In an odd circumstance, I found a copy of this CD in an "ultra-budget" rack at a store that isn't even a music store (it's a five-and-dime, believe it or not). Having never heard of this flick -- and not wanting to, really, judging by the cover art -- I figured that $2.99 was a small financial risk, and even if Morricone often isn't my cup of tea, I might just find a gem here. Well, I'm not sure that it's an actual gem, but there's some nice stuff in there. The recording quality is awful, which I frankly expected, since the CD is on the LaserLight label (which is, I believe, so named because there isn't enough room on the disc for the words "Cheap disc with shitty sound"). The poor sound hampers the obvious epic sword-and-sorcery tone of the score, but hey, the price was right.
Anyway, is anyone out there familiar with HUNDRA? Is the movie as stupid as the art and liner notes make it out to be?
The recording quality is awful, which I frankly expected?
I have this on the original lp and the Prometheus cd.The sound(while decent on Prometheus)still leaves a lot to be desired.So mark your purchase down as a real bargain.
I like the score alot, though it might not be completely original. Certainly seems inspired by Poledouris' Conan in places. Especially the grand and quite bitching choral piece, titled "Slaughter in the village"(probably temp tracked). The strings in "By the sea" is a Poledouris trademark too. The heroic war theme and the catchy chase theme are quite good, though somewhat simplistic and repetitive. The real gem of the score is the love theme however. This one is pure Morricone, and very high quality stuff. The price of the CD is worth that track alone. But as mentioned, there are other fine themes, and great moments. The sound quality is one of the worst I've ever heard on a CD though, so that's a drawback. But the CD usually cost nothing, so buy it if you come across it.
Hundra is musically similar to Red Sonja, so if you liked Hundra you should like Red Sonja as well. The sound quality is terrible, but that's not the fault of LaserLight (they got the digital master from Prometheus). The LP sounded the same way, so apparently the original recording was never anything spectacular. Either that or somebody did a poor mix to 2-track. I wish somebody would find the original session tapes and do a new mix of this and some other poor-sounding Morricone scores like Guns for San Sebastian and Orca.
Yeah, outside of a nice Love Theme (which I think I've heard before by Morricone in another score/CD) this is a complete duffer, not helped by the poor quality, 'boxy' sound, which makes it seem like someone just transferred one of those old sessions tape dubs straight to CD. I don't know which score came first, but most of it is just a lesser quality re-tread of RED SONJA, which has a much better sound quality too, so stick with that one for this kind of music (although I do prefer yummy Lauren Landon over too butch Bridget Nielsen). I wasn't sure where I'd picked this Hundra CD up from (I have the Prometheus release), but I noticed it still had the $8.99 sticker on from Academy Records in New York, so I must have grabbed it there last time out (I wuz robbed)
I do Kev. I have that recent release, from Perseverance wasn't it? I must say I don't listen to it much, probably for the fact I hate those kind of movies.
Yes, that's the one. It's basically HUNDRA with better music and sound. Although if you don't like that style of music, it probably won't matter that much. I've just spun through it now, but I remember liking the old Varese LP from yonks ago.
IMHO, HUNDRA is not the baddie it's being made out to be. I get sucked in by the rousing opening theme and, whilst there are comparisons with Red Sonja (which I also love), it is well worth having.
I prefer Red Sonja but Hundra is also a very good score. Both Hundra and Red Sonja would be great candidates for a rerecording due to the less than perfect sound of their releases and original recordings apparently missing. I'd love if Tadlow could do a rerecording of these scores as a "sequel" to their Conan recordings but I remember someone posting that it is almost impossible to obtain approval to rerecordings of Morricone scores.
