Hi - this is a vague recollection of a film from very early childhood - i must have watched it in the early/mid 80's... I think it's from the sword & scorcery genre, possibly medieval/fantasy type... the warriors in the film looked like Vikings or similar.. but one scene has always stuck in my mind: A hero from the film is plotted against and betrayed - the method is that someone chalks a target (like a bullseye) on the back of his garment. Later, one of the betrayers (another warrior) uses this as aim and spears him in the back while the hero is drinking from a stream (??). Anyway his back was turned and he got speared - but being a 'mighty' warrior he staggers and just manages to turn, seeing his murderer before dying... Does this ring a bell with anyone?
I also remember two other scenes in which there was a javelin/spear throwing competition between two people and (at the end of the film possiblly) a group of warriors having been sieged up or barracaded in a castle(?) open the gates and charge out.. it's entirely possible these could have been memories from other films though..
any help/leads much appreciated! - this has been an enduring mystery of mine :)
Not much help forthcoming for this one it seems. One film I can tell you about is "Thor the Conquerer." It is supposed to be a crazy barbarian movie and it has been on my "see this movie" list for a while. (Every now and then I manage to scratch one off, like the suprising "Hundra.")
Also, maybe these IMDB keyword searches can help some:
http://www.imdb.com/keyword/viking/
http://www.imdb.com/keyword/barbarian/
Possibility this could be a Martial Arts film too. Many of them have outright fantasy elements...do you recall if it might have been dubbed?
I wonder if this might not be BLOOD OF THE DRAGON (1973) which featuring a talented spear fighter? A darn good Martial Arts movie that one too. THE REVENGER (1979), another Martial Arts film, I believe has some scenes similar to those described as well.
It sounds like a version of the Siegfried legend. Siegfried was invulnerable after having bathed in the blood of a dragon he slayed, only a leaf fell on his back while he was bathing in the blood, which left him vulnerable in that one spot. He was killed by a spear to the back.
The IMDB lists a number of adaptations of the legend, so we'd need more info to narrow it down to just one, but it's likely a version of that tale.
It's entirely possible some Kung Fu films may have simply ripped off this as a plot device. I'm almost positive THE REVENGER has some seqeunces like the ones described above.
The story of Siegfried also makes up the fourth story of Wagner's Ring Cycle also called "Gotterdammerung". Here's a wiki link to a summary of the story, which pretty exactly matches the OP's description. So I think we can safely say that it is either the story of Siegfried or some variation on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6tterd%C3%A4mmerung
Here's an IMDB Siegfried search summary link
http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=Siegfried