SABOTAGE & FLY ME

SABOTAGE aka SABOTAGE 2 (original title) / CHANTAGE A L'APOCALYPSE (France) / GEHEIMCODE DEATH-FORCE (Germany)

Thanks to Resonator of Cinehound I'm now the happy owner of the cool German hardbox VHS release of SABOTAGE. Credits and reviews here.


AND I WON THIS ON EBAY:

The (according to the BBFC homepage) uncut UK vhs release of Cirio H. Santiago's FLY ME!! As I reported not long ago it was released on reg. 1 dvd from SHOUT! Factory in the US but their print is cut (because it was the absolutely ONLY print they could find). A member on Dvdmaniacs forum, Ray R, specified the cuts to the dvd in a recent thread:

Ray R:

"Got my copy today and just watched FLY ME. The pluses. picture looks great (much better than the "collector's edition" DVD I purchased a few years ago), nice to see vibrant colors and be able to make out the dark scenes.

The minuses... most of the print damage is evident towards the end of the "first reel" (Toby's mother putting on night face cream by the mirror), the final bit of dialogue is missing where she warns Toby about traveling in Hong Kong alone and makes a slit-throat motion to tell her what could happen. Also a couple of MAJOR disappointments: Lyllah Torena's credit in the opening is missing (you can see her screen shot at the tail end of the trailer), and two scenes in the "fourth reel" are missing: immediately after Toby's mother goes to the police, the following scene was back at their hotel (Toby's mother is taking a pizza out of the oven, David sneaks into the bathroom via the window while Toby is preparing to take a shower... this is where Toby tells him about the "tour" and refers to the charter company as "South Seas" in an attempt to remember the name), also the scene where David makes his entrance in the club is entirely missing.

Overall not too bad and I'm glad they were able to do what they could with the material they had onhand, but looks like I'll be hanging on to the bootleg for a while. "

BACKYARD ASIA's latest film acquisitions

Fire of Vengeance


EDIT: this German tape isn't DEADLY ANGELS STRIKE BACK as I first posted!! I got the info from the German data base IDFB but this tape contains FIRE OF VENGEANCE which is an entirely different film!!! Somebody needs to correct the faulty info at OFDB!!!


And in further, related news...

I recently won this very-very-very rare US/Puerto Rican VHS release of 5 DEADLY ANGELS (incidentally the release I DIDN'T get in post #368!!). I already have the Dutch VHS but the chance of getting the only other English dubbed release was too good to pass by.

I haven't watched the tape yet but I knew the German tape is missing one scene, a "main female character cheers up a friend by singing a happy song on the beach" scene so I checked the new tape for that scene right away. And quite surprisingly it's also missing from the American tape!! I always figured it was just the Germans who didn't find this amusing. The Dutch tape is uncut.

And one more thing, the NTSC tape is recorded in the lousy EP speed. I never understood why the bloody hell American video labels used this crappy speed at all. Neither LP nor EP was ever used for factory recorded tapes in Europe. Anyway, it's cool to have the tape but it'll be the ol'e Dutch vhs I'll be watching when I pull out the film again from time to time. LOL.

A snake queen by any other name...

Hahaha, oh mein gott!!! An ebay seller is charging 300 dollars for three small lobby cards from a film he sells off as the Indonesian SNAKE QUEEN (starring Suzzanna) and his entire plot description is of the Indo film... B-U-T... his lobby cards are from an entirely different movie!!! Hahahaha. They're from a HK/Thai film of the same English title!!!

The Indo film is directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra. This joker's lobby cards clearly list a Snan Charussilp as the director, and the actors' names all seem to be Thai.

However... after having laughed at the eBay seller... (I know-I know, don't tell me, it's not nice laughing at people but 300 dollars for three small lobby cards and a seller who can't even be arsed to check the bloody movie the cards are from deserves to be laughed at. What a fucking ripoff!!!)... I must admit I'm very curious about the HK/Thai film now. I have NEVER heard of it!!! Do any of you out there in Cyberspace know this film?? Has it been released to home-cinema at any stage???

PS: notice the huge spelling mistake on all three cards: Eastman "coulor".

UPDATE:

James Marshall in Thailand sent me this scan of what is most likely a Taiwanese poster for the film!
(thanks, James!)

And I've just discovered there's a Hong Kong Movie Data Base listing for the film:


蛇國女王
Snake Queen (1974)
Country: Taiwan
Genre: Fantasy

Director: Choi Sai-Nam
Producer: Chan Leung-Kai

Cast:
June Chan Kei
Wong Fei-Lung
Lam Ping
Lee Tan
Chow Pan

Production Company: Great China Film Company H. K.
Production Manager: Wong Kai-Chun
Presenter: Ting Hui-Kuen

Note : 1974 is an estimated year.


