Name that Filipino actor!

Things move at a snail's pace here. I was gonna post the news about Andrew Leavold's "new" Filipino blog a while back. But I've just checked when exactly he launched it and it was bloody three years ago! Oh well. I guess it could have been four years ago which would have been even worse. Or five!

In any case, Andrew put up a new blog to basically index each and every actor that was ever in a Filipino genre movie. Not just the local Filipino actors but also any ex-pat who starred in them. The John Ashley's, the Nick Nicholson's and the Joy Bang's. Heeey, wait-a-minute... I just checked and he doesn't actually have Joy Bang in the index!!!

She was in NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMEN. A performance which Kier-La Janisse called "a disaster" in a (very good) article about Joy Bang for the UK magazine Shindig in 2016 (i.e. #27. It's still available from their website). I quite like the film, though (it's on blu-ray and dvd from Scorpion Releasing).

To check out Andrew's "new" blog and a 1000 well known and some not so well known actors and actresses from the Filipino genre film industry of yesteryear go here. 

"25 Years of Punk" - documentary

Here's an alright documentary about the history of punk. Yes, it's from VH1 and pretty polished but there's a still a ton of cool interviews.

"The Ultimate Mercenary Collection" 6 film blu-ray box set

I've recently bought a brand new excellent blu-ray box set of five Italian/German flicks of the sort we like on this here blog! Four of them are directed by Antonio Margheriti and one by Fabrizio de Angelis! 

"Brand new" as in I've had it sitting on my Amazon want-list for a couple of years! But brand new compared to the old Japanese VHS releases of the very same films that I have in my collection. And they're fully uncut ... and English friendly … and it's blu-ray! Reason enough to celebrate I'd say. 

The box set contains six films, the last one being the original THE WILD GEESE (UK 1978) that the Italians ripped off with some of their films in this set (I assume. I haven't watched the original film yet). 

The five Italian/German films all carry English audio for the films!

Unfortunately this doesn't apply for the extras which are in German, or Italian with German subs. 

As I write this the set is available from Amazon Germany. Go here.

The films in the box set are: 

THE WILD GEESE (Andrew V. McLaglen, UK/Switzerland, 1978)
German title: "Die Wildgänse kommen"

TORNADO aka LAST BLOOD (Antonio Margheriti, Italy/Germany, 1983)
German title: "Im Wendekreis des Söldners"
Fully uncut. Several previous German vhs/dvd versions are cut

CODE NAME: WILD GEESE (Antonio Margheriti, Italy/Germany 1984)
German title: "Geheimcode Wildgänse"
Fully uncut. Arrow's UK blu-ray is cut 13 minutes!

COMMANDO LEOPARD (Antonio Margheriti, Italy/Germany 1985)
German title: Kommando Leopard
Fully uncut.

COMMANDER (Antonio Margheriti, Italy/Germany 1988)
German title: Der Commander
Fully uncut. The Arrow blu-ray is cut 1 minute

COBRA MISSION (Fabrizio de Angelis aka Larry Ludman, Italy/Germany, 1986)
aka Operation Nam
German title: "Die Rückkehr der Wildgänse"

THE WILD GEESE (Andrew V. McLaglen, UK 1978)
German title: "Die Wildgänse kommen"
In contradiction to the 5 Italian films, the UK film is of a lesser picture quality apparently; According to dvdcompare: "note the last 7 min 13 sec of the German BD are zoomed in and in much lower quality".