I have seen this film four times now. It is a remake of the film, Naked Warriors (Pam Grier and Margaret Markov). Grier and Markov also made a film called Black Mama, White Mama (1973), a women in prison film. The Arena is not a bad remake--it owes much to the original film and to two other films/series, yes Ridley Scott's Gladiator and the series, Xena, Warrior Princess. It treats the women with a certain amount of respect and quickly focuses on their love/hate/love relationship. Another film of the same type from the Sixties: Thor and the Amazon Women.
