Tom Waits at Rockpalast (German TV) '77

Dear friends, our guest at Rockpalast tonight: Tom Waits.

Imagine if television these days actually took time to show something as slow as this! Now everything has to be NOW! QUICK! FAST! YOUNG! FAMOUS! (or GET FAMOUS!). Thank God for YouTube.

New DVD-company: ATTACKAFANT ENTERTAINMENT

Usually all text here is by me, myself and glorious I but this post is by my friend Fred Anderson. This is immensely exciting!!! Fred has just launched a new video label for Asian worldweird films!!! I wish him the best of luck! We need more Onars and more Mondo Macabros!!!

If you wish to comment on Fred's post go to his blog here.

- Jack




By FRED ANDERSON

I’m kinda late here in the biz, just when everything is dying and we’re leaving DVD to VOD and similar stuff. But you know, I had to do it. I had to at least once try it, mostly because I want to see some of my favorite obscure movies on non-bootleg DVDs.

So let me introduce to you, ATTACKAFANT ENTERTAINMENT. And it’s possible to write with small letters too ;)

What I miss on the DVD-market is weird Asian movies, odd exploitation from Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong and so on. We’re not talking the normal martial arts flicks, we’re talking trashier stuff, wilder stuff. Mondo Macabro, one of the best companies in the biz, has released some amazing Asian stuff – but I don’t even want to compare myself with them. I’m in a much more primitive league.

I bought the rights to two movies, and those two might be the only titles I release… we’ll see what happen. Here they are…

The Killer Elephants (Thailand, 1976)
One of my favorites, this ultra-cheap and ultra-entertaining action movie with superstar-hunk Sombat Metanee will blow your mind when it comes to trashy action. The concept with the movie is that one of the gangs has trained killer-elephants who stomps, crushes and causes havoc to the poor suckers that meet them! You can read my review here. The knocked-out-by-elephant-dick-scene is a classic ;)

Thunder of Gigantic Serpent (Taiwan/Hong Kong,1988)
Yes, Joseph Lao’s cut & paste classic finally out on DVD! For this movie Joseph Lai and Godfrey Ho used footage from a Taiwanese monstermovie, King of Snake, and edited it together with new footage with legendary Pierre Kirby. No Ninjas, but a lot of monster action (Moslar!!!), a terrible cute kid and not always fitting-footage with western actors running around. What’s there not to love?

These versions where prepared for the international video market in the Eighties, so they are in fullscreen and with English dubbing. I’m using digibeta masters directly from Joseph Lai. For The Killer Elephants I MIGHT also include a widescreen version, sourced from a German VHS tape. Because of the cost I will make these on DVD-R, professionally manufactured in a factory. You won’t see any difference from a normal DVD. I will try to include some extras, but more on that later.

I bought the rights for Scandinavia, so the plan is to have at least Swedish subtitles. I’m sure there won’t be any problems for you outside Scandinavia to buy them from some store that ships internationally. I'm just a small business, nothing big and fancy, doing this to be able to see my favorite movies out on disc.

Yeah, that’s it. Check back for more info about release dates, new homepage, coverart, specs and of course screenshots.

Please spread the word about Attackafant Entertaiment and I would be very happy :)

/Fred

Angelfist (Philippines, 1992)

Directors who remake their own films is not an unknown phenomenon and in 1981 Cirio H. Santiago remade his own film TNT JACKSON from 1974; The remake is called FIRECRACKER (aka Naked Fist), however, what is quite a bit of a novelty is that Santiago even remade the film again!!! I guess he liked the plot, ay. The third time was in 1992 and this time he called it ANGELFIST. All three films follow the same plot about a kick-ass girl who goes to the Philippines to seek revenge for the death of her sister. I watched the first two films years ago (on VHS) and tonight I finally got the chance to see the third film. Being a Filipino exploitation flick means it's sure to deliver in the entertainment department. However, I can't say making the same film again and again made Santiago get better at choosing great actors for his roles, haha.

Mein gott, Cat Sassoon, the "actress" (and I use the term in the most loose term possibly) who plays the lead character in ANGELFIST, is by far one of the worst actresses I've ever seen! I kid you not when I say it's 90 minutes of "what the fuck was Cirio thinking!!!" She can't act, she can't fight (altho the film claims she was a karate champion - yeah, probably in Bizarro World), and her tits and lips look as fake as any Barbie doll's you'll find at Toys R Us! Man, those tits look so stiff and pointy it's probably a good thing no one landed on them headfirst as I'm sure they could have punctured some poor sap's eyes!!! I'm not even kidding.

The guy who plays her love interest is well cast as he's every bit as crappy an actor as she is. I'm laughing my ass off here thinking about it! Having said that, I should point out many of their co-stars are actually pretty good, and we find good ol'e Filipino regular Henry Strzalkowski as a crooked cop. ANGELFIST is definitely entertaining but it's just not anywhere nearly as good as TNT JACKSON and FIRECRACKER.

PS: And in case you're wondering: Yes, Santiago also repeated the "main character gets attacked by bad guys in her hotel room while she's naked and kicks their ass (still while being naked)! LOL.

THE DVD:
The copy of ANGELFIST that I've just bought is a reg. 1 DVD. It's presented in the fullscreen format. The picture is pretty good not least when you consider that most of the Filipino films we can get our mitts on are old wobbly video releases. The only extras is a trailer and some short biographies + a couple trailers for other films. There are no subtitles.

It's ironic that out of the three versions that Santiago made this is the only of the films that has so far received a proper DVD release. Fortunately, Shout Factory have announced that they'll be releasing a bunch of Filipino films this year and two of them are TNT JACKSON and FIRECRACKER!


Henry Strzalkowski (on the right) with Darwyn Swalve (who was also in HANDS OF STEEL which has just been released by AWE/Njuta Films) roughing up Nick Nicholson in DEATH BOND (1988).