BAMBOO GODS AND IRON MEN (Philippines, 1974)

aka BLACK KUNG FU
Alternative poster title: BAMBOO GODS & IRON MEN

Premiere Productions Inc/American International Pictures

Director Cesar Gallardo Producer Cirio H. Santiago Writers Ken Metcalfe, Joseph Zucchero Director of Photography Felipe J. Sacdalan Music Tito Sotto Editor Gervacio Santos Associate Director Jun Gallardo Art Director Ben Otico Production Manager A.R. Navarro Assistant Director Jun Amazan Aikido Intructor Omar Camar Kung Fu Instructor Jun Santos Field Soundman Willie Arce Sound Engineer Demetrio de Santos

Cast James Inglehart (Cal Jefferson), Shirley Washington (Mrs. Jefferson), Chiquito, Marissa Delgado, Eddie Garcia, Ken Metcalfe, “Joe”/Joseph M. Zucherro, Michael Boyet, Robert Rivera, "Zubas"/Subas Herrero, Leo Martinez, Benny Pestano, Steve Alcardo, Robert Picate, Boy Picate, Tony Uy*

*Cast and company credits are borrowed from Andrew Leavold's blog. 

BAMBOO GODS AND IRON MEN

I have a feeling everyone missed the DVD release of the Cirio H. Santiago produced BAMBOO GODS AND IRON MEN when it came out from Shout Factory (aka Scream Factory) seven years ago (2013). Hell, I missed the news about it too!!! I already had a dvd-r copy of the film (cheers, Andrew) but if memory serves me well it's a very rough fullscreen version off a print.

Maybe everyone overlooked the release as the film was hidden away in a four film movie pack with three "ordinary" American action films (I haven't watched the other three films yet). The DVD is part of Shout Factory's "4 Action-Packed Movie Marathon Volume Two". The film is presented fully letterboxed and anamorphic. The print is a bit worn during intro credits but other than that it looks fine for DVD; And mind you it certainly looks heaps better than old fullscreen copies off dubious prints or worn video tapes. I wish someone would release a blu-ray but I'm not holding my breath till that happens. This DVD is most likely as good as it's ever gonna get.

A boxer (James Iglehart) and his wife go to Hong Kong for their honeymoon. They buy an ugly Buddha statue in a gift shop and later James saves a Chinese mute (Chiquito) from drowing. Both the Buddha and the Chinese guy (who happens to be great at kung fu) become a royal pain in the newlywed's collective ass; A goon kingpin (played by good ol'e Ken Metcalfe) wants the Buddha as it apparently contains some power to control the world. And due to old Chinese belief the Chinese guy now belongs to James Iglehart because he saved his life. Later they go to the Philippines and more trouble ensues. Lots of action, kung fu, fights, humour that doesn't suck (humour in these films often makes me grind my teeth) and a fair bit of nudity. Eddie Garcia and a bunch of other well known Filipino actors are in this (look them up on Name that Filipino Actor!). 

BAMBOO GODS AND IRON MEN is a fun flick and what makes it twice as much fun are the bad guys. Bald-headed Ken Metcalfe and his goons and goonette (singular as there's only one, the lovely Marissa Delgado) certainly make up at least half the fun if you ask me. Too bad this film has been overlooked for such a long time - and too bad it's still overlooked!

By the way, the film was released in the Philippines under the title BLACK KUNG FU. Needless to say, the drunk monkeys that run the less than reliable IMDb have listed the film  under each title! They're not two films, just the one.

I found the trailer and re-uploaded it. The quality is terrible but it seems it's the only one out there in Cyberspace.





As I post this entry the Shout Factory DVD is still available from WOWHD (it's cheap!). Go here.
 

Ho Meng-Hua's BLACK MAGIC 2 coming to blu-ray soon

Woah!!! Ho Meng-Hua's BLACK MAGIC, PART 2 is being released on blu-ray! This is one of my all time fave HK horror flicks. Dark and wild. DARK AND WILD!!! Part one is good but this is way better! It took years and years of waiting to get to see this. It never received a release in any format in HK. There was ONE vhs release in the USA - cut beyond belief (missing ten minutes). Eventually they put out a reg. 1 dvd.

Film credits on HKMDB

From 88 Films in the UK.

Crazy Indonesia: Samson dan Delilah on DVD!!!

