Wednesday, 23 March 2011
BLOODY VENGEANCE (Indonesia)
Original title: DARAH PERJAKA
VHS / Greece / FS / English dub / Greek subs
VCD / Malaysia / FS / Indonesian audio / no subs
VHS / Greece / FS / English dub / Greek subs
VCD / Malaysia / FS / Indonesian audio / no subs
THE INTRUDER (Indonesia)
aka RAMBU among fans
VHS / Denmark / FS / English dub / Danish subs / international edit
VHS / Denmark / FS / English dub / Danish subs / international edit
THE RIVER (Turkey)
Original title: Nehir
Kapløb med Døden (Denmark)
VHS / Denmark / FS / English dub / Danish subs / international version
VHS / Greece / FS / Turkish audio / Greek subs / original Turkish edit
Described by Bill Barounis (of Onar Films) as "Turkish Deliverance"!
Kapløb med Døden (Denmark)
VHS / Denmark / FS / English dub / Danish subs / international version
VHS / Greece / FS / Turkish audio / Greek subs / original Turkish editDescribed by Bill Barounis (of Onar Films) as "Turkish Deliverance"!
LADY EXTERMINATOR (Indonesia)
Original title: BARANG TERLARANG
aka I WANT REVENGE / VIOLENT KILLER
NB: This is the Indonesian film LADY EXTERMINATOR NOT to be confused with neither the Hong Kong film also called LADY EXTERMINATOR nor another Indonesian film called LADY TERMINATOR.
VHS / Denmark / letterbox / English dub / Danish subs
VCD / Indonesia / fullscreen / Indonesian audio / no subs
And how's this for weirdness!! :-O
This is the Pakistani poster for the Japanese girl gang film GO FOR BROKE (which needless to say doesn't star Eva Arnaz in her Lady Exterminator outfit)!!!
[French poster]
aka I WANT REVENGE / VIOLENT KILLER
NB: This is the Indonesian film LADY EXTERMINATOR NOT to be confused with neither the Hong Kong film also called LADY EXTERMINATOR nor another Indonesian film called LADY TERMINATOR.
VHS / Denmark / letterbox / English dub / Danish subs
VCD / Indonesia / fullscreen / Indonesian audio / no subs
And how's this for weirdness!! :-O
This is the Pakistani poster for the Japanese girl gang film GO FOR BROKE (which needless to say doesn't star Eva Arnaz in her Lady Exterminator outfit)!!!
[French poster]
LADY EXTERMINATOR (Hong Kong, 1977)
Please notice: This is the Shaw Brothers film LADY EXTERMINATOR from Hong Kong. It's not to be confused with the Indonesian film by the same title that stars Eva Arnaz or to be confused with yet another Indonesian film called LADY TERMINATOR (both of those are also listed on this blog).
Now, if there's a film that really, totally, uber-ly, fits the bill on this blog it's this film! Talk about obscure!! LADY EXTERMINATOR is the sequel to DRUG CONNECTION (aka Sexy Killer) but whereas the original movie is fairly easy to get hold of (as it was released on DVD and VCD by Celestial in HK, unfortunately now OOP) very few fans have watched the sequel due to the simple fact that it has NEVER been released in ANY home-cinema format anywhere! Never! Ever! There's no old video tapes from Greece or OOP VCD's from HK, or even an old deleted laserdisc. Nope. Never released!!!
It ran in the HK cinemas back in the day but it wasn't very popular and I suspect the film makers didn't even intend it for the Hong Kong home market but mostly for overseas sales as the first film had done quite well in foreign lands. But altho it has never been officially released to home-cinema sometime in the 80s (I think) someone snug a camera into a cinema and filmed a copy of LADY EXTERMINATOR while it played (my guess is it was probably somewhere in Africa as the print is dubbed in English and has Arabic and French subtitles)! This bootleg version is doing the rounds among collectors but needless to say the print is terrible; Missing picture info on ALL four sides and the sound is, well, what it is. :/
But even so it's sure fun to watch a film which is THAT rare!
