User reviews

Ironical and dis-mythical fantasy packs acceptable production design, primitive special effects , and evocative as well as colorful cinematography . When a dazzling craft illuminates the sky above a medieval European village, the townspeople fear mayhem while the ruling party prepares for battle with the mysterious "dragon in the sky." After Princess Alba (Maria Lamor) is discovered missing, being abducted by an alien aircraft ; the quest for power and the young girl's affections drive Klever (Harvey Keitel) to free her from the strange cosmic knight , IX ,(Miguel Bose , though Imanol Arias turned down the role) . Count of Rue (José Vivó) asks for help his magician alchemist (Klaus Kinski) and the Green Knight (Jose Maria Pou) to find the beautiful princess . But is that her desire? . Worldly boundaries are crossed in this spoofy Sci-Fi .

This ironic Sci-Fi contains lots of humor with tongue-in-cheek , entertainment and amusement , though falls flat for its continuous absurdity and ridiculousness . It is a slightly funny film with entertaining events , giggles , and a love story between a princess and an extraterrestrial . This is a Gothic sci-fi tale of power, greed and the universal language of love . Spanish exploitation of American fantasy , realized by time of Close Encounters of the Third Kind , ET and other films in which extraterrestrial visits and UFOs were common themes ; and here adding the legend of Saint George , ¨Jorge¨ , and the Dragon . The film moves in fits and starts most of which would be desirable, with more traps the viewer resists any kind, and some moments of enjoyment and others quite a few embarrassing . Adequate production design by Felix Murcia and naive but effective special effects by Reyes Abades , many of them made by old computer generator . Very good cast but frankly wasted , it stars two myths of modern cinema , Harvey Keitel and Klaus Kinski, in addition , the great Fernando Rey as an inquisitive priest , but all of them turned into caricatured figures . Atmospheric musical score by Jose Nieto , Vicente Aranda's ordinary musician , he composes a stirring soundtrack by means of synthesizer . Jose Nieto is a magnificent composer and deemed to be one of the best Spanish musicians . Furthermore , a colorful and evocative cinematography by Jose Luis Alcaine who was first cinematographer to use fluorescent tube as "key" lightning and deemed to be one of the best Spanish cameraman . Alcaine frequently works with Pedro Almodóvar , Bigas Luna and Vicente Aranda , as he has photographed ¨The skin I live in¨ , The bad education¨ , ¨Volver¨ , ¨Women in the verge of a nervous breakdown¨, among others .

The motion picture was middlingly written and directed Fernando Colomo . Fernando Colomo was born in Madrid and is a talented and versatile writer/director who has made a vast array of often solid and entertaining films in all kind of genres as comedy, drama and one science fiction movie , this 1985 El caballero del Dragón, in a career that spans over 30 years . Especially known for directing comedies such as 1987 La Vida Alegre , 1988 Miss Caribe , 1989 Bajarse al Moro , 1993 Rosa Rosae , 1994 Alegre Ma Non Troppo , 1995 Efecto Mariposa . And in the 2000s directed Al Sur Granada (2003) , El Próximo Oriente (2006), Rivales (2008) and La Banda Picasso (2012) .

STAR KNIGHT (or THE KNIGHT OF THE DRAGON) is an adventure/comedy from Spain that was released in 1985/86. It blends science fiction with medieval fantasy elements into a plodding chore of a film where the only magic on display is how it manages to make 90 minutes last an eternity. I had never heard of the film before sitting down to watch it but my hopes were raised a little higher when I saw Harvey Keitel was involved. Keitel did elevate the film to a more enjoyable level but probably not for the reason he might hope. In the film, Keitel is Klever, a soldier who aspires for knighthood and the good graces of his king and, especially, the king's daughter Alba (Maria Lamor). Alba longs for marriage but her father has rejected all of her potential suitors as unworthy. When one of Alba's resulting temper tantrums brings her to the lake for a swim, she encounters a stranger beneath the waves. That stranger is an alien named IX (Miguel Bosé) and he arrived, conveniently enough, at the same time the king's medical adviser Boetius (Klaus Kinski) was performing a ritual to summon an angel (or a demon…it wasn't too clear). While Boetius believes IX to be the supernatural agent summoned to his aid, the rest of the kingdom goes in a panic when IX's spaceship is mistaken for a dragon. Princess Alba falls in love with this strange knight and finds support with Boetius (who might have his own machinations), but Klever teams with the king's religious adviser (Fernando Rey) to kill the new arrival and slay his dragon, earning his knighthood and the hand of Princess Alba in marriage.

