ZUMA 2: HELL SERPENT (aka Anak Ni Zuma) - ultra rare English dubbed clip

This is a an uber rare English dubbed scene from the Filipino horror movie ZUMA 2: HELL SERPENT (original title: Anak Ni Zuma) which is a sequel to ZUMA. A version in Tagalog language exists on Filipino VCD but this English dubbed print is very obscure. And until someone recently sent me a link to this clip on a RUSSIAN page I wouldn't even have guessed it had been dubbed as I have never come across or heard of an English friendly version. The subtitles are in Chinese and (I believe) Indonesian but I have absolutely no info on where this was released. Maybe on VHS in Malaysia.

If any of you have this English dubbed print please get in touch! (I don't need the Tagalog version as I've already got the Filipino VCD, thanks).



[Filipino VCD/in Tagalog/no subs]

English text on the VCD cover although the film is in Tagalog and doesn't have English subtitles.

Last Warrior / Son Savasci (Turkey, 1982)

I've just finished watching the legendary Turkish action/ninja movie LAST WARRIOR (aka Son Savasci) starring the main pride of Turkish cinema, Cüneyt Arkin. The film was directed by another legend in Turkish cult cinema Cetin Inanc. I'm not gonna bore you with a list of his films, if you're into world-weird cinema you already know and treasure them, but the one title Inanc sure is gonna be remembered for is TURKISH STAR WARS (aka The Man Who Saves the World/Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam) which also stars Arkin and sexy Füsun Ucar who plays his love interest in both films (she's also in the follow up DEATH WARRIOR/Ölüm Savascisi).




This time Arkin is a Turkish cop with a past; He was in the Korean war (which ended in 1953 and LAST WARRIOR is set in the early 80s!!!) where he learnt the skills of a ninja. When the movie begins Arkin gets a phone call from his police chief asking him to go to Germany to help the German polizei who are having trouble with people being bumped off by... a ninja!! (I wonder how Danish or Aussie police would handle such a case?) and Arkin would obviously be the right man to fight the ninja as he knows "the way of the ninja" so to speak. xD




When Arkin gets the call he's on holiday with sexy (very sexy) Füsun Ucar but even tho she looks at him with those sexy (very sexy) Turkish eyes he's adamant, "A cop never be owner of ownself" as he puts it in the crappy subtitles. Once he's arrived over in Deutschland he experiences the carnage left behind by the brutal ninja and with the local police he sets out to put an end to this masterless criminal's reign of terror.




LAST WARRIOR is totally entertaining! There's not ONE dull moment in the entire film and you really don't want to blink because you'll just miss something. I referred to TURKISH STAR WARS earlier in this review and once again Cetin Inanc saves money by stealing left and right from an American film! This time obviously not from the original STAR WARS but from some film with lots of car chases in it! You'll see Cüneyt Arkin throw himself from side to side, frantically turn the steering wheel, and work that gear rod like there's no tomorrow - and then the camera angle jumps to an outside view of the car - or rather how the car looks in the American film, haha. I have no idea which films the scenes are from but, regardless, it adds to the awesomeness of the film that's for sure! :D

EDIT: The stolen scenes are from Paul Bartel's CANNONBALL (1976)!! Thanks to Jayson of "Basement of Ghoulish Decadence" blog for this info.




The DVD I got is from my friends at Ciko in Turkey; They actually asked Cetin Inanc if it were all right to release his films on DVD-R and they got his okay. However, that doesn't change the fact that this has the look and feel of a bootleg; The print is sourced from an old VHS and there's no cover or disc art (apart from the handwritten title, LOL). But in contradiction to earlier bootleg releases this DVD-R is actually subtitled in English (or something that resembles English anyway) and big kudos to Ciko for this! The quality of the print used for the original VHS is alright, I have certainly seen VHS prints that were far worse. There's also a trailer but in contradiction to the film print the trailer looks like it was downloaded from YouTube, in other words it's pretty crappy (and for some reason not subtitled!) but it's cool it's included.




I must admit I've seen enough Turkish and HK Chinese films that weren't English friendly to last me a lifetime and I'm happy to just get ANY kind of English subs. However, having said that, I should point out the subs are not very good TO SAY THE LEAST. They'll give you a fairly good impression of what's being said but to tell you the truth the subs kinda blow in a major way! And trust me, this isn't a question of me making a note of the few times there's a slight spelling error or some bad grammar; This is a question of making a note every time there's a correct sentence!!




