by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: Discs: 2; The Film: 4.5/5; The Extras: 4/5; Overall: 8.5/10
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Joan Chen, Rutger Hauer, Delroy Lindo, Anna Katarina, Justin Monju, Vincent D’Onofrio
Intro:
Textured, nuanced and surprisingly subtle, it showcases a genuine attempt to do something original in a genre that too often slips into mindless imitation and pointless violence.
The Film:
For Aussie kids of a certain age (Gen X and elder millennials), Salute of the Jugger was a mainstay of the local video shop. Often boasting a puffy, three-dimensional plastic cover of two buff arms (one female, one male) doing the iconic wrist slappy salute from the film, it gave the impression of a trashy but enjoyable Mad Max knock-off, starring the always reliable Rutger Hauer and Joan Chen. Based on its cover alone, the movie emporium shopper could be forgiven for expecting something along the lines of Italian “Maxploitation” films like The New Barbarians (1983) or The Bronx Warriors (1990). However, the hardy few who rented the damn thing, got something much more interesting, textured and criminally underrated.
Salute of the Jugger (also known by the far less bad arse The Blood of Heroes in certain benighted regions) is a post-apocalyptic yarn set in some grim and grimy future. The unfortunate denizens of these times spend their lives trying to scrape by on scraps, their only respite from their desperate plight is watching the violent bloodsport known simply as The Game. Played like an even more psychotic version of gridiron, The Game involves shoving a dog’s skull onto a sharp stick and belting the crap out of the other team.
Roaming bands of juggers move from town to town, eking out the best existence they can in this harsh world. Young Kidda (Joan Chen) is obsessed with The Game and when a Jugger team comes to town, headed by the mysterious Sallow (Rutger Hauer), she sees her chance to enter that world.
What’s most striking about Salute of the Jugger is how straight director David Webb Peoples plays the whole thing. This isn’t the ‘80s trash you might expect from the cover. Rather, this feels more like “what if The Road had some sport?” The dialogue is spare and rarely laden down with exposition and the world building is so subtly done that you feel genuinely immersed. The Game itself starts off utterly incomprehensible but as the film goes on, you’ll find yourself unexpectedly getting caught up in the action, rooting for the Qwik to get that damn skull past the Maserer and on that stick, toot-bloody-sweet!
The story itself is slight, but involving, and features a beautifully observed, bittersweet ending that really sticks with you. The print itself is a full 4K HDR remaster, uncut and pristine, which makes this the best way to see the film since 1989. Performances from Chen, Hauer, a shockingly young Vincent D’Onofrio (!) and Delroy Lindo are uniformly excellent and the script from Peoples is top notch.
The Extras:
A decent collection of extras. Two audio commentaries here, one with writer/director David Webb Peoples and actor Anna Katarina (Big Climber) and another with Western Australian filmmakers Aaron McCann and Kristan Angel, who are in production on a documentary about the making of the film, which was actually shot in South Australia.
There’s about an hour’s worth of cast and crew interviews, deleted scenes, bloopers and Blood Sport: A Deeper Look into The Game of Jugger which showcases the fact that some mad bastards started playing this game in real life! A fascinating insight to how a critically lambasted (seriously, it’s currently got 20% on Rotten Tomatoes) film can, over time, become a beloved cult classic that outlasts its naysayers by many years.
There’s also the inferior US cut and the original workprint cut for completionists who flat out need to have seen every version in existence. We’re not judging. You do you.
Plus, if you’re investing in one of the various special editions, you’ll nab yourself a 100-page booklet that features a screenplay, articles from the likes of (friend of FilmInk) Travis Johnson and Guy Davis and various behind-the-scenes goodies. There’s also a guide on how to play The Game, in case your feel your bones would benefit from that distressed look and a handsome looking hard box, that sadly isn’t puffy or three dimensional, but features the iconic, albeit slightly misleading, cover seen on video shop shelves all those years ago.
Verdict:
Salute of the Jugger is a bloody good and criminally underrated post-apocalyptic deathsport movie that really deserves to be talked about much more than it is. Textured, nuanced and surprisingly subtle, it showcases a genuine attempt to do something original in a genre that too often slips into mindless imitation and pointless violence. Basically, if you’re even a vague fan of post-apocalyptic films and you’ve missed this unclaimed treasure, you’ll never find a better way to see it. That right there is worth a salute, Jugger or otherwise.