Having seen this movie a couple of times now, the only things that seems to stick with me is how poor Harvey Keitel sticks out like a sore thumb. He's delivering the dialogue of a period piece with an accent straight out of Brooklyn. He's pledging allegiance and vowing to slay the mighty dragon, and it's just not working at all. It's the funniest part of the whole movie, which is sad because there are actual attempts at humor all over. They just fall flat every single time. The herald's series of unsuccessful visits to the townsfolk, Klever's assault on IX's ship, and the final tag with Klever and Rey and their fate; all of it lands it a dull thud. The same could be said of the film's "romantic adventure". IX arrives on Earth to catalogue fauna for his home civilization. So I guess he's on some sort of science mission. Keep in mind, IX doesn't speak so all of this is interpreted through what he shows Alba. Alba believes he is collecting animal souls for his home world, because she's primitive and ignorant. Despite the fact that Alba comes from a primitive, superstitious society and is a completely different species, IX falls in love with her. He jeopardizes his entire mission to interfere with Alba and her kind, so we know he's not much of a scientist. I have to assume this all resulted from years of lonely interstellar travel leaving IX vulnerable to the temptations of a backwards, medieval era human.

I wouldn't have spent so much time nitpicking the romance plot if there were something to keep me entertained. Maybe some conflict? There's no real conflict to drive the plot forward. Sure, Alba is in love with IX but even that doesn't seem all that important when, in a scene late in the movie, IX appears to be disinterested in protecting her honor through battle with Klever. When it looks as if IX is just going to lift off and go on with his life (as he should), she just shrugs her shoulders and prepares to accept Klever as her new suitor without much hassle. She's not that interested. She's just a rebellious young girl. Klever just wants to be taken seriously by his king but he's too much of a doofus to pull it off. He poses zero threat to IX and only gains the upper hand later in the movie because IX's species has nothing similar to the "Star Trek" prime directive to tell him it's a bad idea to give a primitive witch doctor access to a mind-controlled information orb. The only person I ever actually thought might've had evil, selfish intentions was Boetius with his weird summoning rituals and resting evil face, and I guess he was a good guy in the end. I don't know. This movie blows. Nothing about this movie makes much sense when you really think about it and, as bored as I was, I had plenty of time to think.

Whatever you think of Star Knight – good or bad – the one thing that cannot be denied is this is a very strange movie. Its combination of a medieval yarn with science fiction is somewhat odd and surely must be a result of the writers simply combining two popular genres of the day - the fantasy action flick with Spielbergian sci-fi. It's a concoction that needless to say doesn't work all that well. Set in medieval Europe, the story revolves around the appearance of a 'dragon'. Turns out it's actually a spaceship but the locals of course never understand this. On board the ship is a spacesuit clad alien, who is the star knight of the title. It's a very silly story to be honest.

Other than the strange narrative, the second aspect that marks this one out is its very interesting cast. Well, it's interesting on paper at least. Specifically the combination of Klaus Kinski with Harvey Keitel is something that should catch the interest of most cult movie fans (although I don't actually remember them both appearing on screen at the same time though). Kinski plays an alchemist and is unfortunately dubbed, while Keitel is a knight and amusingly is not dubbed, seeing as his New York accent could not be more inappropriate for a medieval character. The 80's was a bit of a graveyard for a lot of film stars who rose to prominence in the 70's and this film indicates the strange places Keitel went in this decade before his re-emergence in the early 90's.

Despite all of the factors above, Star Knight is unfortunately a pretty weak effort. Its eccentricities never make up for the general lameness of events depicted. It seems to in fact, be a comedy as well but not a very funny one to be honest. Production values aren't bad though with handsome period detail and alright special effects of the spaceship. But despite this and its original aspects, it's still not terribly good fun.

If you are a fan of Klaus Kinski as I am then you must own this movie. Watch it once, check it off your list, then never watch it again. What a waste of celluloid, time, and effort. Quite simply this is an enormously huge waste of time. Think of all of the hungry children the budget of this film could have fed.......