Some of my film friends, especially in the US, have commented that the subs are alright but I disagree on this and I think it's partly due to a cultural difference; In the English speaking world films were rarely subtitled in the old days and so native English speakers weren't used to subtitles. But what they were used to was foreigners who spoke broken English. So somehow they just see subtitles in broken English as an extension of this.




In northern Europe on the other hand, all foreign movies have always been subtitled into the local lingo. And the way I see it, the characters in these Turkish films speak perfect Turkish so why would it be okay to have them translated into broken English? They don't speak broken Turkish so OBVIOUSLY the English subs ought to be correct too.




Anyway, forget about the less than perfect subs and get hold of LAST WARRIOR anyway! The DVD is available from Ciko's eBay store "Turkish Cult". Just trust me on this one! Hands down, it is a totally enjoyable piece of trashy Turko celluloid and the film shits all over 99% of EVERYTHING ever made in Denmark!!! Inanc made a sequel two years later, DEATH WARRIOR (aka Ölüm Savascisi), which also stars Cuneyt Arkin and Füsun Ucar.

For Ciko's Turkish Cult shop on eBay go here.

NB.
In regards to the English subtitles: in all fairness I should point out this DVD-R is one of their earlier releases and (reportedly) they put more effort into their translations now as the subs are being checked by a native English speaker.













And finally a girl... and a sniper... and a car... of which none of them knew they were one day going to take part in a Turkish film, LOL:

Crazy Indonesia: "From fighting in the streets to fighting in the sheets"

Trailer for the Indonesian colonial war movie DAREDEVIL COMMANDOS (1985) starring Barry Prima, from Rapi Films.





The cover scans are both Danish. The cover text reads: "An exiting 5 star action movie from the inhumane war hell of the jungle", haha. Five star film!? o_O

THE BIG BOSS - original, rejected English dub finally made public!

In the past, I've written about the possibility of this ever happening and now it's indeed reality!! Someone in the UK owns a mega rare 35mm print of the original English dubbed version of Bruce Lee's THE BIG BOSS and they've put it up for purchase. Not as a hardcopy but only as download.

Like I've said before, I'm not particularly interested in English dubbed versions of Hong Kong films but with this one it's a different matter. The background makes it interesting! After the original Mandarin language print was made, an English dubbed print was made for export and distributed to certain Middle Eastern territories. When Bruce Lee watched this version he completely hated the dub, and when the film was bought for American distribution the Americans (I assume) thought the dub was too crappy and had a new one made.

This new dub is the one that was distributed to the rest of the world. The original English dubbed version quickly disappeared and was never released to any home-cinema format. A few years ago VideoAsia in the US (yes, the bootleg company VideoAsia!!) announced they were going to release this rare version on DVD but it never happened! It's widely believed by fans that "someone" "asked" the company not to release it. Well, anyway, it seems it's finally here!

I've got confirmation from a fan that the uploaded version is real and not bogus (he's got a copy!) and it's finally out now. Unfortunately, con-artists who claim to have lost/rare prints in the Kung Fu community isn't an unknown phenomenon! I must admit I had my doubts as to this ever being released (altho, of course, it's not a real release but you know what I mean).

Now we just need someone to dig out THE BIG BOSS, PART 2 (the Lo Lieh film) from the realm of lost Hong Kong films, and not to mention the fully uncut Mandarin print of THE BIG BOSS (including the mystical saw-in-head scene!). How awesome would that be!!!

The original trailer with the rejected dub:

ZUMA - finally uncut & subtitled!!

[Click scan for full high res size]

Thanks to my French Canadian friend Matt over in Korea I now own a remastered, uncut, and subtitled print of the legendary Filipino horror movie ZUMA!! Yay!!! I've had a dvd-r dupe of ZUMA for quite some time but the film is in Tagalog and needless to say the Japanse VHS doesn't have English subs. ZUMA has never been released in an English friendly edition anywhere so it goes without saying that this is a custom made version. I don't download from torrent sites but I'm aware that a subtitled version of the Japanese VHS has been available for a while. However, firstly the Japanese VHS is missing no less than FIVE minutes and apparently the print wasn't all that good (and out of sync too). This new print has the missing scenes re-inserted (from a TV print), and Matt has remastered the print and re-synced the audio. Oh, and he also did the way cool cover you see in the above!! Cheers, Matt.
Matt also sent me a subtitled and uncut fan edit that he did of POSSESSED II and a properly letterboxed edition of the Indo flick HUNGRY SNAKE WOMAN (starring Suzzanna). More YAY!!!