I think Global Video in South Africa may own a copy of the film on either 35mm or 16mm as the owner asked members of Cinehound forum if they could help out with cover scans a few years back. Most of his prints seem to be HK films and spaghetti westerns so there's a good chance his "Lady Exterminator" is the HK film - but it could also be the Indo film. But in any case he never released it and I highly doubt he will by now.
Now, if there's a film that really, totally, uber-ly, fits the bill on this blog it's this film! Talk about obscure!! LADY EXTERMINATOR is the sequel to DRUG CONNECTION (aka Sexy Killer) but whereas the original movie is fairly easy to get hold of (as it was released on DVD and VCD by Celestial in HK, unfortunately now OOP) very few fans have watched the sequel due to the simple fact that it has NEVER been released in ANY home-cinema format anywhere! Never! Ever! There's no old video tapes from Greece or OOP VCD's from HK, or even an old deleted laserdisc. Nope. Never released!!!
It ran in the HK cinemas back in the day but it wasn't very popular and I suspect the film makers didn't even intend it for the Hong Kong home market but mostly for overseas sales as the first film had done quite well in foreign lands. But altho it has never been officially released to home-cinema sometime in the 80s (I think) someone snug a camera into a cinema and filmed a copy of LADY EXTERMINATOR while it played (my guess is it was probably somewhere in Africa as the print is dubbed in English and has Arabic and French subtitles)! This bootleg version is doing the rounds among collectors but needless to say the print is terrible; Missing picture info on ALL four sides and the sound is, well, what it is. :/
But even so it's sure fun to watch a film which is THAT rare!
I think Global Video in South Africa may own a copy of the film on either 35mm or 16mm as the owner asked members of Cinehound forum if they could help out with cover scans a few years back. Most of his prints seem to be HK films and spaghetti westerns so there's a good chance his "Lady Exterminator" is the HK film - but it could also be the Indo film. But in any case he never released it and I highly doubt he will by now.
The Danish SUAREZ connection
My friend Hans-Jørn found this rare and VERY obscure trailer for Bobby A. Suarez' film HITMAN (aka American Commandos / Philippines, 1986) on a Danish ex-rental video tape! It's obscure not least because it plays out as a music video instead of an actual film trailer!! And an even more obscure twist is that HITMAN was partly backed by Danish financing as it was produced by Danish producer Just Betzer. Betzer is also credited as executive producer on Suarez' SEACHERS OF THE VOODOO MOUNTAINS (aka Warriors of the Apocalypse / Philippines, 1985). The music is composed by Danish composer Ole Høyer and the female singer is Danish/American Debbie Cameron who was "world famous" in Denmark thru out the 1980s.
SEACHERS OF THE VOODOO MOUNTAINS on VHS from Denmark.
It would have been fun to interview Just Betzer about his collaboration with Suarez but unfortunately he passed away a few years back.
It's interesting to see that these films aren't even listed in his credits on the Danish Film Institute site. Danes who get famous for work overseas don't necessarily get any love for it on home-soil. The same goes for Anders Hove; Every little vampire movie fan in the US knows and loves him for his awesome vampire character Radu in the SUBSPECIES films. Nobody in Denmark gives a fuck about that and these films are usually not even mentioned when his films are listed on Danish film sites. Instead people talk about his work in TV Christmas calender shows for kids, etc. How very sad!
And one more thing in regards to Just Benzer; Yesterday, I received DarkSky's new (very cool!) DVD release of Suarez ONE ARMED EXECUTIONER and CLEOPATRA WONG and in Andrew Leavold's interview with Bobby Suarez he talks about a Scandinavian film director who came over to visit him in the Philippines and who wanted to buy Bobby's camera (he didn't sell it tho). I wonder if that might have been Betzer?
(VHS, Denmark)
Thanks to Diabolik for uploading (and re-uploading) the trailer to YT for me! Cheers mate!!
This is a re-post that was originally posted on WHEN THE VIETNAM WAR RAGED... IN THE PHILIPPINES blog in November, 2010.