English export title: REVENGE OF SAMSON
French DVD/VHS title: LA REVANCHE DE SAMSON


How utterly awesome!! It's come to my attention (thanks to Kothar, another hardcore Indo film collector!) that Sisworo Gautama Putra's Indonesian movie SAMSON DAN DELILAH (1987) has been released on DVD in France! Actually, it seems it's been out a while and there are no less than two DVD releases and a VHS release! Gee, sometimes you think these world-weird films aren't available anywhere other than on Malay VCD and then they turn up on Euro DVD!

As I said, SAMSON DAN DELILAH is directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra who also did THE WARRIOR (aka Jaka Sembung), THE SNAKE QUEEN and SRIGALA. Check his filmography here (a much better film base for world-weird cinema than the bloody IMDb!!). I have never watched the film but I remember reading about it on Günter Müller's cool (and sadly long gone) site WEIRD ASIA. I think I might have his review on my old computer. I'll check and post it here if I do. According to the credits on CITWF the film stars none other than Indo horror queen Suzzanna! (from QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC, SNAKE QUEEN, SUNDEL BOLONG (aka Ghost With Hole), and tons more Indo horror films).

The French title is La Revanche de Samson and you don't need fluency in French to figure out it reads "the revenge of Samson" in English. The DVD is available from eBay France and not surprisingly it's not English friendly. I don't know if it carries the original Indonesian audio.
EDIT: It doesn't.




Plot description translated by our friends at Google:

Samson, aged 11, sees his mother murdered by a soldier from the Netherlands. Now he feels an implacable hatred for the invaders in his heart. His grandfather sends him supernatural powers and makes him invulnerable. As an adult Samson is ready for revenge and no force can stop him. He survives the worst violence and the occult powers of his enemies. His actions win the sympathy of the people. Then the sumptuous Delilah decides to seduce him. Spells of love they have reason to Samson?

I tried to correct it somewhat but, uh, I think I'll just leave that last bit here. No idea what they mean. LOL.



Video-cd/Malaysia/fullscreen/Indonesian audio/no subs/cut by 6 minutes!

PS. About the DVD's format and cut status: My collector friend has informed me that the DVD is both widescreen and fully uncut! In fact it runs 6 minutes longer than the Malay VCD!

Thanks to Peter (Kothar) for all the info and the VCD cover scan!

GOLDEN EAGLE (Thailand, 1970)

Original title: Insee Thong

DVD/Thailand/Thai audio/English subs

by Andrew Leavold

Thai Spies & Ladyboys’ Thighs: *Golden Eagle* (Insee Thong, 1970)

The Seventies and Eighties saw a number of Thai genre films - mainly kung fu movies, as was the flavour du jour - exported on cinema screens in the West, via international co-productions or by deals with Hong Kong distributors. Pre-kung fu era films from Thailand are another beast altogether, from a thriving local cinema that never travelled past its own borders, and from an industry that had no real interest in preserving its own heritage. It's a miracle the film has survived at all, let alone in its current choppy, mutilated, dragged-through-the-paddy-field version. However, there are subtitles, if you can forgive the translator's tenuous grasp on the English language AND basic typing skills.

Red Eagle (or Insee Daeng) was the red-masked vigilante hero of a phenomenally popular series of post-war Thai pulp novels. The first screen adaption in 1963 starred Mitr Chaibancha, without a doubt the most popular Thai screen idol of the Sixties. A former boxer, his athleticism fared well for action roles, and he performed most of his own stunts until his premature end...but more about that later. As a result, it's estimated Chaibancha starred in between a third and half of all Thai films of the period. That's literally hundreds of Thai films, the majority of which are lost to the winds of time, including an entire series of Red Eagle adventures.

Its final instalment, Golden Eagle from 1970, was produced and directed by its star Chaibancha, and it's an ambitious actioner from an all-round auteur clearly at the top of his game. By evening Mitr is Rome, a lovable if messy drunk, fraidy-cat and frequent social embarrassment to his faithful girlfriend Oy (Chaibancha's frequent co-star Petchara Chaowarat); once the mask is donned, he's a crimefighting dynamo, a super-patriot taking on all kung-fu kicking ladyboys, arrogant young communists and wizened fakirs plotting to overthrow peace, freedom and the Thai Way of Life.

