Japanese Zombie Schoolgirl

Here's something totally fun! Three years ago a young YouTuber called Constantine uploaded two videos in which she presented her Top 5 of favourite Japanese zombie movies. Now, I know what you're thinking; "Meh. Another lame YouTube film review!" And I fully understand you; YouTube is floating over with lame film "reviewers" whose every review (and I use the term loosely) is made up of lines like, "Man, this is an awesome movie, you should check it out, totally awesome, and it's a bargain from Target at 1 dollar, and the director Looschio Foolschee is, like, really awesome". No need to worry, this chick knows a thing or two about Japanese films. She speaks the language, has always read up on the subject matter, and basically knows her shit.

PART 1


PART 2


Apart from these two fun zombie videos Constantine also has a pile of "ordinary" reviews of Japanese films. Unfortunately, she hasn't made any new ones for a long time but do check out the old ones here.

Bruce Baron - RIP

Sad news: Bruce Baron passed away on April 14, 2013.

The news was confirmed to Régis Autran of Nanarland by Baron's widow. Bruce Baron had cancer. According to his wife, Bruce Baron prepared his own obituary that has been posted on his facebook profile. However, it's only for friends so I'm not even able to refer to the contents as I'm on that list. Baron was in some of the Filipino films that this site deal with but also other well known cult films. He was in Tsui Hark's amazing DON'T PLAY WITH FIRE. Nanarland did a good interview with him (it's on their site in both French and English). For more info on Bruce Baron check Wiki here and the Nanarland interview here.

Here's Bruce Baron on the cover of the Danish (i.e. from Denmark) vhs for DON'T PLAY WITH FIRE (courtesy of DEVAG fb page).

Introduction to Nanarland's interview with Bruce Baron:

Bruce Baron was a riddle for us during a long time : this Caucasian actor appeared during the eighties in a great number of Asian B-movies, managing to act in some of the most utterly insane flicks ever. Lead actor of Philippines-made Ramboid actioners, mustachioed ninja in Godfrey Ho's bottom-of-the-barrel films, barbarian from beyond in Ruggero Deodato's "Atlantis interceptors", slimy drug smuggler in "Overdose" made by French schlockmeister Jean-Marie Pallardy, Bruce had the most bizarre career before disappearing from the screens in 1989. The most contradictory legends ran amok on the internet : one site described him as a British-born martial artist, another mentioned his death in Sweden from an overdose of diet products... We knew nothing about him, except that he was still alive, judging from the angry e-mails he sent to websites relaying the legend of his death.

We were of course flabbergasted and overjoyed when a French-speaking Bruce Porter Baron wrote us to fill the gaps the bio we had written about him! With biting humour, Bruce gave us some truly fascinating and unheard-of infos about his career as a Caucasian actor in Asia and the world of Oriental B-movies. And there it is, ladies and gentlemen, the ultimate Bruce Baron interview, exclusive full and uncut!

[read the rest via this link]

UPDATE (10.09.2024): They changed their page over at Nanarland so the above link is now dead. I re-found the interview here. 

 

NAKED VENGEANCE (Philippines, 1985) - uncut trailer

There is another censored trailer from an Australian VHS on YouTube. This is the fully UNCUT version from a Danish VHS. Thanks to Hans-Jørn of DEVAG for the upload.

Unfortunately, the only known uncut release of the film is the un-rated NTSC VHS from the US. All other VHS releases carry the R-rated version that runs around 20 minutes shorter. There's no DVD or laserdisc release.  

EDIT (2021): Since I wrote the above (depressing) info the film has been given a brilliant FULLY UNCUT blu-ray release in the US.

DEADLY DREAM WOMAN (Hong Kong, 1992)

I watched Taylor Wong's DEADLY DREAM WOMAN tonight after having had it collecting dust on my shelf for a couple of years. LOL. My tape is from the EASTERN HEROES label in the UK. On the cover it's retitled DEADLY DREAM WOMEN but the print clearly says "Woman". EH had a knack for changing titles of the films they put out, most notoriously THE LAST BLOOD which became Hard-boiled 2: the last blood, haha (incidentally, DEADLY DREAM WOMAN was produced by Wong Jing who directed THE LAST BLOOD).

The convoluted plot: A female superhero called Nightingale Wong (played by sexy Cheung Man) gets knocked over the head in a triad shoot-out and loses her memory. She's found drifting at sea by a bunch of prostitutes who save her. She's given a new name and hangs out with the hoes (their "Madam" is also a fake witch!). She starts work as a nightclub hostess with the madam's sexy daughter (played by sexy, very sexy, Chingmy Yau) but instead of spending the night with horny men they simply rip them off. The sexy daughter is engaged to a retard (played by Jacky Cheung) who turns out to be an ex triad boss. Ehh, what? Haha. Later Nightingale recovers her memory and they all go on an awesome gun tooting revenge spree. Death and mayhem follow.