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Rare worldweird video covers
WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD (Taiwan, 1982)
[Tai Seng VHS, USA]
[click scan for bigger size]
This must undoubtedly be one of the most rare Asian films and video tapes!
WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD isn't available ANYWHERE!!! There are no DVDs, no video-cd's, no laserdiscs, nothing but the faint memory of some very few long lost video releases. This is actually the only release that I'm aware of but a few years back I got some third hand hearsay info that there might have been a Vietnamese video release at some point. In any case, none of them had English subtitles I don't think and I'm not aware of any fan subbed versions.
And before you ask: No, I don't own this tape. I would sure love to! The scan comes courtesy of Jean-Claude Michel from Cinehound forum. And he doesn't own it either but was lucky to get a friend who owned it to make him a scan just before he himself sold it off again. Who knows where in the world this copy is now!? A while back I asked Pete Tombs of Mondo Macabro if this where a film they would consider for release and he said they'd love to but they couldn't find neither a print nor the copyright owners!!! O_O
So for now I'm certainly holding on to my dvd-r bootleg that looks like it was sourced from a 3'rd or 4'th generation video tape.
The film's entry on Hong Kong Movie Data Base.
[Tai Seng VHS, USA]
[click scan for bigger size]This must undoubtedly be one of the most rare Asian films and video tapes!
WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD isn't available ANYWHERE!!! There are no DVDs, no video-cd's, no laserdiscs, nothing but the faint memory of some very few long lost video releases. This is actually the only release that I'm aware of but a few years back I got some third hand hearsay info that there might have been a Vietnamese video release at some point. In any case, none of them had English subtitles I don't think and I'm not aware of any fan subbed versions.
And before you ask: No, I don't own this tape. I would sure love to! The scan comes courtesy of Jean-Claude Michel from Cinehound forum. And he doesn't own it either but was lucky to get a friend who owned it to make him a scan just before he himself sold it off again. Who knows where in the world this copy is now!? A while back I asked Pete Tombs of Mondo Macabro if this where a film they would consider for release and he said they'd love to but they couldn't find neither a print nor the copyright owners!!! O_O
So for now I'm certainly holding on to my dvd-r bootleg that looks like it was sourced from a 3'rd or 4'th generation video tape.
The film's entry on Hong Kong Movie Data Base.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
BLACK MAGIC WITH BUDDHA (Hong Kong, 1983) [review]
aka BLACK MAGIC WITH BUTCHERY
directed by Lo Lieh
by JACK J
Two adventurers find a mummy in a grave in Thailand. They open the mummy's head and take out the brain. One of them, Ben, brings it with him back to Hong Kong in a little wooden box. Once back home in HK Ben wants to use the brain to gain wealth. The brain has some kinda power and by using black magic Ben can get it to help him reach his goal. But as in so many other 'black magic' films from HK the main character is truly a bad egg, and Westerners often find it hard to deal with a film that doesn't have a good looking hero who at the end would score some equally good looking chick!
Well, as I said Ben uses the brain to become rich but as so often when you sell your soul to evil forces there is a price to pay: When Ben has got his wealth he must return the brain to where he took it. And as it is also often the case, our 'hero' doesn't wanna fulfil his part of the deal. And so heaps of weirdo stuff take place due to the brain being pissed off with Ben: Ben's family find dead dogs and monkeys 'round the house. While Ben is driving his car blood suddenly gushes down the front window. The evil brain changes to a bigger size and hides in the fridge!
There is also some amazing wild and gory scenes containing quite a bit of the old gooey red stuff: Ben chucks up pieces of brain, the pieces collect themselves into a full brain and then tries to escape a good magician who tries to zap the brain with, like, a zapping spell! Ben is also attacked by the brain that then opens his head so that his own brain is spurting out everywhere and down his face like gooey porridge! And heaps of other wild stuff happen!
