Farewell, Great Master Cüneyt Arkın
you punched many, many bad guys
I’ve seen a few obituaries this week for legendary Turkish actor Cüneyt Arkın. Having only seen his work as a very minor part on Kuruluş: Osman (memorialised in an early-Covid behind-the-scenes here), I thought I would look him up to see what else he had been in.
My oh my, this man was really something.
A quick look at his wikipedia page will give you the summary: he starred in around 300 (!) movies and TV shows over his career. His only fame in the West seems to be for his starring role in Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (1982) (“The Man Who Saved the World”), widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made, and which naturally now has a cult following. If you want to watch it, Youtube seems to have one of the higher-quality copies, and these subtitles seem to be reasonably well synced (although there’s not a lot of talking really, its all jumping and punching and scenes ripped directly from Star Wars).
But who cares about that movie; lets go hipster and say “oh I prefer his older stuff”. Go to the Youtube channel for Erler Film, which was the biggest Turkish film company in the 60s and 70s, in the heyday of “Yeşilçam” cinema (equivalent to “Hollywood”, and named similarly after a street). Flick through film titles there, all beautifully remastered, until something catches your eye. For me, the first was Karateciler İstanbul’da (1974), which I translate roughly to “Karate guys in Istanbul”; an excellent title, and very descriptive of the movie.
The next to catch my eye was Kılıç Aslan (1975). Now this must be one of the manliest names you could possibly give someone in Türkiye; it means “Sword Lion”, and it was historically the kind of name suitable for a Sultan in the Selçuk Empire. So you think this might be a nice historical movie about the first Muslim commander to fight against the Crusaders? Noooo, it’s more jumping and punching (and yes, those lion’s claw fist weapons in the title screen make an appearance). Check out the scene at timestamp 18:30 where our hero, living Tarzan-like in the jungle, apparently learns how to eat meat by watching a lion. The scene after that has some moustache-twirlingly evil villains who attack helpless women with flimsy wooden swords, until the Sword Lion swings in (on the crappiest vine ever) to save the day. He does a lot more jumping.
The final film I want to highlight is Köroğlu (1968), about a famous Robin Hood-type figure from Turkish folklore. Please do watch the scene at timestamp 19:05, in which one of the characters is wearing possibly the worst disguise since Clark Kent. After that there is more jumping, including that old movie favourite of leaping groin-first from a roof into the saddle.
Thanks for everything, Cüneyt Arkın, and farewell great master. Mekânın cennet olsun.