It depends a lot on your point of view, but it's safe to say there are similarities.

We don't know if "Conan the Destroyer" (1984) director Richard Fleischer, or any of the film's various writers, had even seen the legendary martial arts flick "Enter the Dragon" (1973). However, the two movies do feature pretty similar showdowns with bad guys in halls of mirrors.

In both examples, scheming bad guy lures unstoppable-warrior good guy into a room full of mirrors to fight, so that the good guy is unsure where his enemy actually is. It requires him to use his brains instead of his brawn -- sort of.

In fact, the solution in both cases is to smash a bunch of mirrors, which eliminates the bad guy's advantage. (In Conan's case, smashing the mirrors actually wounds the bad guy, so maybe the mirrors are a part of him? This is also not known. It's not a very logic-based movie.)

Is this a rip-off? An homage? That's somewhat subjective. But in fact, neither film came up with the idea.

Entertainment trivia site TVTropes.org makes a business out of tracing these sorts of repeated ideas, and it points to either the 1947 Orson Welles noir film "The Lady From Shanghai" or the 1928 Charlie Chaplin film "The Circus" as the originator of the hall-of-mirrors showdown.

It goes on to list a whole pile of other films and TV shows that have used it over the years, including the 1974 James Bond film "The Man With the Golden Gun" and an old episode of "Doctor Who" (but at this point they've done just about everything in "Doctor Who"). 

Have a question? Email us at questions@tvtabloid.com. Please include your name and town. Personal replies will not be provided.

Have a question? Email us at questions@tvtabloid.com. Please include your name and town. Personal replies will not be provided.