).At least, a book is found, and Boudiccu sends Finvarrah back with it, for the Elders to decipher. A magnifying glass in a box she keeps with her, just in case.(37:40) "We've made much progress today," exclaims Morwenna. Then she falls dead in Boudiccu's arms, hit with precision with an arrow to her back. Valexia is smiling an evil smile for a job well done, holding her long bow atop her brown stallion and surrounded by Falcon Soldiers in heavy leather uniforms and metal helmets.Boudiccu takes the arrow off her dead sister's back, and her hand is immediately awash in blood. She engages and kills swiftly four soldiers without Valexia loosing her evil grin.When she's dispatching another half a dozen of her soldiers, does Valexia stop smiling; her expression is now one of rage.Djhan escapes on horseback. Valexia dares step down from her white horse, and seems very menacing with her expert handling of a sword, but Boudiccu clobbers her head with a mace of arms with which she had finished the last of the male soldiers, and she too dies at Boudiccu's hands.(39:20) Boudiccu swiftly mount's Pelle, Valexia's black stallion, and gives chase to the fugitive amazon. After a chase through the thick forest, Boudiccu stops, as she sees the horse of the fugitive tied to a tree."Pathetic!" says Djhan. "Just like a man..." She keeps her game of cat and mouse, escaping and hiding - then tripping the running heroine. Follows a long, bone crunching fight on a grassy knoll overlooking the ocean. A punch makes Djhan bleed. When Boudiccu attempts her often applied neck breaker scissors, Djhan bites her leg and she let's go.More roundhouse kicks and punch exchanges, until Boudiccu takes a kick to her face that makes her nose bleed, too. Boudiccu in a rage delivers two unstoppable kicks to the belly, then a punch and Djhan is knocked out... or so it seems. The best of Falonex's assassins trips Boudiccu, who hits her forehead on a piece of rock.Djhan is upon her in a moment, and bangs her head on it a couple of times - leaving the Danan girl out cold. Djhan walks away, possibly to get at the horses, and Boudiccu surprises her, running and screaming at her.The surprise effect is lost, Djhan turns around, holding Boudiccu's foot and making her fall - only to be kicked down herself by a swirling move of Boudiccu's leg. From the ground, feigning to be dizzy, Djhan throws a four point's star that wounds Boudiccu above her right thigh.Then Djhan runs at Boudiccu and kicks her in the belly, sending the Danan champion hurtling back and over the rocky cost. Djhan looks down to make sure her foe is well buried in the ocean.(42:35) For some reason, only now does Tetherin arrive with his bunch of female slaves to a sort of WW2 outpost. Hiding in the bushes, White Arrow waits for an opportunity to strike.(43:30) Everything that goes into the ocean, the ocean gives back. Boudiccu's necklace with amazonite stones is the first to come ashore... but not far away is Boudiccu herself, bruised and badly battered by the fight and the fall.The courageous warrior has to drag herself up the rock escarpment, then she vents her anger in another deep cry to the wind, and finally she returns to bury her sister, digging a burial site with her bare hands. Then she places a broken tree branch on the tomb, which looks like the inverted peace sign of the 1950s.(45:50) Gravin (Keith Eyles) the scientist, presents himself to the Emperor; he is forced to say that he will make his experiment work to destroy the Falonex enemies, though he started by saying that the six months he has been working on it were not enough due to lack of resources.(46:40) Cameron (Aiden Cook) and Clegg (Josh Elwell) [in the screenplay better described as Scavenger #1 and #2] come upon the tomb of Morwenna and their greed is awakened by a piece of jewelry hanging on it. They make immediate plans to sell it as gold to someone they can deceive.They are surprised, and knocked down by White Arrow with her long pole. "I think I'll take that," says the blonde, picking the filigree necklace. The two men run away, shouting vain menaces. "Some people have no respect..." says the blonde to herself, as she replaces the necklace on the tree trunk.Boudiccu had been hidden on the look-out, and now she shows herself, asking why the blonde did not keep the necklace. White Arrow says that she is a Raganwold woman, seems to be sorry for Boudiccu's loss of a friend, and then guesses that the Danan girl is on the quest for an equal warrior.