Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam
The Turkish Star Wars that karate chops the galaxy.
Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam, released in English as *The Man Who Saves The World*, is a 1982 Turkish film that blends science fiction, fantasy, martial arts, superhero, and adventure genres. Çetin İnanç directed it, and Cüneyt Arkın—a well-known Turkish actor and martial artist—played the lead role. Anıt Ticaret first released the film in Turkey in November 1982, with a later U.S. release by BijouFlix Releasing in 2005.
Outside Turkey, the film is often called *Turkish Star Wars* because it uses unauthorized footage, music, and sound effects from *Star Wars* and other science fiction and adventure movies. It belongs to a wave of Turksploitation superhero films made from the 1970s to the early 1980s. Its mix of science fiction and martial arts fantasy action has more in common with 1970s Hong Kong martial arts films from Golden Harvest than with *Star Wars* itself. Critics panned the film, and it is frequently listed among the worst movies ever made.
The story follows Murat and Ali, who crash-land on an alien desert planet after a battle (shown using *Star Wars* footage and newsreel clips of Soviet and American rocket launches). While walking through the desert, they guess the planet has only female inhabitants. Ali tries to attract them with his "irresistible" wolf-whistle, but instead draws the attention of skeleton riders on horseback, whom they defeat in hand-to-hand combat. A Sorcerer then captures the heroes and brings them to a gladiatorial arena, where a robot resembling Robby the Robot appears. The Sorcerer claims to be a 1,000-year-old wizard from Earth who tried to conquer Earth but was stopped by a "shield of concentrated human brain molecules" (depicted with Death Star footage). To bypass this shield, he needs a human brain.
The heroes escape and hide in a cave full of refugees from the Sorcerer's tyranny. Murat forms a romantic connection with the only woman there (Uçar), who cares for the children—though the romance is shown only through long eye contact and smiles. Zombies and Mummies invade the cave, infecting several children, whose blood renews the Sorcerer's immortality. The three flee to a local bar (footage lifted from the Mos Eisley cantina in *Star Wars*), where a brawl breaks out before the Sorcerer recaptures them. He separates the men, trying to convince each to join him. He sends his queen to seduce Ali, while his robot brings Murat before him. The Sorcerer offers Murat rule over the cosmos in exchange for his loyalty. He possesses a golden brain containing Earth's ancestral power and needs a real human brain to conquer Earth. Murat refuses, and the Sorcerer reveals he holds the woman and child captive. Enraged, Murat fights the Sorcerer's monsters and skeleton guards. Ali, about to kiss the queen, is attacked by monsters but defeats them and joins Murat. Both are knocked out by laser-armed guards and tortured unsuccessfully. The Sorcerer pits Murat against a giant monster in the arena; Murat wins and escapes with the woman and child, leaving Ali captive.
Murat learns of a sword forged by "the 13th clan," who melted a mountain thousands of "space years" ago. He finds the lightning-bolt-shaped sword in a cave guarded by two golden ninjas, defeats them in a brief fight, and takes it. Empowered by the sword, he frees Ali from the dungeon. But Ali grows jealous, knocks Murat out, and takes both the sword and the golden brain. The Sorcerer manipulates Ali into handing them over and uses the artifacts to trap Murat, the woman, the child, and Ali. Ali dies in a foolish escape attempt. Grieving, Murat melts down the golden sword and brain to forge gauntlets and boots. With magical gloves and super-jumping boots, he hunts the Sorcerer, fights through monsters and skeletons, and finally karate chops him in half. He then leaves the planet for Earth in a ship resembling the *Millennium Falcon*.
The cast includes Cüneyt Arkın as Murat, Aytekin Akkaya as Ali, Füsun Uçar as the Wiseman's daughter, Hüseyin Peyda as the Wiseman, Necla Fide as the Queen, Hikmet Taşdemir as the Wizard, and several actors playing creatures and uncredited roles. Çetin İnanç directed, and Cüneyt Arkın wrote the script. Arkın, a prominent Turkish actor with a career spanning five decades, also starred. Aytekin Akkaya later appeared in the Italian film *Sopravvissuti della città morta*, while Hüseyin Peyda and Füsun Uçar remained in Turkey.
