Il ritorno di Zanna Bianca

Plot synopsis:
Set in the Northwest Territories, Canada, in 1899. Mitsha (Missaele) (the young boy from the first White Fang movie), is working with his wolf-dog and two fur traders when Beauty Smith (John Steiner) and two henchmen appear and raid the traders camp shooting all of them, including Mitsha, and escapes in a canoe with all their equipment. Several hours later, the wolf-dog is found by John Tarwater (Harry Carey Jr.) a grizzled old trader who buries the dead Mitsha, and takes the hound back to a nearby town which is his home. The wolf-dog befriends another young boy who is John's orphaned, 10-year-old grandson Bill Tarwater (Renato Cestle). After looking for a name, Bill gives White Fang his name by yet again from the beasts ivory-white teeth. At a local saloon, White Fang helps John Tarwater win some money at a card game from a crooked card-shark, and a fistfight breaks out between the swindler and his victims as John casually counts his money, while White Fang and Bill take cover behind the bar. John then embarks on one of his periodic expeditions to discover gold.
Meanwhile, Beauty Smith is alive and well, and again exploiting the people of the very town where John and Bill live. Smith lives under the alias 'Charles Forth', a local businessman, and fakes a crippling injury by confining himself to a wheelchair with his two henchman always at his side. Sister Evangelina (Virna Lisi) is now running a new mission hut in the town to convert into a hospital. She decides to ask 'Mr. Forth' for funding to operate her hospital despite warnings from the townsmen that 'Mr. Forth' is a businessman and won't give her any money unless she gives him assurances that she will repay the loan, with interest, within 60 days or less. Sister Evangelina neverless goes to meet with him, and she recognizes the villainous man immediately.
Sister Evangelina contacts novelist Jason Scott (Franco Nero) who's on a book tour down south and agrees to come to her assistance. Scott also meets with his old friend Kurt Johnson (Raimund Harmstorf), now working as a local mines inspector to help out. Together, the three of them take their accusations to the town's police chief, Inspector Leclerq (Renato de Carmine), who is actually on the payroll of Beauty Smith and he claims to have known the crippled 'Mr. Forth' for six years. Leclerq's wife Jane (Hannelore Elsner), is pressuring her husband to accommodate Smith's nefarious plans in return for more bribe money he gives them in exchange for protection since Smith is now a wanted fugitive.
Jason Scott attempts to expose the illegal complicity between 'Mr. Forth' and the Inspector with the help of a local worker named Liverpool (Donald O'Brien), who agrees to write a statement in exchange for money. But Liverpool goes back on his word to help Scott by skipping down with the money that was given to him. Shortly afterwards, Scott encounters Bill and John Tarwater when White Fang drags them back to town after their sled dogs had run away leaving them stranded on a snowy plain. The animal shows both affection for both Bill and Scott having remembered the latter from their previous adventure in Dawson City three years earlier. Elsewhere, Kurt meets Liverpool's younger and attractive sister (Yanti Somer) and a romantic attraction develops between both of them.
The following day, Liverpool shamefacedly returns to the town having found two men, one dead and the other terribly ill from frostbite, who have been sold insufficient and overpriced supplies from Beauty Smith. The survivor, named Carter, has gangrene in both legs and Scott has to help Sister Evangelina perform the amputation at the mission hut. When Beauty Smith and his two henchmen see and recognize White Fang, they frame the wolf-dog for savaging Liverpool to death. An enraged posse attempts to kill White Fang, forcing Bill to drive the beast out of town.
The next day, when Bill looks for White Fang in the woods, he gets attacked by a vicious eagle, but White Fang jumps in and saves him by fighting off the eagle. Bill smuggles White Fang back into town and to Sister Evangelina's mission where the wolf-dog's injuries are tended. While visiting his grandson and his hound at the mission, John learns from Carter about the location of a gold-stream in the mountains that he found. But Harvey (Werner Pochath), a mission employee and a secret associate of Beauty Smith, sees them discussing the location and reports it to his boss. Jane then fakes a sickness to lure Sister Evangelina away from the mission, leaving Carter alone in his sickbed. Beauty Smith (no longer pretending to be crippled) pays a visit and tortures Carter for the location of the gold stream. Smith then kidnaps John Tarwater and has his two henchmen set fire to the mission hut. Carter is burned to death, while Bill, who walked in while Smith was torturing Carter, is trapped by the flames. When Sister Evangelina realizes that Jane is not sick, she races back to the burning mission and rushes in saving Bill, but gets caught on fire and dies from the severity of her burns.