(49:30) Boudiccu: "Get out of here before I add your blood to the blood soaked ground!"White Arrow: "I'm not going anywhere. It's a free country... for the moment."White Arrow makes her camp right there, drinks some wine, offers bread to Boudiccu, who rejects it, and then they discuss matters of faith and fighting.Boudiccu tells that the Assassins have robbed her swords, but she seems not to think the old faith is so important, while White Arrow interprets it differently: the fighting is essential to keep one's freedom. Boudiccu goes up to where Valexia lies dead, strips the body of the outer cloths and drapes herself in them.She returns to White Arrow and says, "She was more than my friend, she was my sister; and she fought for faith and freedom!" Retorts the blonde: "And what do you fight for?" "I fight for revenge!"The blonde puts an end to their rest: "Revenge is not for me. Let's go!" Reluctantly, Boudiccu accepts her company, and White Arrow tells her how she followed her sister to the Falonex headquarters, so that she may be a valuable guide.(54:35) Next, the two women arrive at the Falonex fortress, and spy on it's strong walls. White Arrow says that the Slaves are there, and alive, as the cells have a window that can be seen from outside.White Arrow says that they need a plan, and Boudiccu answers that "This is the plan!" as she charges at the fortress, wielding her sword high and shouting.White Arrow has no choice but to shoot her arrows with deadly precision at 2 men. Meanwhile, Boudiccu engages another man in a sword duel; it takes a while, and a second Soldier comes charging at the girl's back, holding his sword with both hands, like a spear to run her through. The girl does a somersault so that he runs through his comrade with his sword, and Boudiccu falls seated on the second attacker's shoulders, breaking his neck with her hands.White Arrow wants to take down a young man [Ramanan (Jason Beeston)?] that is side-by-side with Tetherin on the highest rampart of the fortress, but he's too quick, turns slightly aside and sneers back at her, having caught her feathered arrow in his left fist. Tetherin roars out, and a number of uniformed soldiers appear on the top of the other walls.The two women smile at each other, accepting their fate. By long range kicks or swordplay, Boudiccu downs three men.White Arrow has set down her favorite weapon and engages a Female Soldier (Katerina Sian Milne?) with a long pole, clobbering her to death. Boudiccu seems unstoppable, as she runs through the ramparts impaling half a dozen more soldiers with her sword. (One of them is wearing an incongruous gas mask.)(56:00) White Arrow throws a knife up into her sister's cell. Just in time, as Tetherin has just decided to pay the slaves a visit.(57:00) Boudiccu with a sword finds herself against a female soldier with two Malay daggers (Bettie Nichols?). After a brief sparring, the female soldier takes one of those devastating high-kicks to her head, and falls aside, further hitting her head on the corner of the wall's parapet - presumably dead by concussion.White Arrow arrives at the top of the tower with her long pole, and even without looking at him, pole axes a raider who's sent flying back and over the parapet to a nasty fall (off camera). Boudiccu is hunting Tetherin in the tower's narrow passages, but he's waiting for her, laughing out loud.Meanwhile, Silver Rain is trying to cut the ropes that tie her wrists, using the dagger that her sister had thrown into her cell.In the dark passages to the dungeon, Tetherin attacks the sword armed Boudiccu, while upstairs the Young Man armed with a war-mace fights White Arrow with her long pole. Tetherin, laughing maddeningly all the time, seems to run away, only to confront Boudiccu with a complex multi-blade weapon. She only gets from her difficult position, when pressed against the wall, by kicking him between the open legs.Tetherin let's fall his weapon and his laughing, and takes a moment before running after Budiccu.(59:30) They arrive close one after the other at the top of the tower, just as the Young Man has downed White Arrow with a mace blow. Bouddicu's interference gives the blonde fighter enough time to recover, and when the Young Man comes closer to finish her, the blonde surprises him by plunging the arrow he had caught earlier in his hand, into his neck, killing him.Meanwhile, Boudiccu takes the better of Tetherin, her kicks and throws a plus in her sparring, and puts her sword to his throat. "Where's the key?" asks White Arrow. He laughs and is going to say that he doesn't know, but Boudiccu cuts his throat half sentence.With a smile, she says to her blonde companion: "This is the key," showing her sword. Jumping in the air with her sword high, Boudiccu throws herself against the heavy metal chains and padlocks of the slaves' cell block. Her mighty blow of the sword is enough to break the chains.White Arrow sends her sister with the other girls back to their village, but refuses to go with them, because there is something she must do before.