RAW FORCE (USA/Philippines, 1982) [review]

VHS / Denmark / fullscreen / English audio / Danish subs / uncut

Tonight I watched the highly entertaining RAW FORCE for the second time. The first time was a couple of years back on Danish VHS and tonight it was on a dvd-r off the Japanese VHS. While the Japanese print couldn't look any better it is unfortunately a censored print. Not censored in that there has been made censorship cuts but that all the "underhair" (as the Japanese term is) have been digitally fogged away. Rather annoying in a film that has as much nudity as RAW FORCE (i.e. A LOT!). But otherwise the print looks great. I thought about writing a review but then I discovered Andrew has written a really good one so I'll simply re-post that one here. :D

EDIT: RAW FORCE is now on bluray in the US and the UK. 
The screen grabs are all from the Japanese VHS version. The cover scan is of the Danish ex-rental tape.
/Jack

1982 – Raw Force (Ansor International Pictures)

[also released as “Kung Fu Cannibals” and “Shogun Island”]

Director/Screenplay Edward D. Murphy [Captain in Mad Doctor of Blood Island] Producer Frank E. Johnson Executive Producers Rebecca Bella, Lawrence Woolner Music Walter Murphy Director of Photography Frank E. Johnson Editor Eric Lindemann Fight Co-Ordinator Mike Stone

Cast Cameron Mitchell (Captain Harry Dodds), Geoffrey Binney (Mike O'Malley), Hope Holiday (Hazel Buck), Jillian “Kessner”/Kesner (Cookie Winchell), John Dresden (John Taylor), Jennifer Holmes (Ann Davis), Rey King [Rey Malonzo?] (Go Chin), Carla Reynolds (Eilleen Fox), Carl Anthony (Lloyd Davis), John Locke (Gary Schwartz), Mark Tanous (Cooper), Ralph Lombardi (Thomas Speer), Chanda Romero (Mayloo), Camille Keaton (Girl In Toilet), Maggie Lee (Gun Moll), Garry McClintic (Steve), John Rosselli (Male Stripper), Joe Pagliuso (Milt ), “Robert Dennis”/Dennis Edwards (Man In Toilet), Janelle Pransky (Girl With Balloons), Tony Oliver (Bill), Robert MacKenzie (Clyde), Steve Elmer (Religious Freak), Jewel Shepard (Drunk Sexpot), Michael P. Stone (Bartender), Judi Brooks (Girl With Tattoo), Edward Talbot 'Chip' Matthews (Passenger), Kurek Ashley (Drunk With Cake), Brad Barnes (Passenger), Gerry Bailey (Hood), Don Gordon (Hood), Chip Westley (Hood), Bob Campbell (Hood), Willy Schober (Hood), Maurizio Murano (Hood), Roger Capilitan (Hood), Phil Guerrero (Hood), Vic Diaz (Monk), Mike Cohen (Monk), Binney Villanueva (Monk), Bayani Balingit (Monk), Louie Florentino (Monk), Frank Aguila (Monk) Corpses Geoff Wood, Tony Beso, Frank Belgica, Jimmy Navarro, Ely Refuerzo, Nilo Fortez, Jess Bonzo, Rolly Tan Hookers Anna Torino, Evelyn Beso, Violeta Beso, Evelyn Yap, Vicky Abad, Baby Serrano, Zenaida Luciano, Nannette Caragay, May Bacosa, Sonia Cervantes Crewmen Fred Strong, George Gyenes, Jay Bumpus, Peter Schultz, Roger Searcy Girls In Cabin Mary Miller, Britt Helfer

 

Review by Andrew Leavold:

When your writer AND director is the old boy who played the Captain in Mad Doctor of Blood Island, you may take this as an SOS call.

But fear not – Raw Force is out of its mind. In a good way, of course, but is also foaming at the mouth and howling at the moon. Imagine a film shot by Americans in the Philippines exploiting every possible angle: cannibals, zombies, samurais, white kung fu (this WAS 1982, and Chuck Norris reigned supreme!), gumby comedy, and more flesh on display than a Friday night karaoke crawl in Manila.




