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Highlander

Highlander (film)



Highlander is a 1986 fantasy action film directed by Russell Mulcahy and based on a story by Gregory Widen. It stars Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Clancy Brown, and Roxanne Hart. The film depicts the climax of an ages-old battle between immortal warriors, depicted through interwoven past and present day storylines. Despite having enjoyed little success in its initial U.S. release, the cult film launched Lambert to stardom and inspired a franchise that included film sequels, television spin-offs, and an upcoming remake. The film's tagline, "There can be only one," has carried on throughout the franchise, as have the songs provided for the film by Queen.




Plot



The film begins with a voiceover establishing the film as the story of the immortals fighting to the death for centuries. In the present day, Connor MacLeod Christopher Lambert, the Highlander, attends a wrestling match at Madison Square Garden in New York City. In the arena's parking garage, Connor is confronted by Iman Fasil (Peter Diamond), and after a lengthy sword duel, decapitates him, upon which an energy surge destroys several cars around him. He hides his sword and attempts to flee, but is arrested by the police, who take him in for questioning.
The story goes back hundreds of years to the Scottish Highlands of the 1500s, where we see Connor and his clan, the Clan Macleod, getting ready to go into battle. He has some battle-weary friends and a girlfriend. Having failed to get information from Connor, the police are forced to let him go. One of the detectives involved, Brenda (Roxanne Hart), is an expert in metallurgy, and recognises Fasil's sword as a historical artifact, probably worth over a million dollars. Later Connor returns to the garage to retrieve his own sword, but sees Brenda is looking at the crime scene. She finds some metal shards embedded in a nearby concrete column and saves them for analysis.
The scene returns to the Highlands, where the Kurgan (Clancy Brown) assists the clan Murdoch against the Clan MacLeod in exchange for the sole rights to Connor. The battle begins, and the frightened Connor soon finds that all the Murdoch clansmen avoid him, clearing the way for the Kurgan. In the resulting confrontation, the Kurgan stabs Connor before he can strike a single blow, but is driven off by the MacLeod clansmen before he can finish him. Connor is taken back to the village, but is so badly wounded that everyone assumes that he is going to die. When he makes a remarkable overnight recovery, the village becomes convinced that it is the work of the devil, and they prepare to burn him at the stake. To save him from the angry mob, the clan leader stops the burning and exiles him.
In the present, Connor, living under the alias Russell Nash, is a wealthy antiquities dealer, with a middle-aged adoptive daughter, Rachel (Sheila Gish), whom he had rescued from the Nazis during World War II, working as his assistant. Later the Kurgan, bearing a hideous scar on his neck and calling himself Victor Kruger, drives into the city and takes up residence at a seedy motel. Connor tails Brenda to a bar, where they strike up a conversation, but she leaves quickly. She attempts to tail Connor when he follows, but the Kurgan attacks both. The brief fight is interrupted by a police helicopter, and everybody flees. Brenda has analyzed the metal fragments and discovered them to be extremely unusual. She makes a date with Connor in an attempt to entrap him: she has a cassette recorder hidden in a drawer and also has a gun just in case. Connor recognises the ruse, tells her to stop digging and leaves.
The Connor of the past lives an idyllic but isolated life with his wife Heather. One day the mysterious Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez (Sean Connery) appears, and soon begins training Connor in the art of sword fighting. He explains that they both belong to a race of immortals, who constantly fight one another, but can only be killed by complete decapitation. When one immortal decapitates another, the winner receives a transfer of power called "the quickening." Eventually all the immortals must do battle until there is only one left; the last survivor will receive "the Prize." Ramirez tells Connor that the Kurgan, the strongest of the immortals, must not achieve the Prize, or mankind will enter an age of darkness. One night while Connor is away, the Kurgan shows up and attacks Ramirez. A fierce battle ensues, but Ramirez, after giving the Kurgan his signature scar, is overmatched and decapitated. The Kurgan receives the quickening and rapes Heather, mistaking her for Ramirez's spouse.
In Central Park, Connor meets a long-time friend, fellow immortal Kastigir (Hugh Quarshie). They talk about the impending gathering of immortals which precedes the final battle, and joke about old times. In flashback, a drunken Connor engages an insulted nobleman in a duel, and in a humorous situation, is repeatedly stabbed but continues to rise and continue the fight. Connor eventually concedes defeat and apologizes to the nobleman for insulting his wife. Brenda has by now discovered that Connor has been alive for centuries, living under false identities, faking his death every few decades, signing his assets over to children who had died at birth, and assuming their identities. She confronts Connor, who demonstrates his immortality by stabbing himself in the stomach. After this revelation Brenda and Connor become lovers, although Connor is reluctant, following a flashback in which Connor's wife, Heather, dies of old age in his arms. Ramirez has earlier explained that immortals cannot have children and should not get romantically involved, because they will always outlive their mortal partners.
The Kurgan kills Kastigir and confronts Connor in a church, but they hold off from fighting as immortals are not permitted to do battle on holy ground. He gloats about killing Ramirez and raping Heather, which she had not revealed to Connor. When he finds out about Connor's relationship with Brenda, he kidnaps her to draw Connor out. After a climactic fight, Connor defeats and beheads the Kurgan and receives the Prize, which manifests itself as a massive quickening. Now mortal and capable of having children, Connor moves back to Scotland with Brenda, and prepares to live out his life with her. With the Prize, Connor has awareness of the thoughts of all the people around the world, and the ability to exert some influence, which he uses to encourage cooperation and peace.




