GoKawiilThe 1980s brought us so many terrific films, including director Russell Mulcahy’s sword-and-sorcery fantasy action film Highlander, starring Christopher Lambert as an immortal Scotsman who must battle others like him to the death until just one remains. The film spawned two direct sequels and two TV series (one live action, one animated), and a planned reboot has been kicking around Hollywood since 2008. But the original still stands tall as the best of the bunch, 40 years later.
(Spoilers below because it’s been 40 years.)
Screenwriter Gregory Widen was a college student at UCLA when he wrote the first draft of what would become Highlander for a screenwriting class. It was originally entitled Shadow Clan and partially inspired by Ridley Scott’s 1977 film about two swordsmen engaged in a longstanding feud (The Duelists). Combine that with Widen’s visits to Scotland and the Tower of London, with its impressive display of historical armor, and Widen had all he needed for his tale of dueling Immortals secretly living among us. He sold that first draft for $200,000—a princely sum for a college student—and a few revisions later, Highlander was ready for filming.
The film opens mid-wrestling match at Madison Square Garden, as Connor MacLeod (Lambert) senses the presence of a dangerous adversary. The two men face off with swords in the parking garage and when MacLeod chops off his opponent’s head, the tremendous release of magical energy does some serious damage to the structure and the surrounding vehicles. Naturally the police take notice, although they can’t yet prove MacLeod has anything to do with the decapitated body. We are then treated to MacLeod’s early backstory through a series of flashbacks, interspersed between scenes in the present as detectives try to crack the case with the help of forensic metallurgy expert Brenda Wyatt (Roxanne Hart).
We go back to the Scottish Highlands in 1536, when MacLeod rides into battle with his clan and is fatally stabbed by a mysterious black-clad knight (Clancy Brown)—except MacLeod doesn’t die. He makes a full recovery and is driven out of his village because everything thinks it’s witchcraft. But he rebounds, living a quietly isolated pastoral life with wife Heather (Beatie Edney), when a a wandering swordsman (Sean Connery) named Juan Sanchez-Villalobos Ramirez shows up one day.