Executive Producer Larry Woolner used to be a mover and shaker at Dimension Pictures, who handled a few Filipino features for the Seventies drive-in circuit; Raw Force was his last hurrah, and has that weird tension between old-fashioned entertainment and what he believes the kids want to see. As such, there’s old has-beens hobbling next to young never-wills. It’s Porky’s with Sidney Greenstreet and David Carradine, and none of it meshes. But with a mess this entertaining, thank god for senile dementia.

Aging name actor Cameron Mitchell stars as the skipper of a rusty tub bound for the South China Sea and Hope Holliday is Hazel Buck, the boat’s New York jewish owner. On board are the Burbank Karate Club (actually a few no-name TV actors), plus blonde black belt champion Jillian Kessner, who had already played the lead in Cirio H. Santiago’s Firecracker (1981). It’s a motley crew on a crusty Love Boat stocked with degenerates, schmiels, and the brown end of California’s swingers circles.

A stripper at a bar who keeps dancing even when everyone else is engaged in a big barroom brawl

Onto the ship comes Speer, a nasty German with a Hitler mustache looking for white women to steal, and his karate-kicking cronies. The ship goes up in flames, and the remaining cast and crew are adrift in a life boat before washing up on Warrior’s Island. There they discover Speer has been trading jade for his plane load of tasty-looking nubiles - Warriors Island happens to be the home of a renegade group of grinning, clapping cannibal monks who can reanimate the corpses of disgraced martial artists to do their bidding. The girls… well, they happen to be the monks’ main course.

Nasty Japanese censorship

And that’s the set up for one of the strangest kung fu horror sex comedies you will ever witness. Keen-eyed Schlock viewers will recognize the chubby features of the ubiquitous Vic Diaz as one of the head monks, alongside Mike Cohen who Weng Weng fans will recognize as Dr Kohler in For Your Height Only. All I can say right now is slip the brain into neutral and enjoy, and if you ever needed proof that the Philippines exists in a parallel universe in which our laws of taste, logic and sanity are turned on their heads, it’s this: the 1982 Raw Force.

Trailer:

The man who was in literally 1000s of Filipino films, Vic Diaz

Zombies!

BRUKA QUEEN OF EVIL (HK/Philippines, 1975)

THE LOST FILM HAS FINALLY BEEN FOUND!!!

I wrote about BRUKA QUEEN OF EVIL here and posted the trailer. Andrew Leavold and I have been talking about this film for the past couple of years and now Andrew has finally got hold of a copy! It is with delirious and over-joyous delight that I re-post Andrew's review from his blog BAMBOO GODS AND BIONIC BOYS.

EDIT: I have got a copy of the film now and I'd just like to make it clear that the film is dubbed in Mandarin (and has English and Chinese subtitles). So, please, no more bootleggers state either "in Tagalog" or "dubbed in English". Enough with the crappy info!!

/Jack J




1975 – Bruka (Emperor Films International)

[Philippines release date 18th July 1975; a Hong Kong-Filipino co-production, export title “Bruka Queen Of Evil”]

Director Albert Yu Producer Jimmy L. Pascual [other sources credit Jimmy with Screenplay] Dialogue Yuen Shiao Po Cameraman Leung Kwok Kuen Music Chow Fu Liang Editor Lee Yam Hai In Charge of Production Fely Pascual Production Manager Vic Kwong Assistant Director David Yau Interpretor Teddy Chiu [as Tedmund Chiu] Special Effects Michael Fung Lights Chui Kwok Kuen Makeup Soledad Mauricio Wardrobe Romana Tablate Stills Wong Tit Huang Setting Maurio Carmona Props Ng Chau Electrician Tiburcio Pacia

Cast Alex Lung, Rosemarie Gil, Etang “Ditched”/Discher (Bruka), Sandra de Veyra, Yukio Someno, Anthony Lee, Michael Kwan, Charlie Davao, Connie Angeles, Darius Razon, Tintoy, Matimtiman Cruz, Roldan Rodrigo, Bruno Punzalan, Greg Lozano, Ramon D’Salva, Pedro Faustino, Alfonso Carvajal, Eileen Montinola, Ben Manalo, Michael de Mesa, Rocco Montalban, Kristina Kasten, Sancho Tesalona, Eddie Nicart, Jimmy Cruz, Gigi Vellasenor