Of course this movie is a bunch of silly nonsense but, hey, at least it's a very entertaining bunch of silly nonsense! "Star Knight" is some sort of comical Sci-Fi fantasy/adventure with the most amazingly far-fetched plot ever and quite a deranged cast of characters. I can't but notice that the opinions of IMDb-users towards this cheaply made Spanish film are very much differing! Some reviewers seem to think it's pure crap, whereas other ones claim that it's a rather efficient spoof. I'm somewhat in the middle of both opinions. To me, "Star Knight" is a hugely inept and forgettable movie, but nevertheless an amusing one that honestly made me chuckle a couple of times. It's really astonishing that TWO eminent actors – Harvey Keitel and Klaus Kinski – agreed to star in bizarre rubbish like this. Klaus Kinski stars as Boecius; a brilliant alchemist in the 15th Century and working for a rich monarch. For no apparent reason, Boecius summoned a spaceship from the future and the poor superstitious villagers believe that it's a fiery dragon. The 'pilot' of the spaceship kidnaps and falls in love with the monarch's daughter Alba and hopes to take her back with him to the future. Harvey Keitel plays Clever; a knight who doesn't really lives up to his name and talks rather funny. Clever's duty is to free the gorgeous princess from the claws of the 'dragon'. No matter how crazy it all sounds, the screenplay contains some truly ingenious ideas. The blending of the two totally different eras, for example. Spaceships, whether alien and futuristic, usually just land in our present time but rarely ever in medieval times. It's also well observed that the villagers automatically assume that the flamboyant machine is a dragon that comes to devour their cattle and crops. This mix-up leads to gags and comical situations that could have come straight out of a Monty Python movie, only the processing is slightly poorer. Keitel and Kinski are seemly having fun in their roles (maybe it was a welcome break from their usually serious type of characters they play?) and most of the decors & set pieces are fairly adequate. The whole thing gets boring near the second half of the film, though, and particularly the silent star knight character (portrayed by the Spanish singer Miguel Bosé) becomes dreadfully annoying very quick. Worth a peek in case there really isn't anything else to rent.

Cant imagine how much film was wasted because the cast kept on breaking down & laughing their heads off in midscene...

"...don't you know there is a dragon out there that eats goats, women & children ?...."

The townspeople describing the spacecraft as a dragon is an unexpected counter to the utter goofiness of just about everything else (would have sworn that it was Michael Palin playing "I'm not the Green Knight" when the Princess first meets him)

Was so busy admiring the Princess' briefly glimpsed derriere that it didn't register that men-at-arms in chainmail tend to sink when turfed out of boats....

Best enjoyed when as soused as all those involved must have been while making it...

Seeing Klaus Kinski, Harvey Keitel, Fernando Rey in the cast, I just wanted to see the movie. All three, and especially Kinski, have given their strength, playing their roles very well. But the film is nothing but a baby story, without any other claim. Some have asked why actors such as Kinski and Keitel have agreed to play in such "rubbish." I answer them from the point of view of the actor: the actors are also people, they need money, they have to eat, and 90% of what they are offered, I refer to roles, scenarios, are rubbish.

I just watched star knight and the story is not bad, It's just the audio is badly out of sync. For a low budget movie this one is not bad i've seen worse ones. If this movie is ever re-released i hope they fix the audio problems. I like to watch low budget sci-fi movies mostly from the 80's. The acting in star knight is not bad. Plus i hope they make a sequel to star knight. And this movie is original as far as i know. I've been wanting to see this movie for a long time. On the web i've seen some pretty lousy reviews of this movie but i don't completely agree with them. To me i just like this movie. plan 9 from outer space is worser then star knight.

"Star Knight" ("El caballero del dragon") is a weird little movie. It doesn't work as a comedy, it doesn't work as a sci-fi movie, and it doesn't work as a love story, yet it is a little bit of all these.

The alchemist Boetius (Klaus Kinski) tries to summon a demon, but instead the alien Ix (Miguel Bose) lands with a space-ship on earth. The knights of the country think the space-ship is a dragon, but fail miserably to "slay" that dragon. The local priest (Fernando Rey) wants to hold Boetius responsible for the probably not related event. When a local princess is abducted, her father agrees that Boetius and the invincible alien warrior must be fought and sends his the best knight (Harvey Keitel), but the princess is now in love with Ix and asks Boetius to save him.

The comedy elements like the Green Knight who wants to fight everyone crossing "his" bridge are terribly unfunny. The love story, why the princess should fall in love with an alien who can't even speak, is inexplicable. The movie has a lot of good ideas, also the casting of Klaus Kinski as the good guy is a rare choice, but nothing works in this movie. Except that this mess is somehow entertaining because it's definitely unusual and you won't have seen something like this before.