(61:15) White Arrow again takes down two uniformed soldiers guarding another town, in a repeat of her fine shooting at the previous compound. Boudiccu tells her to wait there, because "This is my fight."Djhan perceived they were under attack, and hides the sacred swords in a crevice of the wall [in plain view from outside]. She meets Boudiccu and they have a long sword fight. For a moment, Boudiccu is disarmed, and uses her hand-to-hand techniques - namely a knee to the belly - to disarm and throw her opponent.Both women retake their swords and run after each other through the corridors of this second tower, and then on top of the tower, a sort of circular arena. Djhan disarms Boudiccu again and walks confidently towards her.She delivers a mighty swipe but instead of backing away from her, Boudiccu closes in with her foe, side-stepping enough, but guts her with a small blade she had hidden in her fist. Djhan falls dead, surprise in her eyes wide-open.Finally the brunette heroine gets hold of the two sword sisters that had been robbed from her... and marches to the place of the sacred duel.(65:00) White Arrow is sitting in front of the ocean, waiting for her, and offers to accompany her, as she is also journeying the same way.The Messenger informs the Emperor that she [meaning Djhan] had failed, and strangely, it does not upset the dictator. For he too, has a faith: that a New Age has come in which the others' beliefs will not matter. He orders his generals to wipe out all the primitives, once and for all. Meanwhile, the two women camp for the night, and get to know each other better.Next morning, Boudiccu makes use of the magnifying glass she brought from the "tower of the dead" to see in the distance a troupe of uniformed soldiers coming in their direction. Boudiccu promises White Arrow: "A different death for each of them," which may seem difficult as they're about a dozen following the Falonex Commander (Charles Ramsay).One dies with a sword thrust, one by an arrow shot by White Arrow; another is garroted by Boudiccu's red scarf; four are killed with punches to the heart and head bashed with a lost metal helmet; the blonde kills another by strangling him with a long whip; another drowns after falling into the water because the hidden Boudiccu cut his Achilles tendons with her sharp dagger; another has his neck broken by Boudiccu's leg scissors...When both women join again in a lawn, the last half dozen soldiers die in the midst of more bone breaking, except two who die by the dagger.(72:15) The Commander finds that he has no more army, and is upset. He is a giant of a man, but between the two, the women also defeat him, and it's up to Boudiccu to finish him with a back-breaker.(73:10) While watching her face on a pond, Boudiccu has another vision of the Morrighan.Boudiccu and White Arrow join again, and during the journey they get more and more into each others culture and faith. So that at one point, White Arrow asks from Boudiccu, "If I do not survive, will you go my village and teach them your ways?" Boudiccu doesn't want to ear of it, but ends by promising it.Some time later, "Friend, warrior sister! There's something I must tell you!" At last, White Arrow reveals her full identity and that she is the chosen opponent from the northern peoples for the sacred circle. Then, she says she had not revealed her secret to better get knowledge about her companion's fighting style - but she doesn't sound totally sincere.(79:25) "So, this is the place!" Boudiccu arrives at a promontory overlooking the ocean with a small circle rounded by rough cut stones. Both women dress up for the occasion in long robes, white for White Arrow and red for Boudiccu.Finally they have their long-anticipated sword duel to the death. Both are good fighters, which makes for a long duel, and at times it seems that White Arrow is not doing her best. Then Boudiccu turns her back to her, but holds her sword pointing back and it's the forward advance of the blonde that makes her to impale herself in the blade through the stomach.(83:25) "No!" screams Boudiccu - a high shrilled, girlish scream - as she turns round and sees her foe and friend, falling in agony. She kneels to hold the dying woman in her arms.(84:00) Boudiccu goes to White Arrow's village to deliver the news of her death to a couple (presumably her parents).Then she goes to her own village. (Goof: mounting a brown horse already.) She is acclaimed by all, except Morwenna's Friend (Gabriela Montaraz) who is saddened by the news of her death.Boudiccu has time for a sweet kiss with Finvarrah, then she delivers the speech at the tribe's campfire about how she discovered the northern people are good, valiant people like them, and so there is no purpose to prepare to fight each others, but to prepare for war - against the Falonex Empire.At the same time, the inventor announces to the Emperor that his new equipment is working... An airplane of the 1930s lifts up, makes a detour, next flies straight at the camera...(89:06) End credits roll up to 92:23.

Director :

Writer :

Cecily Fay (story), Ross Boyask (screenplay), Cecily Fay (screenplay), Chris Regan (additional material)

Actors :