The flick is directed by Lo Lieh, who also acted in the BLACK MAGIC films, and also in HUMAN SKIN LANTERNS. The style of BLACK MAGIC WITH BUDDHA is smiilar to that of BLACK MAGIC 2 (and probably also BM 1 and HUMAM... but I haven't watched those, unfortunately!) and THE RAPE AFTER.
These are movies with black magic and gross-out stuff that you don't find in any Western films; there is an almost nasty feeling that follows you thru the whole movie! All these films are highly recommendable! They also steer away from the hopping vampire/ghost movies in that they are played straight. There is none of the otherwise well-known HK slapstick humour. The only funny scene in BMWH is entirely due to the version I watched wasn't shown in its letterboxed original format but had been changed to the tv format, which meant that in one scene you see a knee sitting at a table talking to a hand on the other side!
The subtitles were, well, lets just say they were a bit hard to read, with words missing at the beginning and at the end of lines, odd grammar and ehh unusual spelling. But on the other hand, this here is a Danish fanzine and who be am I to slag other pepples off for doingg inkorrect inglish! But anyway, when a film is as good as this who gives a fuck!
Version reviewed: Hong Kong release in Cantonese with Chinese and Englisjh subs.
First printed in #1 of my zine BANNED IN BRITAIN in 1994.
Brian at Cool Ass Cinema blog also just reviewed the film and the poster scan in this post is borrowed from his review (and he got it from Hong Kong Movie Data Base, LOL). The VHS cover scan is from Lars Jacobsson.
directed by Lo Lieh
by JACK J
Two adventurers find a mummy in a grave in Thailand. They open the mummy's head and take out the brain. One of them, Ben, brings it with him back to Hong Kong in a little wooden box. Once back home in HK Ben wants to use the brain to gain wealth. The brain has some kinda power and by using black magic Ben can get it to help him reach his goal. But as in so many other 'black magic' films from HK the main character is truly a bad egg, and Westerners often find it hard to deal with a film that doesn't have a good looking hero who at the end would score some equally good looking chick!
Well, as I said Ben uses the brain to become rich but as so often when you sell your soul to evil forces there is a price to pay: When Ben has got his wealth he must return the brain to where he took it. And as it is also often the case, our 'hero' doesn't wanna fulfil his part of the deal. And so heaps of weirdo stuff take place due to the brain being pissed off with Ben: Ben's family find dead dogs and monkeys 'round the house. While Ben is driving his car blood suddenly gushes down the front window. The evil brain changes to a bigger size and hides in the fridge!
There is also some amazing wild and gory scenes containing quite a bit of the old gooey red stuff: Ben chucks up pieces of brain, the pieces collect themselves into a full brain and then tries to escape a good magician who tries to zap the brain with, like, a zapping spell! Ben is also attacked by the brain that then opens his head so that his own brain is spurting out everywhere and down his face like gooey porridge! And heaps of other wild stuff happen!
The flick is directed by Lo Lieh, who also acted in the BLACK MAGIC films, and also in HUMAN SKIN LANTERNS. The style of BLACK MAGIC WITH BUDDHA is smiilar to that of BLACK MAGIC 2 (and probably also BM 1 and HUMAM... but I haven't watched those, unfortunately!) and THE RAPE AFTER.
These are movies with black magic and gross-out stuff that you don't find in any Western films; there is an almost nasty feeling that follows you thru the whole movie! All these films are highly recommendable! They also steer away from the hopping vampire/ghost movies in that they are played straight. There is none of the otherwise well-known HK slapstick humour. The only funny scene in BMWH is entirely due to the version I watched wasn't shown in its letterboxed original format but had been changed to the tv format, which meant that in one scene you see a knee sitting at a table talking to a hand on the other side!
The subtitles were, well, lets just say they were a bit hard to read, with words missing at the beginning and at the end of lines, odd grammar and ehh unusual spelling. But on the other hand, this here is a Danish fanzine and who be am I to slag other pepples off for doingg inkorrect inglish! But anyway, when a film is as good as this who gives a fuck!
Version reviewed: Hong Kong release in Cantonese with Chinese and Englisjh subs.