In Golden Eagle, the bumbling “lush” discovers an impostor posing as Red Eagle, a member of the dreaded Red Bamboo Gang whose leader, the Fu Manchu-like Bakin, is psychically strangling the life out of extorted businessmen via a collection of red crystal Buddhas. And right under the nose of the police and Rome, too - while having dinner with the doomed Mr Serm, a box containing the deadly Buddha is delivered to their table. Rome warns him not to open it. “Who knows,” he suggests diplomatically. “There might be dog shits inside.” Shits, no, but instant death, leading our newly rechristened, golden-masked saviour through the lair of Red Bamboo associate Jiew Tong, the venomous embrace of his niece Benja, his effeminate army of pink-suited goons (straight from an off-Broadway musical reimagining of the USS Enterprise), to rescuing the pretty if ineffectual Rachanee and her kidnapped uncle Admiral in an admittedly spectacular finale at the hideaway of the hypno-master Bakin.

Straddling Superhero Chic with the Swinging Seventies, Golden Eagle is an impressive low-budget Batman-meets-Bond undermined somewhat with a low-rent humour chortling at the weak, the portly, the ugly and the girlish - you'll lose track of how many references there are to “faggots” (or “aggots”, according to the subtitles) and will either be amused or appalled at the ladyboy antics of Jiew Tong's household cavalry. Then there's the jarring, anachronistic soundtrack taken from the film's VHS release in the Eighties with a brand new soundtrack, as the original simply didn't exist. In fact, the dialogue and sound effects to most Thai films of the period were performed “live” by actors and foley artists hidden just behind the screens.

Despite its numerous technical shortcomings, Golden Eagle will forever be remembered as the crowning glory in Chaibancha's stellar career, and not for the usual reasons. The final shot of Golden Eagle was filmed in one take, with Chaibancha dangling from a helicopter's rope ladder to the strains of Where Eagles Dare's climactic theme. As the helicopter headed towards the sea, however, Chaibancha lost his grip and plummeted several hundred feet to the beach below. Original cinema prints included the shot in full; this version respectfully closes of a freeze-frame of Red Eagle still on the ladder, with Thai text describing the circumstances of their hero's demise. He died as he lived - in one take, and with the cameras rolling almost continuously. In a way, it's a privilege to share an action hero's final moments on this earth as a big-screen spectacle. It's certainly not going to appear in a closing minutes of a Hollywood film, and considering some of our so-called action heroes, you almost wish it would happen more often.


[Golden Eagle is available on English subtitled DVD from Hkflix.com as "In-Sree Tong" and from Thaicdexpress.com as "Insee thong". Thaicdexpress also has another Red Eagle film entitled "Aowasaan In See Dang"]



Jack:
Originally, Andrew sent me the the above review plus "Eye of the Condor" to post on my Filipino blog, "When the Vietnam War raged... in the Philippines". However, that blog is basically devoted to trashy Filipino Vietnam War movies so it's with much pleasure I can finally post them here where they belong; on a website entirely devoted to world-weird films! :D






Fred Anderson's (Ninja Dixon) short Swedish language documentary film about Mitr Chaibancha.

LADY TERMINATOR (Indonesia, 1988)

Original title: Pembalasan Ratu Laut Selatan
aka Revenge of the South Seas Queen / The Nasty Hunter


PS: Not to be confused with neither the Indonesian movie Lady Exterminator nor the Hong Kong Shaw Brothers film also called Lady Exterminator.


This is a review that I wrote for my zine Banned in Britain #2 in 2004 [if you saw this when I first made the post you would've seen I mistakenly wrote "1994" which isn't correct. My first issue came out in '94 but the review wasn't printed till 2004]. You can download the entire issue from my other blog HERE. We also have a thread entirely devoted to the film over on Cinehound. Go HERE.

VHS/Japan/letterbox/English audio/Japanese subs/this is the fully uncut print which contains bits and pieces that are missing from the Mondo Macabro DVD.
[click scan for full size]


LADY TERMINATOR
Dir: Jalil Jackson aka H. Tjut Djalil (Indonesia 1988)
Cast: Barbara Anne Constable, Claudia Angelique Rademaker, Christopher J Hart, Joseph P McGlyn, Yurike Prastica, Anna Sylviana, Nurwita, Ikang Fawzi, Harun Syarief, H. I. M. Damsjik, Jack Maland, Yuni Arso, Eddy Gunawan, Johan Saimima.


Uuhhh... this is a wet dream come true!!!
A perfect DVD release of the Indonesian gore & exploitation fest Lady Terminator!!!
All I can say to the good people at Mondo Macabro in England is thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

I’ve been hoping for a proper release of Lady Terminator ever since I rented a PAL copy off an American NTSC bootleg video tape a couple of years ago at a video rental in a seedy part of downtown Copenhagen. Obviously I made a copy off the rental tape and I reckon the version I was left with is a fuzzy 4th or 5th generation copy (on top of being a transfer from NTSC) - in other words not a brilliant copy, ha, ha.