Review by Andrew Leavold

Back in 1974, a Filipino producer named Jimmy L. Pascual ended his two year run of Hong Kong-based kung fu productions and brought his film outfit to the Philippines to make a film called Devil Woman. Essentially a chop sockey cashing in on the kung fu craze like Pascual’s previous films (The Bloody Fists [1972], The Awaken Punch [1973] amongst others), Devil Woman is a rudimentary revenge saga with fantastic elements and snake motif, a familiar ingredient in Asian horror. Despite the regulation atrocious dubbing and wooden dialogue, Rosemarie Gil is positively regal as the snake-haired queen seeking revenge on the townsfolk for burning her parents alive, and the film was a minor hit, even receiving a theatrical run in the US, and has retained a small fanatical cult following thanks to Quentin Tarantino’s regular screenings.

For years, fans of Devil Woman saw posters for a film called Bruka Queen Of Evil featuring Rosemarie Gil’s distinctive coiffure, and assumed it was one of Devil Woman’s numerous export titles. When a trailer finally appeared, the Devil Woman herself, Manda the Snakewoman, was indeed in the film – but with entirely different footage of bats, walking trees, and an army of little people. Was this the Filipino cut of Devil Woman for the local market merely redubbed and resold, or an entirely different film? Alas, no version of Bruka could be found, even amongst the most intrepid of Asian collectors.





Imagine my surprise, then, to discover a copy of Bruka Queen Of Evil last month in my post box. Ten minutes later, I can confirm Bruka is no Devil Woman. Although made by the same production team and with many of the original’s cast, its immediate sequel Bruka is an entirely different creature. A quantum improvement on Devil Woman, the film throws open Manda’s own personal narrative, giving her both a legacy and a destiny, and adds a new protagonist’s magical quest against a seemingly improbable array of oddities.



Bruka begins as Devil Woman ends, with Manda engulfed in flames as she falls over a cliff. Miraculously she survives, and wakes in a cave next to a white-haired hag and a cadre of dwarves. “I’m your grandmother,” the hag Bruka declares, and to prove the point, unfurls her fifteen-foot snake body. She then shows Manda flashbacks to her birth in a crystal ball, revealing Manda’s mother to have chosen a mortal husband over her reptilian heritage. Manda’s so happy at the family reunion, she literally dances for joy! Surrounding her is a brand new arsenal for her protection: bats, rock creatures, tree-men, and shape-shifting dwarves into snakes. Veteran contrabida Charlie Davao is the test case, a poor villager who sees a figure under a sheet in his yard. It turns out to be a wooden cross covered in reptiles who almost drown him in venom. And with that, the Devil Woman sequel has already shape-shifted itself to the next level of weirdness.



Grandma Bruka now gives her granddaughter a special gift – a black stone which turns her head full of angry snakes into human hair for as long as she keeps the stone in her mouth. To test the theory, she goes for a jungle stroll and kisses the first unfortunate hippie with a guitar who stumbles upon her. Spitting out the stone, the snakes pounce. Exssssscelent! In Bruka, Manda is no longed killing simply for revenge, and is instead awakening her true inner evil, and exploiting her outward normalcy to indulge her more primal, destructive instincts.





In Bruka, Manda faces a new antagonist in the shape of poor and angry Chinese Hong Pin (Pascual’s kung fu kicking regular Alex Lung). He takes on the job of finding rich Mr Tony’s daughter Louisa to buy food for his ailing family. In an eerily effective sequence he walks into a village obliterated by Manda’s snake scourge, bodies strewn everywhere covered in flies and bite marks, and he helps bury the bodies alongside a priest (Ramon D’Salva) and his hunchbacked assistant. The forest is full of peril, warns the hunchback, and Hong Pin must seek a hermit’s help. And as if on cue, Bruka’s dwarves burst into the church, dissolve into snakes and cover the priest and cripple. With the hermit’s rope-belt-turned-into-a-pole, Hong Pin makes his way through hostile territory, through all manner of creatures, to the cave containing Louisa and her virginal companions, all ready to be sacrificed to the Snake Queens’ insidious blood cult.