First printed in #1 of my zine BANNED IN BRITAIN in 1994.
Brian at Cool Ass Cinema blog also just reviewed the film and the poster scan in this post is borrowed from his review (and he got it from Hong Kong Movie Data Base, LOL). The VHS cover scan is from Lars Jacobsson.
Thursday, 17 March 2011
Mess with beautiful Byzantine women and they'll give ya HELL!!!
From a Mondo Macabro screening on UK TV of KARAMURAT, THE SULTAN'S WARRIOR. Thanks to Henrik Larsen of Obskuriøst magazine (and initially Graham Rix).
Monday, 14 March 2011
ISLAND WARRIORS (Taiwan, 1981)
Dir: Ulysses Au Yeung-Jun
I watched ISLAND WARRIORS last night and what can I say but, woah!! It's a fun movie about an island of men-hating women who fight pirates!! I really should do a review but until I (maybe) do that you can read TarTarkas' cool review here. The screen grabs are from my Greek VHS. There is a DVD release in the US with the crappiest cover I ever saw. Apparently the picture quality isn't any better than the Greek video tape which, if nothing else, has RAD cover art!!
I watched ISLAND WARRIORS last night and what can I say but, woah!! It's a fun movie about an island of men-hating women who fight pirates!! I really should do a review but until I (maybe) do that you can read TarTarkas' cool review here. The screen grabs are from my Greek VHS. There is a DVD release in the US with the crappiest cover I ever saw. Apparently the picture quality isn't any better than the Greek video tape which, if nothing else, has RAD cover art!!
Friday, 11 March 2011
THE BIG BOSS PART 2 (Hong Kong/Thailand, 1976)
aka Tang Shan Er Xiong
GEE, I WISH I WERE IN ZAMBIA!!!
About a year and a half ago I stumbled over the above trailer on YouTube. The film is THE BIG BOSS PART 2 and it's a kind of sequel to the Bruce Lee film. It was directed by Chan Chue and stars Lo Lieh and Bruce Le (and should not be confused with several other films also using the same title in various different territories). The film is listed on Hong Kong Movie Data Base as being a HK film but I'm sure some of those actors are Thai so until I get more solid info I'm listing it as a co-production. Oh, and the difference between this one and THE BIG BOSS is that Lee's film is out there, everywhere, on DVD and VHS, while this on is... completely impossible to get to see. Well, unless you live in Zambia! (I'll get to that in a tic).
The trailer looks like this is a fun, trashy, cheap, exploitative and WILD film! Some martial arts fans have stated it looks crappy and, well if I were a real kung fu film fan I might agree - but I'm not! I'm a fan of, well, trashy, cheap, exploitative and wild films! LOL. So it looks just up my alley. I would certainly love to see THE BIG BOSS PART 2 but unfortunately that's most likely not going to happen any day soon.
In the 18 months since I found the trailer I have come up with this info about a release: There is none! There's never been any!! And there may never be one!!! It's almost a lost film ... well, if it weren't for the fact that I'm aware of the existence of ONE cinema print!
It seems that back in the apartheid days of the 70s and 80s a lot of wild HK and other Asian films played in the South African cinemas. One big cinema had a lot of these prints and when the owner died his son-in-law took over. That guy formed a video label called Global and he started to put out a lot of these rare films on DVD.
Crude cinema prints were used for the DVD's without any form of restoration but at least it means you can get to see these rare films. I have some Filipino films from Global that haven't been released anywhere else on DVD and altho the DVD's in question are direct off 16mm film prints they're cool enough (one of the films is THEY CALL HER... CLEOPATRA WONG which has also come out from Dark Sky recently). If you're into spaghetti westerns you've undoubtedly come across the odd Global release.
Anyhoo, to make a long story short the Global guy had a print of THE BIG BOSS PART 2 but didn't wish to release it (despite heaps of fans bugging him about it) and in the end he sold the print to a cinema in Zambia. I don't have the name nor location of said cinema.
