Well, this is certainly something else! The seeming painfully low budget, the overlong fights and the non-involving beginning had me reaching for the remote very early on but gradually this won me over. Mr Inanc, who I had never even heard of, turns out to have helmed over 70 films and his male lead in this one, Cuneyt Arkin, has more than 250 films to his credit and is still working. The female lead, a rather attractive, if chunky, Emil Tumer, has not been so active but certainly excels in this. I suppose this looks a bit like Mad Max at times with the mixed bag that comprise the costumes and there are trucks and lots of explosions but this is really nothing more than a series of fights, fists, feet, knives, guns and hand grenades except it never quite runs the way we expect. There is a line of humour and for a brief moment when I switched from hating it to quite liking it, even wondered if it were supposed to be a comedy. But no and whilst not to be taken seriously it is pretty strong on the violent and sometimes bloody killings. One other thing, the girls wear very short skirts or tight shorts and not once is an opportunity missed for an up the skirt shot. Every time there is an uphill struggle, a rope to climb or an opponent to kick, where the camera would normally be expected to shy away here it revels in it. Very strong and effective ending ensures you cannot feel too bad about this non stop caper.
3 Reviews
Other acceptable titles include: Turkish Dirty Harry, Turkish Ace Ventura or Turkish Bambi
Coventry22 November 2019
Although far from being a subject matter expert, I understand that Turkish exploitation cinema from the early 80s was all about taking a random successful cinematic blockbuster, filming their own national version of it and then unleashing it with the original title but with "Turkish" in front of it. "Turkish Mad Max" is different, however, and it makes a lot more sense to use the alternative title "One Step to Death". In the other examples that I've seen, the original film formats were logically copied and shamelessly ripped off (like "Turkish Superman" or "Turkish Rambo"), but "Turkish Mad Max" has absolutely nothing in common with George Miller's Sci-Fi landmark from 1979. The setting isn't apocalyptic, the lead hero isn't a lone avenger and there aren't any deranged psychopaths on motorbikes running around. Okay, admittedly the Turkish action here wears a leather jacket similar to that of Max Rockatansky, but apart from this tiny detail, the film might just as well have been named "Turkish Dirty Harry," "Turkish Death Wish" or even "Turkish Cinderella". Furthermore, this is the type of "bad film" that is hysterical and entertaining for about 15-20 minutes, and then it mainly becomes dull and insufferably inept. The stupidity of the dialogues and tackiness of the action sequences provide chuckles at first, but soon you'll be looking for the fast-forward button. Someone also really ought to tell the scriptwriters in Turkey that running jokes (like the "head or tails" or the "you're a terrible friend, Kaan") don't necessarily have to be repeated sixty-seven times!
Pure magic
BandSAboutMovies14 September 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Whether you watch this under its true title or the translation Death's Last Step or Last Step to Death or just prefer to call it Turkish Mad Max, I have to tell you, this is one of the greatest movies that I've ever seen. It somehow has everything I want in one movie - blood, brawls, black-haired thick thighed women kicking ass, stunts, stabbings and so much more. It's as if the Turkish folks knew that someday I'd claim that Willy Milan's W Is War and Mad Warrior rivaled even the most incredible Italian post-apocalyptic shenanigans and decided to raise the stakes. 1983, you were more than a good year. You were the best year.
Actually. the only thing making this like Mad Max is the leather jacket that Kaan (Cüneyt Arkin) wears. You may have seen Cüneyt in movies like Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam, which is referred to as The Man Who Saved the World and Turkish Star Wars. Then again, maybe you don't sit around and watch ten Turkish movies a day for several days in a row like I do.
A doctor of medicine, Cüneyt does all of his own stunts and has never played a villain in his entire career. He's been in a ton of films obviously, but the best title of his films that I could find was 1981's Zombi 65: The Water That Killed Everyone. He was also in Çöl, which some call Turkish Jaws, and 1984's Ölüm savasçisi (Death Warrior), another mind destroyer that is pretty much a Turkish Sho Kosugi movie.
Emel Tümer, who was also in Çöl and Vahsi Kan (Turkish First Blood) is also in this as Leyla and she's spectacular, outdrinking an entire bar full of men, fighting nearly every single one of them and even driving a huge truck while someone stabs her. She shows up at the end of the movie in a suit and fedora that stopped my heart cold. Seriously, Emel, where have you been all of our lives?
This is the kind of movie where the main good guy force feeds a bag of heroin to a drug dealer while the bad guy's underage bikini-wearing girlfriend watched in horror. A movie with more butt shots and upskirts than a John Stagliano movie.
Anyways, Kaan (or Kagan, no one can agree on the web), Leyla and Ali set out to rescue a professor who has discovered the cure to leukemia. That means that lots of people are going to get killed in spectacular ways, ways that look legitimately painful and shocking in the world of unions, CGI and people trying not to die on film.
This is the kind of movie that will ruin all other movies for you. It made my head hurt in the best of ways, because it's just too astounding. It never lets you get bored, throwing literally hundreds of bad guys at our heroes, who shrug off all manner of damage as if they are the living embodiment of the Contra Code.
Actually. the only thing making this like Mad Max is the leather jacket that Kaan (Cüneyt Arkin) wears. You may have seen Cüneyt in movies like Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam, which is referred to as The Man Who Saved the World and Turkish Star Wars. Then again, maybe you don't sit around and watch ten Turkish movies a day for several days in a row like I do.
A doctor of medicine, Cüneyt does all of his own stunts and has never played a villain in his entire career. He's been in a ton of films obviously, but the best title of his films that I could find was 1981's Zombi 65: The Water That Killed Everyone. He was also in Çöl, which some call Turkish Jaws, and 1984's Ölüm savasçisi (Death Warrior), another mind destroyer that is pretty much a Turkish Sho Kosugi movie.
Emel Tümer, who was also in Çöl and Vahsi Kan (Turkish First Blood) is also in this as Leyla and she's spectacular, outdrinking an entire bar full of men, fighting nearly every single one of them and even driving a huge truck while someone stabs her. She shows up at the end of the movie in a suit and fedora that stopped my heart cold. Seriously, Emel, where have you been all of our lives?
This is the kind of movie where the main good guy force feeds a bag of heroin to a drug dealer while the bad guy's underage bikini-wearing girlfriend watched in horror. A movie with more butt shots and upskirts than a John Stagliano movie.
Anyways, Kaan (or Kagan, no one can agree on the web), Leyla and Ali set out to rescue a professor who has discovered the cure to leukemia. That means that lots of people are going to get killed in spectacular ways, ways that look legitimately painful and shocking in the world of unions, CGI and people trying not to die on film.
This is the kind of movie that will ruin all other movies for you. It made my head hurt in the best of ways, because it's just too astounding. It never lets you get bored, throwing literally hundreds of bad guys at our heroes, who shrug off all manner of damage as if they are the living embodiment of the Contra Code.
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