Pascual’s Philippines output for his Emperor Films International included another starring role for Lung, Dragons Never Die (1974), released in the US on a double bill with Devil Woman, and three Tagalog horror films released in 1975 alone for the local market (Isinumpa, Pagsapit Ng Dilim and Pandemonium: Lupa, Langit At Impiyerno). But if there was ever destined to be Filipino Lords Of The Rings with evil, fondling, Riverdancing hobbits and bleeding trees, this is the one film to rule them all. Those with a snake phobia, BEWARE; those with eyebrows ready to be raised and a keenly-honed appreciation of the absurd, enjoy, and I’ll see you at Ermita’s all-dwarf bar Hobbit House for after-movie rum cocktails.

CANNIBAL MERCENARY (Thailand, 1983) review #2

Reviewed by Andrew Leavold


[also check out review #1 by Günther Müller]



aka MERCENARY (US vhs)
aka EMPLOY FOR DIE (Thai vcd)
aka JUNGLE KILLERS - CANNIBAL MERCENARY (German dvd)



"This story is told ... by the man who can not forget a brutal war"

VCD / Thailand / fullscreen / Thai audio / no subs / original Thai version
[click scan for bigger size]



by ANDREW LEAVOLD

"This story is told... by a man who can not forget a brutal war!"

Around the time Antonio Margheriti was engaged in the unholy work of wedding the Vietnam War film with the cannibal genre in Cannibal Apocalypse (1980) and splicing the best bits of Apocalypse Now (1979) and The Deer Hunter (1978) into his blood soaked, shot-in-the-Philippines actioner The Last Hunter (1981), Thai filmmakers were also busy making their own demented backyard redux of Coppola's bloated paean to man's inhumanity. And oh, the inhumanity!

The film signposts its intentions early, through the overhead ceiling fan denoting "instant Vietnam flashback". Our hero - Namchoke? Prompit? Let's call him Wilson - has returned from a tour of duty and almost immediately is cajoled by his former commander to accept a mercenary job deep in the Vietnam jungle. It's not clear if the Vietnam War has ended, and even more unclear what a Sergeant in the Thai Army was doing there in the first place; nevertheless he needs the money for his daughter's polio operation and, since his wife was killed (cue blood-streaked flashback), they're both dependent on each other. So much for the sentiment. Onward, Buddhist Soldiers.

Wilson hits the Vietnam jungle running with a Mercenary squad under his command, a group of ugly Thai misfits with more than their share of chips on their shoulder. It's a treacherous trip up the figurative river, with the ever-present Viet Cong and their bamboo spiked traps executed in graphic, close-to-the-bone style, yet their most dangerous enemy, it's soon apparent amidst the spiraling paranoia, is themselves. After slashing and mutilating their way through a VC village they stumble on a pregnant Thai woman begging for their protection. With a cold, mean glare and a radio up her skirt, it seems she's leading them into an ambush, and succeeds with surprising ease in turning the men against each other. One private had riddled his wife and her lover with bullets, and thus wants to save the girl; another private, a relentless would-be-rapist, has his way with her - only to find his cock almost severed. Exit pregnant Thai in a hail of Wilson's pistol fire, and they carry off their mutilated buddy. Miraculously, he's cured twenty minutes later into the film, only to try the old "involuntary surprise sex" routine once more.