I found this gem in a sale bin of old VHS tapes about ten years ago.... I put it on not knowing what to expect... and I couldn't stop it! Mr.Keitel must have tried to buy up all the copies of this film.. because it's impossible to find anyone that has seen it before. It's absurb to point of being a Monty Python film... I can imagine that the producers started off wanting to make a serious film and half way through said.. "hey.. you know it's pretty funny.. I think we should go that way!" There must have been some great coke on set for this baby in the eighties... if you can find it, I highly suggest it over a bottle or two of your favourite bevy.

I saw "The Little Shop of Horrors" when I was a kid on late night television.. and never forgot that as being such an amazing 'cartoon' of a film... I wasn't surprised when it had a second life... not to mention John Water's "Hairspray".. it's kind of like that great old movie "The Producers"... you just can't make a movie bad enough that it won't be entertaining... to someone!

Harvey Keitel?... Klaus Kinsky?... how can you go wrong?

Harvey Keitel plays medieval soldier Klever, who is keen to earn himself a knighthood and win the hand of the Count of Rue's beautiful daughter Princess Alba (Maria Lamor); unfortunately for Klever, the princess is more interested in Ix (Miguel Bosé), a mysterious knight who wears indestructible armour and who commands a fearsome dragon. In reality, Ix is a visitor from another galaxy and his dragon a spacecraft. Kinski plays alchemist Boetius, who befriends the space traveller and helps him to defeat Klever in both combat and love.

I don't know what I found more surprising: Harvey Keitel starring alongside Klaus Kinski in a Spanish 80s fantasy/sci-fi/comedy, or the fact that I enjoyed the film more than I expected I would (Star Knight appears on a cheap 50-film box set of sci-fi obscurities, the majority of which are downright awful): the special effects in this one are pretty decent, the alien technology is well designed, there are some genuinely funny moments, the characters are delightfully daft (with the Green Knight being the funniest—the human equivalent of Sir Didymus in Labyrinth), and the story is rather charming.

Quite what Keitel and Kinski are doing in appearing in such frivolous nonsense, I do not know, but they seem to be having a fair amount of fun. As did I.

This movie just plain stinks. An alien spacecraft terrorizes the local villagers by just flying around and doing NOTHING. The alien falls in love with the princess but can't come out of his suit to..... well you know. This princess falls for the alien, I guess because he can't talk or something. Anyway, phooey.

However, if you want a good laugh check out Harvey Keitel, he is so out of place here. I just don't know how he got suckered into this film.

What a steamer! I have to admit that I was seriously Gung-ho for this flick because it sounded intriguing and I figured, at the very least, it would be a quality film with Keitel and Kinski involved. Silly me. Star Knight (aka The Knight of the Dragon) comes off like a cheesy mash-up of Starman, Dune and Black Knight, it combines elegant, unearthly production design with ineffective, bumbling comedy and unlikable characters. The alien, his "suit of armor" and his ship were gorgeous, they deserved a film worthy of their design, not this goofy meandering crap.

I wanted to like Kinski, his ice-cold blue eyes and dazzling smile but the vibe his character gives off is decidedly sinister and therefor hard to connect with. Keitel's "brave knight" is idiotic and it only gets worse when the Brooklyn accent spills forth during his poorly delivered Olde English dialog. Honestly, this was a real forehead-slapper. I suppose the alien "IX" (Miguel Bosé) was okay but he doesn't get lines and his acting consisted of wide eyes and head nods.

Star Knight was about as basic as they come, "Alien comes to Earth to study our world and he falls in love." Big whoop, right? Well as simple as it is it really could have succeed (in its own way) had the characters worked better and the film was played straight. They didn't and it wasn't though and, in the end, instead of finding myself mildly entertained with a cool time-waster, I was bored to tears by "just plain bad." I wish I could say that it got better at some point but it didn't.

If you're all about dumb-as-rocks sci-fi comedies like Pluto Nash and Galaxy Quest then you may find this only a little disappointing. Everybody else though should steer clear unless you're a glutton for cinematic punishment, like me.

(The title of this movie translates to Star Knight in English)man.i'm not sure what i just witnessed.i know there is some comedy,but it isn't the good kind.i think it was intended to be funny,but it fell flat,in my eyes.there is also some bad acting.although to be fair,the dialogue was translated from Spanish to English,so maybe a lot got lost in the translation and the actors had a hard time being in sync with the dubbed dialogue.anyway,Harvey Keitel is in this,but he looks kinda embarrassed.but maybe i'm just imagining it.this is supposed to be a romance,adventure sci-fi,but it sure is boring.i found the plot ridiculous,to put it mildly.my head hurt from watching it.in my opinion,if you wanted to watch this movie,i think your best bet would be to catch it on TV.that way,you won't be out any money.i got this movie really cheap,and i still feel cheated.i think i've gotten the required ten lines of text in,so i'll end by saying that for me,Star Knight is 1/10

I saw this movie about 15 years ago, maybe more. Since the moment I saw it, I have been steady in saying that this is, in fact, the worst movie I have ever seen. And, I have seen a lot of crappy movies in my day, so this is saying a lot. I cannot believe anyone else has even seen this film; if you can even call it that.

