I remember something Damon Foster once said in an issue of Oriental Cinema: 'I'm so old dust comes up when I cough'. That's how I feel too. Well, at least now that I'm going to explain all this about some mysterious film I watched in my childhood:
In 1971 I was in my first grade (yes, nineteen seventy fucking one!!). My mum thought it would be a grand idea to sign me up for the film club at my school (thanks mum!) and a couple of the films had a lasting impact on me. One was about some cool supermen and the other... I'll get back to that one.
Of course being 7 yrs old I didn't bite into film titles or which country they came from so it took quite a while to find out about any of the films. A couple of yrs ago a friend of mine got hold of a video tape and his description over the phone sorta rang a bell: a flick with three cool supermen: and yes, there it was: THE THREE FANTASTIC SUPERMEN (I Fantastici tre supermen, Italy, 1967)!!! It was a bit of a let-down though. I had enjoyed it tremendously as a seven year old but in adult life it just seemed too silly.
However, the other film is still a big mystery to me. I remember it as being a kind of a crime movie. There was this evil dude who had an electric iron hand and when he wanted to hurt someone he'd just grab their face and just burn their puss to a crisp. The images of their burnt faces was pretty scary. At the end of the film the hero fought the evil dude and knocked him over so his hand touched a train track (I think) and electrocuted himself. Phew! Scary stuff when you're a first-grader
Anyway, obviously I'm still anxious as to find out which film this is. Does any of you know? Does it ring a bell? Since I was so young I didn't notice finer details such as which language they spoke. I think it would've been a western flick but I guess it could've been Asian. Any help is appreciated.
[originally written as a post over at Dvdmaniacs]