The soundtrack consists entirely of music lifted from popular films. The main theme is "The Raiders March" by John Williams from *Raiders of the Lost Ark*. Other scenes use music from *Moonraker*, *Ben-Hur*, *Flash Gordon*, Giorgio Moroder's *Battlestar Galactica*, *Planet of the Apes*, *Silent Running*, *Moses*, and Disney's *The Black Hole*. For the scene where Arkın and Akkaya find graves of old civilizations, the director chose Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata. Music from John Williams' Oscar-winning *Star Wars* score appears, but less extensively than the film's borrowed footage.
Despite initial negative reviews for its incoherent story, poor performances, and unauthorized use of footage and music, the film has since developed a significant cult following.
Quick Facts
- Director
- Çetin İnanç
- Producer
- Mehmet Karahafiz / Tim Ubels
- Writer
- Cüneyt Arkın
- Starring
- Cüneyt Arkın / Aytekin Akkaya · tr / Füsun Uçar / Hüseyin Peyda · tr / Hikmet Taşdemir · tr / Necla Fide · tr
- Narrator
- Muhip Arcıman · tr
- Music
- Kunt Tulgar · tr
- Cinematography
- Çetin Gürtop
- Editing
- Necdet Tok
- Studio
- Anıt Film
- Distributor
- Anıt Ticaret
- Released
- 1 November 1982 · Turkey
- Runtime
- 91 minutes
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
The film is popularly known outside Turkey as Turkish Star Wars because it incorporates footage, music, and sound effects from Star Wars and other science fiction and adventure films without authorization. The film, part of a wave of Turksploitation superhero films produced during the 1970s to early 1980s, combines science fiction themes with martial arts fantasy action, having more in common with 1970s Hong Kong martial arts films from Golden Harvest than with Star Wars. The film was panned by film critics and has often been described as one of the worst films ever made.
Reader's Guide
Plot: Murat and Ali crash land on an alien desert planet. They defeat skeletons on horseback, are captured by the Sorcerer, escape, and later Murat obtains a lightning-bolt-shaped sword. After Ali betrays him and is killed, Murat forges the sword and a golden brain into gauntlets and boots, fights through monsters, and karate chops the Sorcerer in half. Cast: Cüneyt Arkın as Murat, Füsun Uçar as Wiseman's daughter, Hüseyin Peyda as Wiseman, Necla Fide as Queen, Hikmet Taşdemir as Wizard, and others. Directed by Çetin İnanç and written by Cüneyt Arkın. Production: The soundtrack is entirely lifted from popular movies, including 'The Raiders March' from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and music from Moonraker, Ben-Hur, Flash Gordon, Battlestar Galactica, Planet of the Apes, Silent Running, Moses, Disney's The Black Hole, and Bach's Toccata. Reception: Despite initial negative reviews, the film has gained a cult following. A sequel, The Son of the Man Who Saved the World (Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam'ın Oğlu), was released on 15 December 2006. An alternate sequel was proposed by Çetin İnanç. Revivals: Foleyvision performed the film in 2004 with live voiceovers; Filmusik screened it in late 2012. Restoration: In 2016, film historian Ed Glaser purchased the only known surviving 35mm print and oversaw a 2K scan; the restoration received a limited theatrical release in the UK in 2018 and a limited Blu-ray release in 2021.
The Turksploitation Superhero Wave
Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam arrived in Turkish cinemas in November 1982 under the banner of Anıt Ticaret, directed by Çetin İnanç and written by the martial-arts actor Cüneyt Arkın, who also headlined the picture. The film sits squarely within a brief but prolific wave of low-budget Turkish superhero productions that flourished from the late 1970s into the early 1980s, a genre often labeled Turksploitation. What sets this particular entry apart is its hybrid identity: while it wears the trappings of science fiction, its DNA runs far closer to the hand-to-hand spectacle of 1970s Golden Harvest kung-fu pictures from Hong Kong than to the space opera it is most often compared against. Arkın's background as a trained martial artist shaped the action sequences, and the script leans heavily on fantasy combat—skeletons, monsters, arena battles—rather than on hard-science plotting. The film would not reach American audiences until 2005, when BijouFlix Releasing issued a U.S. distribution, by which point its reputation had already calcified into something of a legend among international cinephiles.