And here are the full credit list from the lobby cards (none of the names actually appear to be the same!):


Main actor: Chaiya Suriyan
Main Actress: Aranya Namwong

Starring:
Metta Rungrat
Prim Prapaporn
Aurasa Isarangoon
Sasima Sirisilp
Lautog
Sritao
Sompong
Ruj Ronapope

Producer and director: Snan Charussilp

Snansilp Film Production

Distribution: Great China Film Co. (H.K.)
(236 Nathan Road B/F Front Block Kowloon, Hong Kong)


And finally, there's also an entry at the Hong Kong Film Archive but altho many of their films are listed in both English and Chinese this one is only listed in Chinese. And sadly the online translator tool I used just wasn't very good.

Something Weird Video's DEVIL WOMAN is cut!!!

[Mexican lobby card for DEVIL WOMAN]

Today I finally got hold of the Filipino horror movie BRUKA, QUEEN OF EVIL which for years was thought to be lost. And before it was believed to be lost fans though it was an alternative title for MANDA aka DEVIL WOMAN. But it's not, they're two different moves (which Andrew Leavold has written extensively about here)

It's taken me about three and a half years to track down BRUKA and today I finally received it. Yay!!! Last year someone else got hold of a copy and shared it with friends, and copies off that copy are now doing the rounds in collector circles. I wouldn't be surprised if it's uploaded to torrent sites. Apparently, there's already some bootleg site that has got hold of it as well. However, I figured I'd get it directly from the person who provided Andrew's and everyone else's copy; i.e. the gwilo actor who got the film on vhs from one of the actors who starred in BRUKA and DEVIL WOMAN! The actor got the tapes directly from the films' producer. I'm really looking forward to seeing this film now!

But lets talk about the HEADLINE!!! In addition to BRUKA I ALSO received the Mandarin dubbed print of DEVIL WOMAN! In fact I got two different prints of the Mandarin dubbed version; One with English subs that originates from the film's producer (it says "Sample" on the print). And an un-subtitled print which is taken from an official VHS release from (I'm pretty sure) Taiwan!! He also sent me a Xeroxed colour copy of the vhs cover and I'll post it here once I get my arse in gear and a scanner organised! I think the two tapes from the producer are taken directly from 35mm or 16mm prints. These subtitled prints are not released anywhere on home cinema format. And BRUKA has never been released in any format to home-cinema anywhere in the world.

But BACK TO THE HEADLINE!!! [spoiler warning here!] My suspicion was right!! My suspicion which I've had all along THAT SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO'S EDITION OF DEVIL WOMAN CUTS OFF TOO EARLY!!! I was right!!! In fact the SWV vhs is missing the entire ending after the snake woman falls off the cliff!! There's about a minute of happy children and the snake woman crying in pain while she's burning in the flames of HELL!!! I wonder why it's missing from the SWV print. And it's highly annoying as SWV's fully letterboxed print otherwise looks so much better than the two Mandarin prints which are both presented in the fullscreen format. Anyway, I haven't watched any of my new dvd-r's properly yet but I'll write up some more (better) info once I do (and can make a proper comparison).

All very exiting!

WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD (Cheung Yan-Git, Taiwan, 1982)

A few years back I watched a truly weird, wacky, wild, gory, and wonderful horror movie called WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD. Back then I thought it was from Hong Kong but it's actually from Taiwan, and it was directed by Cheung Yan-Git who also made the weird, wild and gory THE DEVIL (1981). He's made many more films but I haven't watched any of those (you can look them up on the HKMDB).

WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD is very rare as it's never been released on dvd or on any easy-to-find video tapes. The bootleg I got hold of years ago is the same version that everybody else has; it stems from a rare TAI SENG vhs that doesn't have any English subtitles. Until very recently I didn't think a subtitled print existed but then... someone on eBay put up a Mandarin language tape from TAIWAN that indeed includes English subs. I made a hefty bid on the tape but couldn't compete with the winner whose winning bid ended up on $155!! However, someone who had dealt with the seller before suggested I write to him and ask if he'd sell me a dvd-r copy instead. Fortunately, the seller said yes!

I watched my dvd-r tonight and what a difference it is when you can actually comprehend the WACKED OUT story line!! The Taiwan print is fullscreen and cuts off left and right but because it's also squeezed you can actually get it "down" in the correct ratio by using the 16:9 button on the remote. The film print that was used for the vhs is fairly scratched but, ugh, screw that! It's subtitled!!!