Hearing of her death, the townspeople start a riot after learning from Bill about the wanted Beauty Smith and of Inspector Leclerq's association with him. As the mob breaks through the Mounties into the police station, Leclerq shoots himself. Scott, Kurt, and Bill find Jane where she tells them where Beauty Smith is heading. Scott and Kurt, with White Fang in tow, organize a posse to give chase. Locating Smith and his henchmen, Scott leads the posse forward and a gun battle develops. Smith manages to shoot a few posse members, while his two henchmen are killed. White Fang catches up to Smith and attacks him. Smith's gunshots miss the beast and instead triggers an avalanche. The villain finally dies as he gets crushed to death under the falling snow and ice. Shortly afterwards, Scott, Kurt, and White Fang locate John Tarwater who was shot and left for dead. But before he dies, he asks Scott that his grandson be the beneficiary of the gold stream that he found right near him with Carter's advice. The two-faced Harvey suddenly shows his true colors and says that the owner will legally be the first one to register the claim in the town. He suggests a dog-sled race to settle the disputed claim.
In the climatic sled race, Harvey attempts dirty tricks to win the race, but the tables turn on him when he falls from his sled and dies when he gets accidentally run over by the sled-team headed by White Fang. Scott and White Fang arrive in the town first, and the writer enters Bill Tarwater's name in the ledger in place of his own.
In the final scene, Jason Scott says his goodbyes to Kurt who will be staying in the town having gotten the job as the new police inspector, and he announces that he and Liverpool's sister will be getting married in the spring. Bill also stays to live with Kurt and his wife who have agreed to raise the boy and White Fang. Scott then returns to Vancouver with new stories to write, while White Fang is torn between running after him or staying with Bill. However, the wolf-dog chooses to stay with his young master as he runs back to Bill.

Tags: murder

Review:
At Least There's No Bear This Time. I've been trying to come up with a catchy opening statement on CHALLENGE TO WHITE FANG for over a week now and give up. These are quite simply some of the strangest movies ever made. Who was the intended audience? Just like with his earlier WHITE FANG (1973), with the same basic cast & crew, Lucio Fulci has cooked up a populist entertainment that's way too violent for the kiddies and a bit to cutesy for adults, when people aren't being tortured and burned alive that is. While missing the nudity & sex of an exploitation film these are hardly all-age adventures, at least in their unedited forms.Both of Fulci's White Fang films were part of a mini-fad that was one of the variants Italian film producers tried to squeeze some life out of their spaghetti western industry. There were maybe a dozen of these things made between 1973 and 1977 or so -- Alpine adventures set in the gold rush era Klondike with plucky kids and an intelligent, resourceful wolfhound as the star of the film. They usually bring in a ringer for an action hero (Merizio Merli, Ron Ely, Doug McClure or in this case, Franco Nero, wearing what appears to be one of Farrah Fawcett's old fur coats) and a stock trade bad guy (Jack Palance, Henry Silva, or John Steiner as we have here) and come up with all sorts of fascinating adventures for the dog to have while the humans stand around cheering him on.Hence the confusion that these were for kids. Kids love dogs and the films always have a young boy for the hound to bond with, maybe a pretty nun or some other female lead for the dads to quietly lust over, though romance with the action hero is out of the question. So you'd think this would be fun for the whole family until the town drunk is beaten senseless, the hapless Indian family is murdered in cold blood, and the child terrorized by big greasy bad guys who get a kick out of torturing cripples. The bullets fly, the bodies pile up, and White Fang gets to do clever things like figure out that someone is cheating at poker.If there are any saving graces to this outing it is that White Fang is not forced to fight any other animals for the benefit of the camera, though he does get chased around, kicked, beaten with ax handles and thrown out of burning buildings. We can only hope that they asked the dog to sign a release form first. He's also depicted as fighting off a golden eagle that attacks the plucky young boy for some reason that I missed taking wildlife biology, leading to one of the most bizarre gore effects sequences ever staged where the doggie performer is festooned with a truly twisted zombie makeup effect to have it appear as though the bird scratched his eyes out. I imagine