My father thought it was going to be a great film and boy was he ever wrong. Thank you Dad, for showing me what a truly bad movie is. I think that might be the reason this movie was made; to show everyone what a bad movie is.

If you feel a strong desire to see this movie, I am not sure why you feel that way; therapy might be needed. Unless, of course, you want something to compare movies to in order to judge how bad they are.

Without a shadow of a doubt, this is the worst film I have ever seen. Rented from a video library some time in 1988, I still remember it because it was so dreadfully bad. This is the example I use as a yardstick of the ultimate in awful. Why?

Direction - very poor; betrays a dreadful lack of control

Camerawork - frankly amateurish

Locations - looks like it was filmed one weekend in a disused quarry

Acting - I really thought this was a project produced by some amateur dramatics group...

Script? What script.. you can't tell me someone admits to having written this.

There are no redeeming features. None. It's not one of those films which is so bad it's good, because it isn't. It's worse than that. It's not funny, it is just painful. Avoid watching this even if it means putting out your own eyes with hot pokers.

For what it is worth, if I made a film it would be like Star Knight. It is played with a straight face, when the cast should have been laughing at themselves for being straight-faced. The director must have been very patient, trying to keep everyone from laughing at the wonderful idiocy of it all. The Count plays it straight, the would-be knight is earnest, only the monk nearly spoils it - the camp must have been finally irresistible - and the princess? Is she shallow, or is she wise, or is she the sort of girl who likes being liked? Only the alchemist rings true, no doubt expressing the guiding philosophy here: it's all magic anyway.

So, what is irony? Is it like a bridge that fails to connect? Or is it like that spaceship, that can connect a man from heaven with a girl from earth?

Is irony a kind of magic? It is here.

While I still prefer "Mega Piranha" as the "bad movie" champion, "Star Knight" certainly can not be totally dismissed. The main difference is that "Mega Piranha" is hilarious for being not only outrageous and poorly acted, but with a no name cast, nothing was expected. Here however we have futility on display from quality actors, Klaus Kinski, Harvey Keitel, and Fernando Rey. It is the nadir of three careers, with ridiculous dialog, a script that reads like a child's comic book, and eye rolling special effects. This film could easily be a test of movie viewing endurance. Sitting through "Star Knight" should qualify a person as virtually torture proof in regards to supposedly bad movies. A warning isn't strong enough, you should have to get written permission to view this sci-fi, love with an alien, knights in armor atrocity. - MERK

Previous reviewers seem to have missed the comedy in Star Knight, which I liked. Harvey Keitel's Brooklyn accent recalled Tony Curtis in Spartacus. The nurse cries out, "What if something happens?" I wondered the same thing watching Knights of the Round Table (1953), a terrible movie. In Star Knight the priest is a superstitious kook of Falwellian proportions; the villagers talk back to Klever and assault the count's herald with a chamber pot; the alien abducts skinnydipping princess Alba but can't make love to her because of his invincible spacesuit - even though the spaceship supports the the life of the unprotected priest just fine at the end of the movie.

Star Knight tells Alba telepathically that if he removes his armor and makes love to her he'll die - she pesters him to do it anyway. Typical star-crossed lovers.

I enjoyed this movie even more the second time. Keitel's scenes are hilarious. Star Knight isn't a great movie and isn't supposed to be, but it's pretty good.

I was reading what the guy above said about it and no i have no clue how Harvey got suckered into doing this film. it is raw comedy for him. Typical princess meets the man of her dreams and can't have him film with Harvey as the knight who loves her and her money and is gonna kill the one she loves to impress the dad and princess, marry her, and thus be rich. Only problem is, he can't...and the idiocy of his fighting with a man who cannot be beaten...he is in an IRON suit which a bunch of swords cannot penetrate, is a riot! This must have been done during the BAD years when he had to buy baby formula and stuff. But see it just for the HUMOR and likeness to those crazy 60's sci-fi flicks like "It Came From Outer Space".