H-BOMB (Thailand/Hong Kong, 1973)

In 1972 Chris Mitchum and Olivia Hussey both starred in Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi's Italian/Spanish/French co-production SUMMERTIME KILLER. That film has become somewhat of a cult movie but actually already in 1971 Mitchum and Hussey joined forces in the Thai/Hong Kong co-production H-BOMB. After having just watched the film it seems to me that this is a co-production where the Hong Kong part is probably just the money aspect of it. The director, P. Chalong, and most of the cast is from Thailand, the film was shot in Thailand, and everything reeks of Thai. Well, apart from the gwailo actors in the lead roles, obviously.

Edit: H-BOMB was actually made in 1973 after SUMMERTIME KILLER!
(See Andrew Leavold's comment in the comments section) 




I tried to get hold of this on video about a year ago when it was listed on eBay but lost out to another bidder. Well, good thing too cos I'm pretty sure all the old video versions are fullscreen (like the ones used for the Youtube clips) and guess what; Joy Sales just put out a fully letterboxed print!

I received my copy from DDDHOUSE in Hong Kong today and watched the movie right away. And what can I say other than it's great fun! It's a mess... but a fun mess, haha. One reviewer on IMDb writes:

[ ]...entire thing feels like it was edited by a bunch of blind chimpanzees...NO! Scratch that! DRUNK blind chimpanzees!

- and, uhh, that pretty much sums it up. LOL. However, just as that reviewer says later on in his review, H-BOMB is totally entertaining. A lot of stuff doesn't make sense but screw that; It's a fun movie! There, I've said it three times now!




The plot is about some crooks in Thailand having stolen a... wait for it... H-bomb! And they're basically up to no good. In addition to this they've bumped off the two best secret agents the US had to offer. What to do, what to do. Hmm, the US and the UN could have sent in troops, the terror squad, the local CID, the police, Scotland Yard, a whole army of secret agents. But no, they send in... Chris Mitchum. Hahaha. It's so fucken hilarious, I mean millions of lives are at stake here and they send in one single agent to solve the case (and they don't even tell the Thais so a couple of times our hero is about to get arrested!!).



Anyway, enough about the convoluted plot (which was most likely written on the back of a beer coaster). Suffice to say there's lots of action and of course Olivia Hussey is a babe. The print that Fortune Star/Joy Sales have released is as I mentioned earlier a good looking letterboxed print. Well, "good looking" in its being letterboxed but unfortunately it's an old scratched print that was used as a door-stop for 20 yrs. It's got a lot of scratches. As with so many of these releases from FS/JS's this one gets a VCD release way before we're rewarded with a DVD so that's all there is for now. But like I said earlier, even tho I haven't watched any of the old video releases this probably looks better than those due to its letterboxed status. There's only one audio track, which fortunately is the English dub (with Chinese subs in the black bar). Now, if this hadn't been so entertaining in a crappy, rough and even gritty way I might have been more annoyed by the fact that the two main actors are dubbed by someone else than themselves but it wasn't a big deal. There a bit of gore and nudity as well (one beheading and our friend Chris visits a bar with nudie dancing). Recommended!


From H-BOMB:




Pretty cool fan made trailer for SUMMERTIME KILLER:

Ultra rare Filipino movie on Greek VHS

GET MY SON DEAD OR ALIVE
[click scan for full size]

Bill Barounis (of Onar Films) posted this scan on Cinehound yesterday!!! As I'm sure you realise Bill knows the ins and outs of Greek VHS releases and according to him this tape is the ONLY copy he's ever found! And as if that wasn't enough, he also states this tape is the ONLY tape this video label ever released!! How awesome. Bill, please send me this tape!!! xD


GET MY SON DEAD OR ALIVE
(Bukang Liwayway Films)

[Philippines release date 27th May 1982]

Director Jose “Pepe” Marcos Story Felix E. Dalay Screenplay Jerry Tirazona Producer Precy Mendiola Talavera Executive Producer Jerry Paz Talavera Cinematography Rey de Leon Music Gabby Castellano Editor Gervacio Santos Art Director Rolly Sto. Domingo Production Manager Celso Paz Talavera Assistant Director Dante Javier Sound Effects Editor Rodel Capule Sound Engineer Robert Tejada Color Consultant Rafael Uy Publicity and Promotions Mar F. Cornes, Rod Samson

Cast Rudy Fernandez, Eddie Garcia, Vic Vargas, Perla Bautista, Marilou Bendigo, Phillip Gamboa, Nick Aladdin, Jing Caparas, Joseph de Cordova, Renato Del Prado, Paquito Diaz, Ernie Forte, Baldo Marro, Jose Romulo, Jun Santos, Larry Silva, Vilma Vitug (Vilma) [Greek VHS cover also lists “Rechard Folk” and Joan Beck]