The Unauthorized Borrowing
Outside Turkey, the film is almost universally known by the nickname "Turkish Star Wars," a label that captures its most notorious production choice: the wholesale, unauthorized lifting of footage, sound effects, and musical cues from George Lucas's space epic and a host of other science-fiction and adventure titles. The opening crash-landing sequence stitches together Star Wars battle shots with newsreel footage of Soviet and American rocket launches. A robot that closely resembles Robby the Robot appears in the Sorcerer's lair, the heroes stumble into a bar scene lifted straight from the Mos Eisley cantina, and the Death Star is repurposed as a visual shorthand for a planetary shield. The final escape vehicle is an obvious stand-in for the Millennium Falcon. Scholar David Elroy Goldweber has pushed back on the "Turkish Star Wars" shorthand, arguing that the film's true lineage runs through martial-arts cinema rather than through Lucas's galaxy. Still, the sheer volume of borrowed material—spanning not just Star Wars but also Raiders of the Lost Ark, Moonraker, Ben-Hur, Flash Gordon, Planet of the Apes, Silent Running, Moses, and Disney's The Black Hole—makes the borrowing impossible to ignore.
A Plot of Impossible Collisions
The narrative of Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam reads like a fever dream in which every genre convention from the 1970s and 1980s is crammed into a single runtime. Two space-traveling warriors, Murat and Ali, crash-land on an alien desert world and immediately encounter skeletons riding horses, a thousand-year-old sorcerer who once tried to conquer Earth, a gladiatorial arena, a robot, a cave of refugees, hordes of zombies and mummies, a seductive queen, a golden brain that holds the power of Earth's ancestry, and a lightning-bolt-shaped sword forged by a mysterious "13th clan" and guarded by two golden ninjas. The heroes' friendship fractures when Ali, envious of the sword, knocks out Murat and seizes both the blade and the brain, only to be killed in a botched escape attempt. Grief-stricken, Murat melts the sword and brain down into a pair of magical gauntlets and super-jumping boots, then carves through waves of monsters before karate-chopping the Sorcerer cleanly in half. He departs the planet in a Falcon-like ship, leaving behind a trail of defeated skeletons, creatures, and arena monsters.
From Panned to Midnight-Movie Legend
Critics in 1982 were uniformly harsh, citing the incoherent storyline, poor performances, and the transparent reuse of other films' footage and scores. For decades the movie has been cited in lists of the worst films ever made. Yet that very notoriety became its greatest asset. Over the years a devoted cult audience emerged, drawn to the film's sheer audacity and its status as a midnight-movie spectacle. Louis Proyect of Rec Arts Movie Reviews embraced it as "classic midnight movie fun," while Phil Hall of Film Threat awarded a perfect five stars, declaring it "jaw-droppingly insane" and a picture that "makes criticism moot." The soundtrack, entirely assembled from existing scores—John Williams's "The Raiders March" as the main theme, cues from Moonraker, Ben-Hur, Flash Gordon, Giorgio Moroder's Battlestar Galactica arrangement, Planet of the Apes, Silent Running, Moses, Disney's The Black Hole, and even Bach's Toccata—only deepened the sense of a glorious, shameless collage. What was once a critical embarrassment became, for a generation of cult fans, an unapologetic triumph of over-the-top spectacle.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam?
Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam is the heroic protagonist of a 1982 Turkish science-fantasy film directed by Çetin İnanç. The role is played by Cüneyt Arkın, a Turkish actor and martial artist who became a national action star. In the story, he is a lone warrior who steps in to protect a threatened world.
What are Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam's powers and role in the film?
The character functions as a classic Turksploitation superhero: he relies on extraordinary martial-arts skill, superhuman feats, and a righteous code to battle villains and save humanity. His role is that of the singular savior who must confront the forces endangering the planet.
Why is Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam considered important in film history?
It is one of the most recognizable examples of the Turksploitation wave, a wave of cheap, genre-blending Turkish superhero and sci-fi pictures produced in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Its notoriety was amplified decades later when it reached U.S. audiences in 2005 via BijouFlix, introducing international cinephiles to the genre.
Why is Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam nicknamed the Turkish Star Wars?
The film splices in unlicensed footage, score cues, and sound effects from Star Wars and other science-fiction and adventure productions to fill out its low-budget production. Because those borrowed elements are so prominent, audiences outside Turkey have long referred to it by that informal nickname.
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