The Seven Magnificent Gladiators

This 1983 Italian-American sword-and-sandal picture freely transposes Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai into a world of gladiators and tyrants. Lou Ferrigno plays a slave fated to bring down a cruel king, gathering around himself a ragtag band of rogue fighters who stand together to defend the oppressed and topple the ruler. Co-directed by Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso from a script by Fragasso, the film co-stars Brad Harris, Sybil Danning and Dan Vadis. Shot in English, it belongs to the wave of Italian peplum adventures made for the international market in the early 1980s.