Onar Films presents a mind-melting double feature of superhero justice, Turkish style! Teaming up the notorious Superman Donuyor (better known in bootleg circles as simply Turkish Superman) with the obscure Superman related oddity Demir Yumruk Devler Geliyor, this really is the most fun you’ll have at the movies any time soon.

Supermen Donuyor (Superman Returns) 

Forget the Brian Singer film... this is the real Superman Returns! 

This film begins with one of the finest opening scenes ever filmed by portraying the outer reaches of space by hanging Christmas ornaments over a black background with glitter spattered over it. Nice! From there we learn that Tayfun (he’s Turkish Clark Kent) is an alien from the destroyed planet of Krypton who arrived in Earth in a rocket. His parents tell him this and he doesn’t seem all that phased by it until they tell him to go off and fulfill his destiny by bringing a green rock to a cave. He does just that, his toothless alien father pops out and tells him that he’s Superman, and before you know it Teyfun has all the powers of the popular DC Comics character. He even wears glasses and writes for a newspaper! At any rate, he goes off to fight evil, stop crime and save the day and basically just do his Turkish Superman thing. 

What’s remarkable about Superman Returns is how completely horrible it is, even by the very low standards of Turkish genre cinema. The man cast in the lead role is a gangly, tall guy who towers over everyone else in the film – good thing he’s got gigantic Elton John glasses to disguise himself with! Every time that Superman flies it’s pretty much just an action figure on a string in front of a movie screen and the film is not only ripe with stock footage inserts but it’s full of movie music pilfered from the original 1978 Superman, a few James Bond movies, and even Midnight Express (the political ramifications of a Turkish film borrowing from this movie are boggling)! 

In terms of how accurate director Kunt Tulgar’s (who played Copperhead in The Deathless Devil!) take on the Superman mythos is, let it suffice to say that he uses his X-ray vision to look through women’s’ clothing and that he has no qualms whatsoever about throwing his enemies through brick walls, face first. In fact, when you get right down to it, Superman is a bit of a prick in this movie. At one point he impales a bad guy on a water pipe and he kills at least three bad guys in this movie. 

That said, as bad as the film is and as horrible as the special effects are, there’s this wonderfully naïve manic charm to the whole thing that makes it a bit of a retarded masterpiece. The film’s complete disregard for copyright or character history isn’t really admirable but it certainly is impressive in its audacity and the frenetic pacing and completely off the wall moments of unexpected violence and sexual innuendo certainly give the film plenty of messed up appeal. 

Demir Yumruk Devler Geliyor (Iron Fist: The Giants Are Coming) 

The second film on the set is from Tunc Basaran who is supposedly the same man who gave us the infamous Turkish Wizard Of Oz in 1971. This one follows two gangs of evil super villains, one lead by none other than Fu Manchu himself, the other by a disfigured mutant guy and his evil sidekick who wields his hooked arm with deadly results. These two factions go to war and it’s up to Iron Fist, who is more or less Batman with a dose of Superman thrown in for good measure, to stop things before they get even more out of hand than they already are. 

Whereas the first film on this disc is a straight ahead (well straight ahead by Turkish cinema standards at least) knock-off of a standard superhero story, this second feature has more in common with the pulpy serials of the 30s and 40s. Granted, it definitely borrows elements from popular DC comics, Batman in particular, and it throws in some Bond-ish elements here and there, but it really plays out more like Spy Smasher or something like that. 

That said, this is a Turkish film and so the requisite bizarro-elements are here in full force. You want a transvestite in a wheelchair wreaking havoc? Lux Interior-esque Bikini Girls With Machine Guns? Crazy fights, nifty costumes and plenty of oddball facial hair? All this and more can be yours. The film was obviously made fast and cheap as most Turkish films seem to be but there’s definitely a bit more skill and creativity shown here than in the first feature, meaning that both films are enjoyable if for very different reasons. The black and white cinematography makes surprisingly good use of shadows in some spots and while it would be exaggerating to describe it as noir-ish it is at least atmospheric in spots. The movie is really well paced and actually has a decent little story behind it all making it easier to take seriously and appreciate on a considerably more serious level than the first movie. The movie also really benefits from an ass shaking bongo heavy bassy soundtrack that sets the mood perfectly.