The top bad guy is played brilliantly by Ken Lo who completely steals every scene he's in. At one point he comes out of his house in nothing but a morning gown and a machine gun in each hand and starts blazing away. Smashing! Absolutely brilliant!! In real life Ken Lo was Jackie Chan's bodyguard for 30 years! If you don't like or know how to appreciate Hong Kong humour you're probably gonna be major bored by the 30 minutes that follow the initial 10 minutes of action. Personally, I was well entertained and I'll recommend the film even if you DON'T like HK humour! There's enough awesome action to satisfy fans of 1980s HK action flicks.

The UK vhs is presented in Cantonese with English and Chinese subtitles. Unfortunately, it's also in fullscreen. There's no dvd release anywhere. The best release (which I sadly don't own) is a laserdisc released somewhere in Asia; it is letterboxed and subbed in English/Chinese, but I'm told there is a HK LD that doesn't have subs so be careful of what you buy if you want subs. There's also an unsubbed HK vcd and a vhs in the US that retitles the film Lady Black Mask.

Widescreen version from laserdisc

Fullscreen version from VHS

Rare promo from unreleased WONDER WOMEN sequel

Someone posted this rare promo from 1982 for an unfinished sequel to the Filipino film WONDER WOMEN!! The sequel were to be entitled WARRIOR WOMEN but the film was reportedly never finished.

Thanks to Matthew David on DVDManiacs forum for making me aware of this YouTube upload.

WONDER WOMEN dvd up for preorder

Retromedia's dvd release of WONDER WOMEN is listed for pre-order on Amazon.com now. The release date is June 18 and the current pre-order price is $15 (5 bucks off). Go here.

NB: the Amazon listing has the dvd listed as coming out from Bayview Entertainment/Widowmaker, however that's the distributor. This is the Retromedia release (thanks to Marc Morris for clearing that up).

Another copy of CANNIBAL MERCENARY 2 on eBay

The same eBay UK seller who had the Thai VCD release of CANNIBAL MERCENARY aka Employ For Die 2 aka Mercenary 2 up for sale obviously bought more than one copy! He's got another copy up for auction right now. The starting bid is again approx £30. I still don't own a copy of the film but, uhh, £30 for a bloody video-cd!!! >_< Here's the auction.

Rare CANNIBAL MERCENARY sequel on eBay

If you've followed this blog a while you'll know I've been on the hunt for the RARE (as in totally uber rare!!) sequel to CANNIBAL MERCENARY (aka Mercenary / Employ For Die) for a couple of years now (if not, check here). The sequel has ONLY been released on a very rare video-cd in Thailand (in Thai language without subtitles).

A while back I was so fortunate as to find the the POSTER for the film by total chance at an eBay auction from a seller in Canada. The seller didn't know which film the poster was for and had listed it without the film's title!

However, the film itself has evaded me completely so far. Well, until a few days ago when my red eBay auto search lights started blinking like crazy! A seller in the UK had the VCD up for auction. "Unfortunately", he was fully aware of the rarity of the film/disc and starting price was £30 ($46).

There weren't all that many bids in the days that followed but sadly they quickly got out of my range. I knew of another collector who was interested and sent him a PM about the auction but needless to say he already knew about it. Winning bid came to £56 ($86) and I'm happy to say it was my fellow collector friend who won this rare release. Big congrats, mate.

To see the CANNIBAL MERCENARY 2 poster go here.

Are BRUNO MATTEI cannibal movies Asian worldweird movies?

If you were to say no then... I'd have to disagree. Well, kinda. Bruno Mattei and his Italian film crew were, needless to say, Italian - but ol'e Bruno actually filmed quite a few of his post 2000 films in the Philippines and quite a few of the cast members were locals, either Filipino actors or the ex-pat actors we're so familiar with not least from the trashy Vietnam War and action films that were shot in the 'Pines in the 80s and early 90s. So in a bizarre way Bruno Mattei's cannibal movies that you see presented on Japanese VHS here actually do belong on this site!

Mattei also made several other films in the Philippines, ZOMBI 3 was shot there (and altho it is credited to Lucio Fulci it was probably Mattei who made most of the film due to Fulci's falling ill shortly after the filming had begun. It's rumoured that Fulci's footage only takes up about 15 minutes of the film) and so were his last two zombie flicks ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD and ZOMBIES: THE BEGINNING, and also his highly entertaining and gory WIP film THE JAIL: A WOMAN'S HELL.

I received these two Japanese ex-rental video tapes yesterday. The two films are LAND OF DEATH (2003) (released in Japan as "Cannibal Holocaust: Cannibal vs. Commando") and CANNIBAL WORLD (2004) (aka "Cannibal Holocaust: The Beginning" in Japan). The films are also released on Japanese DVD and these vhs/dvd releases are the ONLY legit releases anywhere in the world. There are bootleg dvd's in the USA, and LAND OF DEATH is out on a Russian boot dvd as well, but like I said they are bootlegs.

If you check the covers you'll notice sequel numbers 2 and 3 after the Japanese language titles. In Japan they were released as sequels to Ruggero Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST from 1980. The two films are quite entertaining but no-way nearly as awesome as Deodato's film. They're fun trash films though.




