A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Oops, wait a minute! I didn't know this Movie, so it comes under number seventeen in my Winnetou Collection - sixteen from 1963 to 1968, plus this one produced 30 years later starring Pierre Brice (1929-2015). Winnetous Rückkehr (1998) was produced by the same staff and shot in same locations as the franchise series from 1960s. Coupled with music by Martin Bottcher it renders fine conclusion to Winnetou legacy, a German trademark. I disregard many of the hilarious remarks that I read about this hero. Most of them are written by Americans and allies that have never had respect for Winnetou, and why should they!Things go further like that. I have just watched a 45 min. TV documentary about Karl May on YouTube - "Das letzte Raetsel" (2016). It develops the thesis that Karl May was a psychotic personality with multiple identity syndrome. Narrator is a respected psychiatrist from Germany who had long time done research with Shatterhand Estate in Radebeul (near Dresden) where Karl May Archive is located. The Archive tend to embrace the voluminous heritage of the Author, i.e., some 90+ separate "Bands" of titles which consist of novels, short and long stories, travel notes and few autobiography books. Truly Nietzschean type of Superman this guy seemed to have been. Most of the presumptions for disorder personality are based on his photo archive, enlisting several big albums with photography shots thought to be forged. And how about his regular sessions at Vila Shatterhand where he presented personal "I" narratives. He even provided at sight the famous "Henry Carbine" with which he never parted during his adventures.Whether one believes in that matter, did he or did he not traveled, is problem of personal choice. Karl May did not produced his many friends that he described in his novels. Neither his several wives witnessed. He only produced photographs, many letters and the books he wrote. Many materials have been lost in time and two World Wars. In my country, I have some 40+ volumes "Bands" translated and most of them in the period 1977 to 1997. Then there are older translations before 1950s and some of them severely adapted so that you can get lost. All in all, there is good concordance between original Karl May plot and screenplay of the Winnetou franchise series from 1960s. Worth reading the whole Karl May heritage and I am in process of doing it.Now, my good American friends, why should we argue about the quality of Karl May legacy. You simply haven't read the Author in a way that you have read James Fenimore Cooper, for instance. Or you don't know that his first writing attempts were Ghost and Mystery stories like Edgar Allan Poe's. But he quit because they were such bad written stuff. Karl May became a real celebrity only when Winnetou appeared in his stories, also Kara Ben Nemsi in Africa and Ottoman Empire, also Dr. Karl Sternau in Mexico - Latin America, and also some other series that haven't appeared in Film (from South Pacific, Siberia, etc.) Enjoy your time ...

"Winnetous Rückkehr" or "Winnetou's Return" is a German movie from almost 20 years ago, but actually it is two films that runs for slightly under 90 minutes each, so the entire thing is almost 3 hours long. This one came out 30 years after the Winnetou films ended and Pierre Brice who also worked as writer on this one was 70 when it came out. Looking at the rating the film has here on IMDb, it must have been really bad, but I cannot totally confirm this. In my opinion, it was pretty much what I expected after such a long gap. There is nothing that stands really out here, but it also is not a complete failure. And looking how little I cared for some of the old Winnetou films, I actually must say this one here is not much worse. Brice even improved his acting apparently (or it is just his aura) and was not as bad as he was in some of the 1960s films. The story is one that is on par with the old ones too, and could have been taken right out of a 60s film. The major problem is one that existed already 3 decades earlier too. There is no real black-and-white in terms of the characters. They are either entirely good like saints or entirely bad like the devil. And the actors who portrayed them were not too gifted either from what I saw in here. Of course Lex Barker was long dead, but it would have been nice to see Wolter or Battaglia in here. All in all, this one is worth checking out for huge Winnetou fans, but everybody else can skip it really.