I wrote to him and bugged him about a DVD-R but he was adamant; no DVD-R! However, and get this, because some fans on Kung Fu Cinema forum doubted that he even had a print he uploaded 10 minutes from the film to YouTube! So even tho he never intended to release the film or make DVD-R copies he let everyone see what they couldn't have. Boo-hoo. I wish I were in Zambia. :(
Anyway, check out the trailer and the 10 minute clip. The picture quality of the clip is pretty good (but I fear it may not even look this good anymore if it's been shown 50 times at a run down cinema in Zambia). As with most Asian films that ran in the South African cinemas it's dubbed into English.
These magazine scans are nicked from HKMDB so thanks to whoever uploaded them.
Click scans for bigger size.
Notice how the article writer misspells Bruce Lee's name as Bruce "Li". Ironic as one of the Bruce Lee clones that was "invented" after his death was none other than Bruce Li.
GEE, I WISH I WERE IN ZAMBIA!!!
About a year and a half ago I stumbled over the above trailer on YouTube. The film is THE BIG BOSS PART 2 and it's a kind of sequel to the Bruce Lee film. It was directed by Chan Chue and stars Lo Lieh and Bruce Le (and should not be confused with several other films also using the same title in various different territories). The film is listed on Hong Kong Movie Data Base as being a HK film but I'm sure some of those actors are Thai so until I get more solid info I'm listing it as a co-production. Oh, and the difference between this one and THE BIG BOSS is that Lee's film is out there, everywhere, on DVD and VHS, while this on is... completely impossible to get to see. Well, unless you live in Zambia! (I'll get to that in a tic).
The trailer looks like this is a fun, trashy, cheap, exploitative and WILD film! Some martial arts fans have stated it looks crappy and, well if I were a real kung fu film fan I might agree - but I'm not! I'm a fan of, well, trashy, cheap, exploitative and wild films! LOL. So it looks just up my alley. I would certainly love to see THE BIG BOSS PART 2 but unfortunately that's most likely not going to happen any day soon.
In the 18 months since I found the trailer I have come up with this info about a release: There is none! There's never been any!! And there may never be one!!! It's almost a lost film ... well, if it weren't for the fact that I'm aware of the existence of ONE cinema print!
It seems that back in the apartheid days of the 70s and 80s a lot of wild HK and other Asian films played in the South African cinemas. One big cinema had a lot of these prints and when the owner died his son-in-law took over. That guy formed a video label called Global and he started to put out a lot of these rare films on DVD.
Crude cinema prints were used for the DVD's without any form of restoration but at least it means you can get to see these rare films. I have some Filipino films from Global that haven't been released anywhere else on DVD and altho the DVD's in question are direct off 16mm film prints they're cool enough (one of the films is THEY CALL HER... CLEOPATRA WONG which has also come out from Dark Sky recently). If you're into spaghetti westerns you've undoubtedly come across the odd Global release.
Anyhoo, to make a long story short the Global guy had a print of THE BIG BOSS PART 2 but didn't wish to release it (despite heaps of fans bugging him about it) and in the end he sold the print to a cinema in Zambia. I don't have the name nor location of said cinema.
I wrote to him and bugged him about a DVD-R but he was adamant; no DVD-R! However, and get this, because some fans on Kung Fu Cinema forum doubted that he even had a print he uploaded 10 minutes from the film to YouTube! So even tho he never intended to release the film or make DVD-R copies he let everyone see what they couldn't have. Boo-hoo. I wish I were in Zambia. :(
Anyway, check out the trailer and the 10 minute clip. The picture quality of the clip is pretty good (but I fear it may not even look this good anymore if it's been shown 50 times at a run down cinema in Zambia). As with most Asian films that ran in the South African cinemas it's dubbed into English.
These magazine scans are nicked from HKMDB so thanks to whoever uploaded them.
Click scans for bigger size.
Notice how the article writer misspells Bruce Lee's name as Bruce "Li". Ironic as one of the Bruce Lee clones that was "invented" after his death was none other than Bruce Li.
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