The Ultimate Warrior, no not the wrestler, the post apocalyptic Yul Brynner movie from 1975, is based on a global pandemic wiping-out most of civilization. Not nukes. Not aliens. Not even intergalactic weeds (triffids) or any weird alignment of the stars allowing unspeakable horrors to trot forth and take back what was originally theirs. Nope. It was disease. Pathogens. Tiny little things--not the nasty, demented necrotic stuff that Needles has been unleashing on the world lately.
Maybe that doesn't seem all that exciting to you, the world going kaput due to a bad case of the flu, a modern day repeat of the Plague. It might have happened in 2009. It nearly happened before in 1918, 1738, and 1349, just to point out three quick examples. It's the little things in life that can kill you. Really. Horribly.
I won't even get into all the Cholera Pandemics that have tried to waste the human race.
The Plague, the Black Death, is enough to scare the willies out of anyone. We still don't know for certain just what did all the damage and death-dealing during the three different outbreaks that took place during the Black Death--many people will tell you that it was the Bubonic Plague, but that's not necessarily the case. There are several different theories about what caused the Black Death. We might never really ever find out for sure, until it's to late and we're caught-up in a global pandemic that leaves us with a post-apocalyptic world of angry scavengers in dirty polyester and utopian-greenhouse hippies.
Too bad Yul Brynner is gone, though. Damn cigarettes.
He would be someone to have on your side.
But this movie has Yul Brynner and it has some really nicely done knife-fighting scenes like this one:
That's a Fighting Man. Period. Yul Brynner kicks butt with the best of them. And he shows you what a real Fighting Man is supposed to be like--one really bad dude you don't want to cross, or else you'll bleed out in the dirt like the douchebags that got it into their pea brains to try and attack a group of post-organic hippies under his protection. Bad choice. Real bad choice.
Post Apocalyptic Games need a Yul Brynner Rule or something. He could take on an army of talking apes with one hand tied behind his back. And he'd kick all their butts. With a malevolent smile that only Lee Van Cleef can come close to matching.
