THE DAY THEY ROBBED AMERICA (Philippines 1985) [REVIEW]

Original Filipino English title: The Sangley Point Robbery
aka American High Commando

VHS / Greece / fullscreen / English dub / Greek subs / uncut afaik
300 dpi hi-res scan

Dir: Manuel 'Fyke' Cinco

I'm not even sure if I should post this review on my When the Vietnam War Raged... in the Philippines blog or on my Backyard Asia blog! Hell, maybe I'll do both!

The thing is, the latter is a blog about wild and crazy Asian films and the first is dedicated to Vietnam War flicks made in the Philippines. And Manuel "Fyke" Cinco's THE DAY THEY ROBBED AMERICA is part Vietnam War flick - kinda without actually being a Vietnam War flick - and part wild and crazy Asian movie!

Most of these Filipino Vietnam War films are filmed in the Philippines but they're set in the Vietnam War which took place in, well, Vietnam, obviously. But this film, while it does take place during the Vietnam War, and while it does star a soldier who's just been fighting in the Viet Cong, the film is actually set in the Philippines! And lots of wild and crazy stuff take place! But, hey, it's been a long while since I wrote my last review of a Filipino Vietnam War movie and I'm stalling. Grab your beer and let's get going with the plot.

1971. An American soldier in Vietnam is captured and tortured by the Viet Cong. The soldier is played by a gwilo called James Acheson who I've never seen in any other film but according to the bloody IMDb he was also in the Vietnam War movie P.O.W. THE ESCAPE from 1986. The Viet Cong kidnap his girlfriend and they're going, "If you don't tell us what we want to know we're gonna off yer girlfriend". The American soldier knows bloody well he's out of luck so he goes, "Fuck you and fuck the horse you rode in on". Fortunately, his mates arrive just in time to save him and kill the Viet Cong. Unfortunately, they've already off'ed his gf. After this he's a mental wreck and the army send him to a US base in the Philippines.

In the Philippines Rudy Fernandez plays a cop who kills a bad dude in the line of duty and decides to quit the force as a result. The bad dude's brother is obviously pissed off and asks one of his henchmen to off the cop, but the henchman dude misses his mark and shoots the cop's dad instead. The cop, who's really a good law-abiding feller, then decides to participate in a bank robbery in order to pay for his dad's operation. He's got a wife and a girlfriend and neither of them are happy about the situation (!).

The ex cop and his posse of misfits plan to hit the American bank at the army base (!!) and needless to say it all goes terribly wrong. In the middle of the robbery a ton of American soldiers start shooting at them (what did they expect!), and the American solder who returned from Nam, his gf works at the bank and the ex cop and his gang kidnap her to use as a shield. They let her go soon enough but it still leaves her completely traumatised (quite funny actually, earlier on in the film she said to the soldier, who had experienced heinous things in Vietnam and had seen his ex girlfriend get killed in front of him, "you gotta leave all this behind and move on". Well, obviously she didn't handle being kidnapped for half an hour too well as she ends up traumatised in a wheelchair!). The ex Nam soldier decides to go on a revenge spree and starts to hunt down the cop and his mates one by one.

This is a quick run down of the plot and there's a lot that I'm leaving out. THE DAY THEY ROBBED AMERICA is a wild and obscure film - but also slow in places and talkative. Obscure because the film doesn't stay in just one genre. It's part Vietnam War movie, part cop flick, part vigilante film, and it's part ... crazy Asian. It's not least obscure because we've actually got two main characters, the ex Vietnam soldier turned vigilante - and the ex cop turned bank robber. Neither of them is a bad person, and as a viewer we feel for the both of them. It's a dilemma and makes for a different and captivating storytelling in a genre that, despite being entertaining, is often more straight forward than straight forward.

In addition to  Rudy Fernandez I also noticed a few other well known faces, Nick Nicholson, David Light, and a few more. You can check the complete credits list on Andrew Leavold's blog.

Highly recommended.


VERSION REVIEWED: Greek ex-rental VHS. Fullscreen, English dub, Greeke subtitles, good picture quality.

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

DEATH BOND (Philippines, 1988)

Nick Nicholson as a double-crossing sleaze-bag in DEATH BOND


Nick: "You know, I can't get over it".

Other guy: "What?"

Nick: "The striking resemblance between you and horse-shit!"


[review to come]




Puzon Film Enterprises, Inc. presents
A Conrad Puzon and Pierre C. Lee Production

Glass: Jeff Weston
Lt. Lane: Eves Hudson
Donahue: Darwyn Swalve
Stroh: Henry Strzalkowski
Lido: Nick Nicholson
Petey: Jeff Griffith
Sam: Eli Marder
Camille: Casey Staub
Admiral Smith: Francis Nerone
Frank: Marvin Bund
Sylvie: Chantal Manz
Ex-Wife: Melissa Dozier
Boyfriend: Guel Romero
John Lawrence: Warren Mclean
Bodyguard 1: Allan Klem
Bodyguard 2: Gregory Walsh
Young Lady: April Schutz
Young Kid: Aaron Staub
Bartender: Tony O'Donne
Bar Waiter: Dave Harrison
Rebel Leader 1: Joe Fisher
Rebel Leader 2: Albert Bronski
Helicopter Gunner: Philip Gordon
Helicopter Pilot: George Soeth
Car Driver: Robert Allen
Hotel Receptionist: Judy Smith
Assistant Director: Joe Towers
Production Manager: Glenn Parian
Casting Director: Vic Saad
Fight Stunt Director: Rey Sagum
Car Stunt Director: Baldo Marro
Costume Designer: Merlito Santos
Set Designer: Melchor Defensor
Special Effects: Jun Marbella
Script Continuity: Juliet Chentes
Production Assistant: Jerry Asuncion
Field Soundman: Donald Santos
Camera Operator 1: Pablo Bautista
Camera Operator 2: Bernardo Gavino
Electrician: George Rosales
Set Director: Tanny Perez
Wardrobe Master: Ron Henry Tan
Make-Up Artist: Teresa Mercader
Stunt Coordinator: Jolly Jogueta
Post Production Manager: Johnny Leoncio
Sound Mixer: Vic Macamay
Sound Effects Editor: Tony Gosalvez
Asst. Sound Effects Editor: Greg Torres
Assistant Editor 1: Willie Asuncion
Assistant Editor 2: Rene Dugtong
Property Master: Jerson Arididon
Location Manager: Dories Gallardo
Transport Manager: Lito Roranes
Schedule Master: Renato Mendoza
Wardrobe Assistant: Jude Quinito
Property Assistant: Angelito Estacio
Set Carpenters: Isko Ginoo, Romy Tarin
Set Artist: Jun Peregrino
Setman: Max Pangilinan
Property Custodian: Fe Herrera
Field Cashier: Meddy Tajonera
Production Accountant: Rita Pontanares
Production Secretary: Jossie Almazan
Best Boy 1: Jon-Jon Salazar
Best Boy 2: Alejandro Mendoza
Best Boy 3: Joey Lotivio
Props & Armory: Multi-Props, Inc.
Shooting Equipment: X'Or Production
Laboratory: P.I.A.
Sound Facilities: Magna Tech Omni
Title: Amang Buencamino

[all credits are from the print, not the bloody IMDb!!!]




[All screen grabs in this post are from my own ultra rare Greek video tape]