that was one of the parts cut from the prints imported to North America in the 1970s.The film culminates in a preposterous dog sled race finale that took a few cues from BEN HUR with the two sled riders battling it out as they hurtle across the wilderness. The credits here cite Canada as one of the filming locations but I don't know, somehow I doubt they would have imported the whole cast & crew from Europe just to film a movie about a kid and his dog. WHITE FANG was filmed in Austria and I'd say that looks like the same town set, but it really doesn't matter. The whole thing is marvelously fake and tacky, which is half of the fun of this little sub-genre of spaghetti westerns. I think they are fascinating and this is probably one of the better examples with no apparent harm coming to the animal performers for once. The people, though, boy they get battered around some. Looks like it was a tough, physical shoot under adverse conditions. It's a marvel the film was even made at all, and I dare say you couldn't come up with anything like it today.6/10. Follow-up to ¨White Fang¨ with noisy action , adventures and spectacular Austrian landscapes .. "Challenge to White Fang" or "Il Ritorno di Zanna Bianca" (original title) is an exciting adventure set in Alaska during Gold Rush . The wolf dog , White Fang, aids a little boy , an elderly man , a nun, of ridding a gold mining town of a sleazy crime lord in 1899 Yukón , Canada . Set at the end of the 19th century in Canada's gold rush Klondike area . There come all kinds of adventurers , good guys and bad guys . One of them results to be the ambitious Beauty Smith . Wolf-dog White Fang teams up with an old mountain man and a boy when his master , a young Eskimo , is killed . Together they try to avenge his death . This adventure movie is set at the end 19th Century , in the Klondike region of Yukon, Canada . It has as starring the wolf-dog named White Fang , as when his master is killed by the evil , unscrupulous Beauty Smith (John Steiner), then the trusty dog is adopted by a young boy , Bill (Renato Cestie) , the grandson of fur trader named John Tarwater (Harry Carey J. , usual actor in John Ford films) . Meanwhile , the grandfather , an old man named John Tarwater and his grandson arrive to the small gold town and befriend Jason Scott . After that , the dog teams up the avenger prospector Scott (Franco Nero) and his friend Kurt Jansen (Raimund Harmstorf) , who seek revenge against the notorious villain Beauty Smith . But Beauty changes his identity posing as a wealthy bound-wheelchair and now living under the alias Forth in another Northern Canada town , claiming a recently discovered gold mine and exploiting the villagers . There also appears Sister Evangelina (Virna Lisi) who's attempting to build a new mission hospital in the small town . A bit later on , Evangelina shows proof of his criminal past to the Canadian Mounted Police , and she subsequently has her mission burned down . The prospector and his faithful mate , the wolf-dog, attempt to stop the evildoer , the ambitious , snarling businessman called Smith and his hoodlums . A dying old prospector bequeaths his newly discovered gold-mine to John Tarwater , but the mean businessman tries to claim it for himself . As Smith/Charles Forth is blackmailing prospectors and deceiving of faking manner to the natives by means of stealing them supplies and the Alaskan gold mines and to profit from townspeople .This follow-up to ¨Lucio Fulci's White Fang ¨(with Franco Nero , Virna Lisi , Fernando Rey , John Steiner , Rik Battaglia , Daniel Martin and Carole André) is a tepid and light-hearted adventure about known and classic novel by Jack London . Here the famous dog teams up once again with novelist Jason Scott , Franco Nero , and his colleague Kurt Jansen , Raimund Harmstorf who has a brief intervention , to detain the nasty Beauty Smith . Lumpy blend of adventures, action , villainy, though needlessly violent and aimed to young people . The film is loosely based on the novel by Jack London , though differs significantly from the book but this is an invented version , however remains the essential elements as the young-dog friendship , the gold rush , spectacular outdoors and locations and several moving scenes . The talent of diverse and wasting casting is redeemed in part for the spectacular outdoors filmed on Austrian landscapes . It's a passable sequel that maintains the charm and adventure style of the previous film but still makes for decent juvenile amusement . Breathtaking final scenes when take place some impressive sledge races across the tundra . Weak screenplay from Alberto Silvestri , Lucio Fulci and Roberto Gianviti who also wrote in similar similar style to former movie . Atmospheric and evocative musical score by Carlo Rustichelli