VHS / USA / fullscreen / English dub / no subs / 102m44s
[click scan for bigger size]

Wilson finally reaches his jungle contact, a glamorous commando named Choompah, but not before the rest of the squad are captured by Choompah's men, staked to the ground, and urinated on while her 2IC, an almost hairless, toothless and practically eyeless circus freak with a frotting fetish, rubs himself against one of his piss-stained victims. His disturbing bubble-head looked familiar; the actor turns out to be famous comedian Santhong Sisai - which translates to "ugly as sin"! - who was also a country singer and jailed in the Seventies for attempted murder. Which certainly didn't hurt his career, before his untimely death in a car accident around 1982. It's not the first pissing scene, either - but in a Thai film that throws in kung fu, cannibalism, outrageous gore and every conceivable 'Nam and post-'Nam cliches while making up a few of their own, a few bubble-headed toilet antics certainly aren't out of place.

Choompah fills in Wilson's remaining squad on their mission: to bring down a crazed VC Colonel (and it's at this moment when the Heart Of Darkness references tear though the grass roof) operating a drug empire - known as The Empire - out of a fortified camp guarded by flesh-eating aborigines - known as The Draculas! Once Wilson's men are captured, the film kicks into top gear and it's previous scenes of graphic mutilation and dismemberment are washed away in a river of gore. There's maggot licking, eyeball squishing, a knife through skull followed by a regulation cannibal chow-down on its contents, and seemingly endless rounds of ammunition tearing through flesh and bone: It's the ending you secretly dreamed of for Apocalypse Now, delivered by the trailer-load, yet somehow redeemed by its main offender's daughter wrapping her arms around him and gushing, "I wuv you daddy!" Awwww....

In addition to the Thai original and export versions, there's a THIRD titled Jungle Killers, edited by Hong Kong producer-hack Thomas Tang with much of the gore trimmed, but with the added bonus of three Euro-Trash actors looking for treasure. Looking for the Temple of Doom, perhaps? Move on, assholes. Make no mistake, Tang's Mercenary is to be avoided like the Plague, in favour of its longer, infinitely more excessive version. And yet, at over 1 hour 40 minutes, Mercenary is a fat-free exercise in cinematic brutality - a simpleminded one but not without its own dumb, animalistic, bludgeon-carrying charms. Its camera flourishes and manic montage leave little time between grotesque setpieces, thus allowing little time to contemplate just how primitive the soundtrack is. And I'm not just talking dialogue, with those regulation Hong Kong dubbing-booth Brits trying American accents and exaggerated Orientals (and Choompah's real voice replaced by Pam Ayres'). Even the foley and atmos tracks are poorly stitched, and the music a hodgepodge of library music and Goblin's Euro-score for Dawn Of The Dead (1978). No, we forgive its shortcomings because of the film's sheer onslaught of mind-bending imagery. The mud-daubed ghouls in denim, the Deer Hunter atrocities punted into Cannibal Holocaust (1978) territory, and above all, the blinking, puckering, rubbing form of Santhong Sisai frotting his way into our hearts and minds.


DVD / Germany / letterbox / English + German dub / 83 min cut & paste version!!!

[not only is this German dvd heavily cut, it has also received the 'Thomas Thang treatment'! In other words; yes it's a cut 'n' paste version with inserts of Western actors to make it look more, well, Western!!]

UK / dvd-r / fullscreen / English dub / uncut 104 minute version.

This UK bootleg from ZDD contains the long uncut version from the US tape. The picture quality is good and as there is no official release available at present time this is the only way to buy the uncut film.



Thanks to Günter Müller for sending me his old review from "Weird Asia".

Also thanks to Andrew for his review.

And lastly but certainly not least big thanks to Kiba of Cinehound forum who sent me the scan of the Thai VCD cover.

Cheers, mates!!

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.

EYE OF THE CONDOR (Thailand, 1984/87)

aka Eyes of the Condor (Greek VHS)

VHS/Greece/fullscreen/English dubbed/Greek subs
[click scan for proper size]


by Andrew Leavold
Most Filipino B-film exports would never have made it past Manila Customs if it weren't for the efforts of Davian International Ltd, a distribution and later production company formed by Hong Kong-born David Hung and his Philippines partner Vivian Andico (hence the “Dav-“ and “-ian” the company name) in 1986. Like Bobby A. Suarez before him, Hung had already muddied his boots in the low-budget distribution trenches as one of Joseph Lai's General Managers for Intercontinental Film Distribution Ltd, and was keen to source saleable action films for his fledgling company, primarily from his own back yard. Davian purchased the international rights to Tagalog-language films, recut them from their customary two hour running times to a more serviceable 90 minutes, and supervised the dubbing into English, more often than not in Quezon City. Hung would then set up a booth at Cannes and the American Film Market and peddle his wares directly to overseas distributors. In this way, even the most generic Tagalog action film for other local producers – such as the Dante Varona vehicle Commander Lawin (1981) and The Day They Robbed America (1985) - could be given a Davian makeover and raffled off to one of their less discerning customers.

