THE BLOOD OF HEROES (1989)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

"I don't like brutality.  I like heroics. I like the blood of heroes."

Though BLOOD OF HEROES takes place in a post-apocalyptic "Mad Max" type of world-- right down to being shot entirely in the Australian outback-- the 1989 film doesn't have a hero in the mold of Mel Gibson's Max.  Whereas Max's struggles against the savage denizens of his world were meant to lead to a renovation of the fallen order of things, the protagonists of BLOOD fight only for their own survival. To be sure, as is often the case with sports movies, survival is also tied in part to a sense of personal honor.  But though this futuristic society is also divided into your basic "haves" and "have nots," there is no convenient revolution as we see in RUNNING MAN. 

The "haves" are the elite classes that inhabit the Nine Cities, the only remaining citadels of civilization. The "have nots" are various tribes that eke out a hardscrabble life in their "dog-towns," where their only entertainment is furnished by traveling bands of players called "juggers."  The juggers engage local players in "the Game," which is best described as a combination of football, hockey, and gladiatorial combat.

The two main "heroes" of the film comprise the basic ensemble of the "old pro and his young student."  Sallow (Rutger Hauer) and his team arrive at a small dog-town for a game.  Kidda (Joan Chen), a young local woman yearning for a way out of her miserable existence, fights on the locals' side in the game and permanently injures one of Sallow's team-mates.  This leaves Sallow short a team-member, and gives Kidda a way to pursue her dream of prominence through sports.

Sallow, she learns, has seen better days than the dog-town route.  At one point Sallow was a member of the Cities' official "leagues," who receive high salaries and esteem from the elite classes.  Sallow made the mistake of openly romancing a woman of the upper classes, which got him kicked out and relegated to the dog-towns.

However, ambitious Kidda proposes that their team could journey to one of the Cities and issue a challenge to the local League-team.  Her motive is self-advancement in that she hopes to be "spotted by the majors," so to speak.  But once she puts the idea into Sallow's head, the Old Pro feels compelled to put his team on the line-- not to overthrow the elites, but just to find his self-respect once more.

The characters, including principal heroes Sallow and Kidda, are not deeply drawn, though they're Shakespearean compared to the protagonists of most post-apoc adventures.  The emphasis here is on the action-scenarios-- given verve by the driving rhythms of Todd Boekelheide's score-- and the basic theme of personal honor.  This theme is borne out by the "blood of heroes" line quoted above.  The line is spoken by a spectator of the climactic game, a woman who may well be Sallow's former lover.  She has no significant action thereafter, so it seems her main purpose is to enunciate the theme: that there is a "heroism" in sport that transcends its brutality.  In contrast, the man to whom she speaks the line, a high mucky-muck with the risible name "Lord Vile," can only see brutality.  Like most sports films this one ends with a victory for the underdog, but BLOOD sells something more than facile victory, as does RUNNING MAN.  As the title suggests, it suggests the sacrificial aspect of sports, and the notion that such sacrifice springs from a nobility that does not depend upon social stature.