SHEELA (1987)
Page 2: Plot
 

Two well-meaning doctors, Dr. Ram, and his wife, Dr. Sita, head into the African countryside where all of the sick people are laying on their backs awaiting their arrival.  They become stranded when their boat suddenly goes over Victoria Falls because they didn't hear it coming.  Obviously, they are not injured, but the waters are alive with terrifying six-inch baby crocodiles. They decide to live in a papier mache cave and Sita soon gives birth to a daughter, but expires from the effects of grimy face make-up.  Ram is bitten by stock footage of a cobra and their child is adopted by a group of actors wearing very cheap ape suits.  She grows into a beautiful young woman with a flabby abdomen who wears animal skins.  She defends her animal friends from mean natives that look suspiciously like fat-bellied Indian extras covered with boot polish.
 
Dr Ram's father, Rai Bahadur, a multimillionaire (and a poor judge of character) hires a bad-arse named Rajah to solve the mystery of his missing son and daughter-in-law.  Rajah is a stylish kind of guy who wears tight red pants, red vest, white shirt and a black neckerchief.  He goes into the woods to look for Ram and Sita accompanied by a very strange bunch of dudes: a stocky, little man with a pencil moustache who wears a straw

sombrero; a hair-combing, gum-chewing hoodlum in studded black leathers; a bald giant with a walrus moustache who dresses like Sinbad and carries a big sword; and a gooney little guy wearing blue overalls decorated with white plastic cutlery (no reason given).  
 
A slutty redhead named Téhéhé (I think she is supposed to be African) also tags along for reasons I haven't figured out.  Shankar, the handsome son of Rai Bahadur's trusted housekeeper, is also sent along to keep an eye on things because he has a dashing way of dismounting a horse and wears Michael Jackson leather gloves 100% of the time.  He meets Sheela, the wild girl, they fall in love and run through the grass in slow motion.
The nasty crooks decide to catch Sheela to extract big bucks from Rai Bahadur but they learn that the apes have taught her kung fu and karate.  Téhéhé sunbakes in a 1950s bikini for no good reason and Sheela's animal friends eat all of the villains.  Some other bad guys appear from nowhere and capture Shankar and Sheela.
 
Back in civilisation Sheela is given a gold lamé dress to wear while Shankar is caged in the basement, but he bends the bars like Hercules and escapes.  Sheela learns that the villains have been killing and skinning animals so she tears off her dress and has a kung fu fight with them.  Sheela bites through the padlocks on the animal cages and frees them (honest), so once again they start chewing on the bad guys.  Sheela bids a forelorn Shankar farewell and rides off into the sunset on a white horse shabbily painted to look like a zebra.  A voice over sounds like it is telling us she has concluded that civilisation sucks.
 


SOURCES
• Many thanks to Frank Bonilla for providing the abridged, Turkish-dubbed DVD of this film at the last minute
IMAGES
• All vidcaps are from the abridged, Turkish-dubbed DVD of this film

• To obtain this film - pray hard, it is near impossible to find


SHEENA © is the property of Sony Pictures Corporation
This independent, non-profit, fan-based analysis of the Sheena material is copyright © 2006 Paul Wickham