Davian also procured a pair of Thai action films, the Sorapong Chatree-starrer Cobra Thunderbolt (dir. Tanong Srichua, 1984) and Eye Of The Condor, presumably from the same period, although Davian's version bears a 1987 copyright in its closing credit. And kudos to their impeccable taste, I should add: it's an ambitious and utterly charming crime-caper featuring a jewel thief, two cops, a bald Indian, two Caucasian baddies and a squadron of dwarves, all looking for the legendary Eye of the Condor, a precious diamond (the eighth largest in the world, we're constantly reminded, and the most beautiful). The gem disappears from its owner's exhibition on his yacht in the opening sequence: pandemonium breaks out as suave shyster Kenny Hemmings swims with the Eye to a waiting speedboat and his dwarf driver takes off, allowing Kenny to escape via the hang-glider conveniently located in the boat, thus living up to his moniker The Sky Robber! His slimy American boss tries to double-cross Kenny and his stubby sidekick, but they escape once again with the diamond, and hide out with the cherubic sidekick's miniature mates and their normal-sized sister Nancy, an odd household in which Nancy plays Snow White to their Five Dwarves. That is, if Snow White was Asian. And related to the Seven Dwarves. And if there were five... They're more like hyperactive children, running around "Uncle" Kenny's ankles and causing mayhem and structural damage while he suavely woos the suitably impressed Nancy.

A pair of cops are assigned to the case of the missing Eye. the glamorous yet humorless Lieutenant Phyllis (no-one's sure if it's her first or last name) and the more laissez-faire Captain Ben Daniel, and they manage to snare Kenny, only to befriend him (awww!) use him as bait to flush out the REAL Mr Big of the Syndicate, a silver-haired slimeball who looks and sounds like a Greek shipping magnate. The diamond goes missing several more times - once at an ice factory, once in an iced coffee, and once in one of the Five Dwarves' stomach - and the film becomes an endless cat-and-mouse game winding up on the Greek Tycoon's island lair, in a protracted, gloriously over-the-top action finale worthy of a Bobby A. Suarez film. It's here our director "Chalong" (S.T.A.B. [1976]) pulls out every trick from his Boys' Own Book of Action Theatrics. There's an invading army on jet skis, a commando squad of Indian Thuggees looking for their temple's sacred stone, and another hang-glider causing explosions galore. There are stunts on top of other stunts, and that's on top of the rest of the film's kung fu, tuk-tuk chase, mid-air knife fight, and the cheapest, ugliest furniture and sets, unfashionable EVEN for the Eighties.

Eye Of The Condor sounds like the rest of Davian's pickups, courtesy of their Quezon City dubbing team. It's not just your regular kung fu voiceovers; Davian's team use a plethora of silly and inappropriate voices, squeaks, panting and squarks, not least the penguin sounds uttered by the five munchkins. Luckily the film plays the dwarves' antics for cheap yucks, an essential ingredient in these Thai masala movies. Whether on the receiving end of a Three Stooges-style ladder gag or trotting out the old "one dwarf on the other's shoulders under a long coat pretending to be a tall person" routine, these little guys emote their hearts out and provide an added element to what's already a preposterous crime caper. I'm not sure if it's an absurdist element or the film's missing heart, but it lifts Eye Of The Condor far above most of South East Asia's relatively one-dimensional action movies into a completely new realm. And that's a tall order (f'nar, f'nar!).


Jack:
Originally, Andrew sent me the the above review plus "Golden Eagle" 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