The Warrior and the Sorceress is a 1984 Argentine-American fantasy action film directed by John C. Broderick and starring David Carradine, María Socas and Luke Askew.

[5] The film became notorious due to María Socas spending much of the movie topless, along with several other actresses in bit roles displaying varying degrees of nudity.

The mercenary Kain, who was once a member of a now extinct ancient order of holy warriors known as the Homeraks, arrives at the town and announces that his skills are for hire to the highest bidder.

Naja, who commanded Homeraks just as Kain when their order ruled the world, inspires him into saving her and help the village people.

Kain starts to tangle the situation, taking advantage of the ongoing feud while seeking to debilitate the rival warlords and eventually defeat them.

Stout did numerous drafts of the script, which was originally called Darksword of Tor, then Kain of the Dark Planet;[1] Stout has stated that this title change has nothing to do with capitalizing on the worldwide popularity of David Carradine's character Kwai Chang Caine, the protagonist of the 1970s adventure-western TV show Kung Fu.

The exterior shots were made in Ischigualasto Provincial Park in San Juan, also known as Valle de la Luna ("Valley of the Moon"), due to its otherworldly appearance.

As a result Carradine, who was right-handed, was trained by Anthony De Longis (who was the action and stunts coordinator, and also played the villain Kief) to learn swordfighting with his left hand.

[14] Carradine says the director "was obsessed by the body of the actress who played the priestess [María Socas] so he costumed her in a topless outfit.

[15] According to William Stout, John Broderick asked him to write a sword and sorcery screenplay based on Akira Kurosawa's 1961 Samurai film Yojimbo, which he did, then rewrote to distance the story from that original.

[18][19] The Philadelphia Inquirer called it "an unashamedly sordid rehashing - and retrashing - of Akira Kurosawa's samurai classic Yojimbo, via Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, with a little Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian tossed in for good measure.

"[20] The Los Angeles Times also noted the similarities to Yojimbo and said the film had "awkward action, a general air of determined viciousness and (Carradine excepted) so much overacting that it sometimes seems that a new dramatic style is being forged.