If you check Youtube you'll find the ordinary trailers for both films from the Italian film company, but here's the Japanese made trailer for LAND OF DEATH. Check it out, it's wild!!

QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC - trailer

dir: Liliek Sudjio (Indonesia, 1983)
aka BLACK MAGIC TERROR / BLACK MAGIC 3



NOTE: QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC was apparently released under the alternative title "Black Magic 3" somewhere. I assume it was to link it to the BLACK MAGIC films from Hong Kong. Needless to say, it is a sequel in name only - not least considering QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC isn't even from Hong Kong but Indonesia!

NOTE #2: The drunk monkeys at IMDb list QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC as being in English and Indonesian. I'm facing my palm here. The reason English is included is because the American dvd is DUBBED into English. That doesn't make English part language of the film. I don't know if the people at IMDb feel it's better if they can make a film sound a little less "foreign" by adding English as the film's language. It's daft and annoying.

BLACK MAGIC, PART II - trailer

dir: Ho Meng-hua (Hong Kong, 1976)
aka BLACK MAGIC 2 / REVENGE OF THE ZOMBIES

English dubbed trailer for the censored USA vhs:



Original HK trailer:

Poster source: Hong Kong Movie Posters

BLACK MAGIC - trailer

dir: Ho Meng-hua (Hong Kong, 1975)

Poster source: Hong Kong Movie Data Base (link goes to front page. For some reason the HKMDB won't allow direct links to pages)

Poster source: Hong Kong Movie Posters

THE BAMBOO HOUSE OF DOLLS - trailer

dir: Kuei Chih-hung (Hong Kong, 1973)

Poster source: Plakatsiden

Poster source: Hong Kong Movie Posters

Alright, bring on the virgin apocalypse!

I wrote about the upcoming German dvd release of ANGELS WITH GOLDEN GUNS aka Virgin Apocalypse here. The dvd is coming from the video label CineClub and altho there's still no word no a release date, Spannick, who works for the video label, posted some cool screen grabs from the release over on Cinehound forum. The screen grabs in the proper aspect ratio certain look much better than the fullscreen version of the film that I've got! Spannick has also uploaded a clip from the print and re-uploaded the film's original IFD trailer. Check them both out! (the trailer is posted in the post just before this one).

VIRGIN APOCALYPSE - trailer

aka ANGELS WITH GOLDEN GUNS

update: new JUNGLE VIRGIN FORCE dvd

In reg. to my post here.

My friend Tommy in Japan informs me that the dvd carries the English dub, has Japanese subtitles... and that the picture quality sucks!

update: WONDER WOMEN dvd

I've just updated the info about EXTRAS in yesterday's post about WONDER WOMEN (scroll down). Fred Olen Ray posted info that was more detailed on his Facebook page. One of the new bits of info is that the dvd is going to contain footage from a never finished sequel from 1983 that was going to be called WARRIOR WOMEN. On the FB page someone also asked about the possible Code Red dvd to which Olen Ray replied, "I'm not really able to discuss that at this time. All I can say in, good conscience, is I warned them." I guess lawyers are at play now.

Battle of the Wonder Women

I bought Something Weird video's dvdr release of the Filipino/US film WONDER WOMEN (1973) and wrote about it in February 2011. Bruce Holecheck commented that Code Red were going to give the film a proper release on dvd and blu-ray.

I quite like the film and have been waiting impatiently for Bill Olsen to get his finger out his arse and release this cool Filipino film (along with the wild Filipino/US production RAW FORCE which Code Red also announced many, many moons ago!). Then about a month ago, Bill Olsen posted on his blog that Code Red were going to chuck everything else aside because they (i.e. he) were going to concentrate only on the WONDER WOMEN release! And the reason? Apparently another video label in the US, Fred Olen Ray's Retromedia, were also planning to release the film!

I've been trying to follow this confusing mess on Facebook and where ever else in Cyberspace there's been news about it, and it appears that both labels somehow have gained copyrights for the film! So as of right now, it seems we can expect a dvd release of WONDER WOMEN from both Retromedia and Code Red! The cover posted here is for the Retromedia release. I haven't seen a cover for the Code Red dvd yet. I must admit Retromedia's cover looks pretty fucken awesome! The extras sound great too:


"Commentary Track with director Robert V. O'Neil
On set Super 8mm Home Movies
Radio Spots, TV Spots, Theatrical Trailers
Missing Scenes from European Version
Video Interview with 2nd Unit Director Erik Cord
Scenes from the uncompleted sequel, WARRIOR WOMEN (1983)
Still Gallery from the original color Slides and BW negatives
Media Gallery and maybe a few more surprises"

The only Code Red extras that I'm aware of is the commentary track that was mentioned on their blog and which features director O'Neil with Nathaniel Thompson (it's a different track than the one for the Retromedia dvd).


Here are some screen grabs from the SWV dvdr: