[Mexican lobby card for DEVIL WOMAN]Today I finally got hold of the Filipino horror movie BRUKA, QUEEN OF EVIL which for years was thought to be lost. And before it was believed to be lost fans though it was an alternative title for MANDA aka DEVIL WOMAN. But it's not, they're two different moves (which Andrew Leavold has written extensively about here)
It's taken me about three and a half years to track down BRUKA and today I finally received it. Yay!!! Last year someone else got hold of a copy and shared it with friends, and copies off that copy are now doing the rounds in collector circles. I wouldn't be surprised if it's uploaded to torrent sites. Apparently, there's already some bootleg site that has got hold of it as well. However, I figured I'd get it directly from the person who provided Andrew's and everyone else's copy; i.e. the gwilo actor who got the film on vhs from one of the actors who starred in BRUKA and DEVIL WOMAN! The actor got the tapes directly from the films' producer. I'm really looking forward to seeing this film now!
But lets talk about the HEADLINE!!! In addition to BRUKA I ALSO received the Mandarin dubbed print of DEVIL WOMAN! In fact I got two different prints of the Mandarin dubbed version; One with English subs that originates from the film's producer (it says "Sample" on the print). And an un-subtitled print which is taken from an official VHS release from (I'm pretty sure) Taiwan!! He also sent me a Xeroxed colour copy of the vhs cover and I'll post it here once I get my arse in gear and a scanner organised! I think the two tapes from the producer are taken directly from 35mm or 16mm prints. These subtitled prints are not released anywhere on home cinema format. And BRUKA has never been released in any format to home-cinema anywhere in the world.
But BACK TO THE HEADLINE!!! [spoiler warning here!] My suspicion was right!! My suspicion which I've had all along THAT SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO'S EDITION OF DEVIL WOMAN CUTS OFF TOO EARLY!!! I was right!!! In fact the SWV vhs is missing the entire ending after the snake woman falls off the cliff!! There's about a minute of happy children and the snake woman crying in pain while she's burning in the flames of HELL!!! I wonder why it's missing from the SWV print. And it's highly annoying as SWV's fully letterboxed print otherwise looks so much better than the two Mandarin prints which are both presented in the fullscreen format. Anyway, I haven't watched any of my new dvd-r's properly yet but I'll write up some more (better) info once I do (and can make a proper comparison).
All very exiting!