Actually it was so unbelievably bad that I never even bothered to pull it out to watch again. I loved the film but thought it deserved to be watched in a better quality. And a version with a mucho better quality is exactly what I’ve got in my greasy paws now: The amazing brand new DVD from Mondo Macabro in the UK (although they chose to put it out on their US branch).

‘But what exactly IS an Indonesian film’ (well, apart from it being from Indonesia obviously) I hear you utter. ‘Is it like a Hong Kong movie or what?’ Well, I’ll tell you what, I haven’t got all day so why dontcha just rush out and get hold of Pete Tombs’ great book ‘Mondo Macabro’ and let him tell ya all about it, hah! (I’m so funny I kill myself). No, seriously, I’ve only got two pages left (pages that were actually earmarked for an incredibly cheesy BRMC interview but as soon as I got hold of THIS new release THAT interview went into the toilet!) so I’ll try and give you a crash course in Indo flicks but it’ll be brief and since everything I know about Indo flix I got from the Pete Tombs’ book anyway I still urge you to go get his book!

The Indonesian government was apparently mucho corrupto in the 1970s and what do you do if yer a corrupt government? Well, you slack off in the moral dep. and thus film censorshit regulations loosened up and the sleazy film exploiters that we all know (and whose products we fester on) from other parts of the world soon popped up everywhere in Indonesia too. Films with gore, action and (to a lesser degree) sex came out by the bucket load.

Well apparently cos I haven’t actually watched very many of these flicks myself, just a handful - but what a handful! And according to Pete Tombs’ book, the Indo flicks became more and more outrageous as the 70s switched to the 80s. But in 1988 a film came out that apparently was so crude it made the Indo film regulators choke and, sadly, introduce new censorship rules. That film was Lady Terminator! Actually, when the authorities found out how over-the-top Lady T is they banned it right away. But although it only ran for nine days at the cinemas more that 100,000 people saw it!

As I said before, I haven’s watched very many Indo flicks (as of yet but after having watched cool stuff like Lady T, Devil’s Sword, Mystics in Bali, Queen of Black Magic and a few other ones you can bet yer ass I’ll be tracking more down!) but so far it seems to me that some Indo flicks are very much like the early 80s HK horror flicks, just without the slapstick! And also, it may be hard to imagine but they’re done even more cheap!

If you’ve seen stuff like Black Magic With Buddha (which I reviewed in #1 ten years ago!), Blood Of The Black Dog or The Rape After then you know what I’m talking about. Well, some of the Indo flicks are like this while others are... different... ehh, well, mebbe this isn’t such a grand explanation - as I said, go get hold of Pete Tombs’ book (they have it at Amazon). By the way, there’s also a quite good documentary (from the Mondo Macabro tv series from UK tv) on the disc. Needles to say it’s compulsory viewing!!

The first time I encountered a bit of exciting Indo celluloid was when Discovery Channel showed a docu (sorry, don’t remember the title) on horror movies for Halloween some time back in the 90s. A short segment from a film showed a guy who suddenly pulled off his own head in gory detail in the middle of a crowd! The film was Queen of Black Magic (which, in some markets, is released as part 3 of the Hong Kong Black Magic series although it’s got nothing to do with those [totally awesome] movies) and it’s got gore, black magic and flying heads galore. See it if you can!

Anyway, enough of this babble, lets habla a bit about the damn movie itself then we can always come back to this pointless drivel later, shall we!
As you can probably figure out yourself Lady Terminator has something in common with the ol’ Arnie favourite, however, we’re not talking some mere inspiration here, we’re talking a fucken remake... a remake done Indo style - incl. a babetious 80s chick in Arnie’s role! And she isn’t even an android!!

VHS/Argentina/fullscreen/English audio/Spanish subs

The story goes a bit like this: 100 years ago there was a queen called ‘Queen of the South Sea’ who would lure scores of men to bed but none of them could live up to her expectations and they would all get killed ‘in the act’. Well, until man no. 1000 figured out the trick: when she would ‘ride’ her man a snake would slip outta her pussy and kill the unfortunate guy (ouch!).

However, man #1000 just grabbed the snake and pulled it out after which it turned into a kris (i.e. a dagger). After this, the horny queen was cursed to go the bottom of the sea for 100 yrs but, of course, just before departure she swore to come back after 100 yrs to take revenge on the guy’s great granddaughter.