who also composed ¨White Fang¨ . The film is rated PG-13 (Parents guide), because contains some violent scenes about killing of a boy at the beginning , a cruel fighting between eagle and dog , a strong slap against a kid , people hitting to ¨White Fang¨ and brutal biting , among others . The motion picture was regularly directed by Lucio Fulci , an expert filmmaker of terror movies full of blood and gore . It was followed by an acceptable sequel : "White Fang to the Rescue" (1974) by Tonino Ricci , who in previous film was director assistant , with Maurizio Merli , Henry Silva , Renzo Palmer, Benito Stefanelli and Donald O'Brien .Other films about dogs inspired by Jack London novels are the followings : ¨Call of the wild ¨ by Ken Annakin with Charlton Heston , ¨White Fang¨ (1991) by Randal Kleiser with Ethan Kawke as young prospector and Klaus Maria Brandauer , and ¨The return of White Fang¨ (1994) by Ken Olin with Scott Bairstow and once again Ethan Hawke . And "The Cry of the Wolf" by Gianfranco Baldanello with Joan Collins , Jack Palance , Manuel De Blas , ¨Buck¨ by Tonino Ricci with John Savage and ¨Buck and the magic bracelet ¨ by Tonino Ricci with Matt McCoy .. Lucio scares the kiddies. This is supposed to be a children's film, right? Who else but Lucio Fulci would present a film for the kids involving a young boy being shot dead, nuns burning to death, gold prospectors freezing in the snow then having their legs amputated (and then tortured!), a dog fighting an eagle, a man shooting himself in the head and a bunch of dogs eating a guy alive? Just look at the line up of actors for this one, however. You've got Franco Nero (Street Law, Enter the Ninja), John Stiener (Commando Leopard and Mannaja), in fine moustache twiddling evil form here, Donald O'Brien (Emmanual and the Last Cannibals, Ghosthouse), Werner Pocath (Days of Hell and Cat of Nine Tails) and a guy who looks like Al Cliver (House of Clocks and Demonia), but isn't Al Civer (Devil Hunter and White Cannibal Queen). Wasn't Al Cliver (The Beyond and Zombie Flesh Eaters) available? Also, Nick Alexander dubs about 70% of the cast personally. I haven't even got to the dog yet! While Franco Nero is off enjoying the success of his book about White Fang, White Fang himself witnesses John Stiener kill three Indians (including a kid) and then ends up with a boy call Bill. Bill at first calls White Fang 'Firebreath', although on my washed out copy it kind of sounded like he was calling the dog 'Fartbreath'. The boy and the dog bond, while Bill's granddad hustles for cash while looking for a gold mine everyone's searching for. The town is supplied by Forth (Steiner), who sells people supplies that can hardly keep them alive in the wilderness.Meanwhile, a nun pegs Forth as the disguise of an evil guy (probably from the first film, which I haven't seen), but the local police are in cahoots with Forth, so Nero, the nun, Donald O'Brien etc try and figure out a plan to bring Forth down, which doesn't end well for several people. Before you know it, O'Brien's being fed to some dogs, White Fang takes the rap, and him and Bill have to head for the hills.Another guy found frozen half to death by O'Brien spills the beans about the location of the gold mine (after having his frostbitten legs removed) and therefore everyone is racing to get to the gold. I'll say no more about the fate of the rest of the characters (not much of a spoiler for O'Brien's character, as I honestly can't think of a single film he survives).What makes me think that this is intended for kids is the extent to which Fulci does manage to restrain himself. Ever watched Four of the Apocalypse? Here, there's not much gore, but still plenty of violent situations. Even with my washed out, full screen copy, I could see that Fulci was employing all his usual visual techniques, and you can go wrong with that roster of actors. Nero's always good, but between this film and Mannaja, I'm really beginning to appreciate John Steiner too. He makes an excellent villain.One point that had me slightly worried was the words 'animals' and 'Italian seventies film' cropping up, but to it looked like they actually manage to make the film without harming anything, although I'm not sure how they managed the 'dog fighting the eagle' scene. Surely they couldn't afford to waste an eagle? I'm pretty sure they didn't, what with the quick editing and what not. If they had wasted an eagle, they would have lingered on it (and Fulci never seemed to steep as low as Lenzi, Deodato, or Sergio Martino).Overall, good cast, good story, plenty of action. Hooray for Challenge to Fartbreath! This is Seventies Fulci gold, not late-eighties, bummed out by making horror films Fulci.I agree with the only other reviewer on here - They'd never make a film like this these days.