Leofwine_draca
KILL OR BE KILLED is a pretty fun spaghetti western, nothing special but one which passes the time well enough and offers enough sun-drenched action in the form of shoot-outs and betrayals to see it through to the climax. What it is is a thorough rip-off of A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, with Robert Mark's hero a wandering gunslinger who gets into the middle of a fight between two rival gangs. The film is full of beautiful women, grizzled tough men, and a wonderful cameo from Gordon Mitchell, clad in black as bounty hunter Baltimore Joe. He certainly is the icing on the cake here, although he has too little screen time.
Wizard-8
It won't take very long in your viewing of "Kill Or Be Killed" to start experiencing a severe case of deja-vu. Even if you can't recall exactly which westerns you saw these elements before, you will know that you have seen them before. A single woman struggling to keep a hold of her land while an evil rival rancher is trying to push her and her family away so he can have the land? A lone gunfighter coming into town who has the courage to stand up to the evil rival rancher and his followers? Viewers who know their spaghetti westerns well will recognize the part of the movie where the heroic gunfighter is beat up and left for dead (and is subsequently rescued by a grizzled old coot) is derived from "A Fistful Of Dollars". Still, as unoriginal as this western might be, it is competently done, zipping by at a good clip and seldom having any dead spots. There is also a pretty good musical score by Carlo Rusticelli. So if you are a western fan who doesn't mind seeing the same things over again, this movie is probably a safe bet.
FightingWesterner
A mysterious wandering fiddler with a past (!) ends up killing a man in self defense, running afoul of a dangerous town big-shot, his sadistic son, and a slew of hired guns, including special guest killer Gordon Mitchell.Not a bad little spaghetti western, Kill Or Be Killed has nothing new to offer the genre, but is solid enough and has an interesting storyline with plenty of action, nasty villains, and plot-twists to keep things entertaining.Fans of Italian westerns will probably like this a little more than the average viewer though.
unbrokenmetal
A stranger enters the saloon. He wears a poncho and reminds me, presumably not accidentally, of Clint Eastwood in "Fistful of Dollars". He goes past several dangerous gunmen, looks the barkeeper in the eye and then - asks if he's allowed to play a little tune on his violin, please? You're right, this isn't exactly repeating what you've seen in a hundred other westerns before. "Kill Or Die" is a well scripted, intelligent, but little known Italian western. The director handles matters a bit conservative, probably preferring American westerns of the 1950s to the Corbuccian close-up ugliness that was en vogue in 1967. Robert Mark plays the hero, Slovenian actor Andrea Bosic plays a very professional sheriff who is cautiously keeping an eye on all suspects, and Gordon Mitchell has a typical guest appearance as a killer in black, devoted to his job ("Where would you like to be buried?") and using the trusted maniacal grin. Thumbs up!
AD