Jump to the present (well, mid 80s!). A young, sexy American chick with big, curly 80s hair (actually she looks like a girl I knew once who, as it turned out, was trouble too, ahh) is in Indonesia to study the legend of the ‘Queen of the South Sea’. The legend says that soon after the Queen’s demise her castle went into the sea, and although the young, sexy American chick with curly 80s hair doesn’t believe the part about the Queen she oddly enough believes the part about the sunken castle (no, it doesn’t make sense - just don’t think too much about it and enjoy the film!).

The young, sexy... etc. soon finds some old geezer who owns a book about the whereabouts of the old sunken castle and to make a long story short she rents a boat with a crew, dives down and is possessed by the old South Sea Queen! This is when the fun begins!

The sexy chick returns from the sea, her own mind is now gone and she has fully become the incarnation of the ‘Queen of... etc.’ She puts on a leather jacket, a bra and an AK47 - and then she goes to work, i.e. looking for the doomed great granddaughter. The rest is a tour de force in over-the-top gory exciting exploitation action!!

The film is a remake of The Terminator - and it’s not! The plot is kinda the same, but most of the details are explained differently: No one comes back from the future, there is a terminator but it’s not a cyborg. The terminator pulls out it’s own eye but it’s not a mechanical one. The person behind the terminator doesn’t wanna change the future... she’s just royally pissed off because she couldn’t kill her fuck no. 1000!! And so on. The story-line is very much the same, the details are just very different.

Also, what is totally over-the-top fun are the scenes that are carbon copies of the original: The scene when the great granddaughter is attacked the first time in a bar and saved by a guy - in this version an American cop working in Indonesia (!!!) (for fuck’s sake, he even says the legendary line: ‘If you wanna live come with me’!!). And there is the police station scene where the terminator basically destroys the whole station and kills everyone except her main target.

On top of all this, Lady Terminator is both quite gory and there’s quite a few scenes where the sexy terminator takes her top off (uh, since this IS an Indonesian movie I guess I should point out that I don’t mean she takes her head off and it flies away - but that she takes her shirt off! Ahm...).

About the gore; there’s one totally rad scene at the police station in which Lady T guns down a cop, but hey, although he’s dead she’s not satisfied, so she shoots him again, in fact she blows him into a bloody pulp... but she’s still not happy, so she puts a last touch on killing him by kicking him in the balls!! I guess you’ll have to be a gorehound to enjoy films like this! (but hey, why else would you be reading this here mag?).

What else can you say about this awesome piece of gory exploitica. Well, heaps probably but unfortunately we’re out of space this time ‘round, but I URGE you to get hold of this flick. It is totally o.t.t. amazing and VERY enjoyable. But before I finish off I just want to comment on a review in Oriental Cinema vol. 2, #9. Some fuck-face reviewer (not the overly cool editor Damon Foster, mind you!!) bitched about Lady Terminator being without any creativity and stealing ideas from an American film!

Firstly, I think it’s funny that this criticism comes from an American of all nationalities!! I mean, it’s not like we have NEVER seen or heard of an American film that bluntly stole everything from a foreign film, is it?! Like, it’s only happened a billion times!! At the moment, the Yanks are about to remake every motherfucken horror film ever made in Japan!! And how about Nikita!? How about Godzilla!? How about The Vanishing!? How about a zillian-trillian other Asian and European films!? They even remade Faulty Towers for fuck’s sake!!! Besides, this ass-wipe reviewer seems to forget that stealing from big blockbusters and remaking them for peanuts, adding tons of gore and sex THAT IS WHAT EXPLOITATION CINEMA IS ALL ABOUT YOU FUCKING MORON!!!

Anyway, enough of this (besides, the bloody wanker wrote that review eight yrs ago and has probably forgotten all about it by now, ha ha). Just don’t sit on yer arse and complain about my review being about a film from an uncool place like Indonesia or that it’s a remake. It doesn’t matter where a film comes from or whatever. What matters is whether a film is entertaining or not. I’ve watched Lady T five times and I’m gonna watch it again!
I’m off, see you next time. [new note: this was the last review in that issue, hence the farewell]

Version reviewed: Mondo Macabro (US) [DVD, ntsc, reg. 0] letterbox, dubbed in English, uncut, 82 min. Extras: Docu from UK tv on Indo films, trailer, alternate scenes + quite a bit of reading material and previews of other Mondo Macabro releases.


DVD/USA/Mondo Macabro/letterbox/English audio/no subs


Ad-mat/USA/from Fred Adelman's collection


Poster/Pakistan


Poster/Pakistan