Opening narration



From the Dawn of Time we came, moving silently down through the centuries. Living many secret lives. Struggling to reach the Time of the Gathering, when the few who remain will battle to the last. No one has ever known we were among you...until now.
Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez



Filming



Filming began in April 1985 and ended August 30, 1985. It took place in Scotland, England, and New York City.
Director Russell Mulcahy filmed it using music video techniques including fast cutting and pacy music.
Director of photography Arthur Smith actually filmed the scene in which fish fall out of MacLeod's kilt, but Lambert's kilt proved to be too short. Smith said, "I stuck part of a drain pipe above Chris's kilt out of camera range, and fed live trout down the tube." Smith also had difficulties shooting MacLeod meeting the Kurgan. It was raining that day and the crew had to use umbrellas and hair dryers to prevent water from hitting the camera lenses and appearing on the film. Smith also remembered that Lambert, who was near-sighted, "kept forgetting to take off his glasses as he came over the hill on his horse."
The filming of the parking garage scene took place in two different places. According to New York location manager Brett Botula, "the garage exterior is Manhattan, across from Madison Square Garden, and the interior is 'somewhere in London.’ “The wrestling match in the opening scene featured The Fabulous Freebirds vs. Greg Gagne, Jim Brunzell and The Tonga Kid.
The scene where the MacLeod clan sets off to battle is supposed to take place "in the village of Glenfinnan, on the shore of Loch Shiel" in the Lochaber area, but was actually filmed at Eilean Donan Castle, which is in the same general area but is really on the shore of Loch Duich, a sea loch near Kyle of Lochalsh and the Isle of Skye.
According to the DVD commentary, the film's climax was originally intended to take place on top of the Statue of Liberty. Then it was changed to an amusement park and finally changed to the rooftop of the Silvercup Studios building. The opening sequence was originally intended to take place during an NHL hockey game. But the NHL refused to allow the crew to film there because they were intending to emphasize the violence of the match.
The church scene involving The Kurgan was filmed at St Augustines in London at night with the permission of the priests in charge. Still, Brown's lines were ad-libbed, and they were reportedly considered so sacrilegious that the priests’ off-camera was making the sign of the cross as he said them.
The scene in the alley where the Kurgan beheads Kastagir and then stabs the ex-Marine, followed by an explosion, was filmed in an alley in England even though it was set in New York. The director was reluctant to set off the explosion in the alley because the windows were full of Victorian glass, but he was given permission to do so because that particular site was going to be destroyed in a few months anyway.
All of Sean Connery's scenes had to be filmed in a single week due to Connery's hectic schedule. Still, during the filming of the movie, Connery and Lambert got along even better than their onscreen counterparts, even going as far as to call each other by their characters' names when not filming. The two were (and continue to be) such good friends that Lambert threatened to back out of the sequel unless Connery's character was added to the film. The opening voice-over by Connery has an echo effect because it was recorded in his Spanish villa bathroom. It was played for the producers over the phone and they approved of it because they could not discern the quality of the recording that way.




Soundtrack



The original orchestral score was composed by Michael Kamen and the soundtrack includes several songs by Queen , such as "Hammer to Fall" and"Princes of the Universe", which was also used in the Highlander television series title sequence. Queen wrote many of the songs specifically to match the mood of the scenes when the songs play, notably Brian May's "Who Wants to Live Forever," concerning the doomed love of Connor and his wife Heather.
While no albums specifically tied to the Highlander movie were ever released, Queen's 1986 album Magic features most of the songs from the film, although sometimes in different arrangements. Part of Michael Kamen's score was played during the Cinema logo before their movies in the late 1990s and early 2000s.




Deleted and abandoned scenes



A duel sequence that introduced an Asian immortal named Yung Dol Kim was cut from the film. The footage for the scene, along with certain other deleted scenes, was later destroyed by fire, although a few stills from the sequence, some in colour and others in black and white, survived. Other deleted, and subsequently lost, moments include a scene of Connor, Kastagir and Bedsoe partying at a bar and one in which Connor shows Brenda his katana after sex.
In the scene following Connor beheading the Kurgan, director Russell Mulcahy had originally envisioned an animated dragon with the Kurgan's battle helmet emerging from his decapitated body and challenging Connor again. Only after Connor had defeated this ghost-dragon would he have received the final quickening and subsequent Prize. This idea was eventually cut due to budget constraints.

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