The original film that Joseph Lai cannibalised for his INFERNO THUNDERBOLT

Thanks to JESUS MANUEL of the way cool blog Golden Ninja Warrior Chronicles I learnt which film was the source film that Joseph Lai and his IFD label in Hong Kong used for their cut & paste film INFERNO THUNDERBOLT. The film is the Taiwanese THE ANGER and after having had it on eBay auto search for quite a while I finally struck gold a few days ago when the Ocean Shores VCD release of the film popped up. And tonight the auction ended with only one winner! LOL (altho the winning bid makes me feel like I pulled the short straw at the same time! Argh!). Check Jesus Manuel's post about the film here and see screen grabs.


No, that's not me but JESUS MANUEL of GOLDEN NINJA WARRIOR CHRONICLES blog!

What's in a mug

I remember an incident some years back. I was visiting my parents and it was in the afternoon. We were in the lounge room watching tv. As always, I had a cup of coffee next to me. Then around 3 o'clock my dad announced it was time for Coffee (afternoon coffee was almost a separate meal in our house) and off he went to the kitchen to prepare coffee and probably a cake of some kind. My mum also got up, wobbled around the coffee table and asked if she should take my cup. Now, to understand this you need to know my mum suffered from dementia the last five years of her life. At this stage it was somewhere in the middle, she didn't recognise the present but she wasn't completely helpless either. She had lost her sense of balance though and it was almost a daily occurrence that you'd hear a "clonk" from somewhere in the house, and you knew mum had fallen over again. And what you also need to know is that we always had our own cups (mugs actually) when I grew up. When I was a kid it was unavoidable that you'd accidentally smash your mug every once in a while. The one I've got now I've had since sometime in the '80s (it's probably survived this long due to the fact that I moved out in the '80s and thus haven't used it all that much!). It's a Flintstones mug (I think my mum bought it for me but I'm not sure). Anyway, so on this particular afternoon 5-6 years ago my mum asks me if she should take my mug to the kitchen. It was a difficult question; I remember thinking there was a great risk she'd drop it accidentally on the floor due to her less that steady balance. It was my fave mug and it had history. I simply didn't want to lose it. But on the other hand, I didn't have the heart to reject her offer. She was ill, didn't have much enjoyment in life any longer, and - she wanted to help. So I said yes and crossed my fingers that I'd see my mug in one piece again. She wobbled to the door. Walked out. Closed the door. And I deliberately decided not to think about the possible ill fate of my mug. I probably turned on the tv. Five minutes later my mum wobbled back into the lounge room with the mug in her hand. She had washed it. She put it on the table and said, "One needs to have a clean cup". I said "I fully agree". Today is Mother's Day but, quite frankly, it makes no difference to me. I miss my mum always.

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.

Beat poet TAYLOR MEAD has died

I discovered The Velvet Underground and because of them I discovered Andy Warhol which made me discover Taylor Mead. He has just passed away. I don't know too much about him so I'll send you off to another, better source, The New York Times. They printed this obituary yesterday. Taylor Mead was 88.

RIP, Taylor.

Here's a good 6 minute documentary film that a fan made about Mead in 2006:

Roger Corman pay tv channel on YouTube o_O

This was just uploaded to YouTube on the official Roger Corman channel. I wonder if this means they'll broadcast the same prints as they offered on dvd or they'll get the much better restored prints that Shout Factory used for their dvd's and blu-rays?

Somehow I already know the answer. LOL. The sad thing is I'm sure lots of fans are gonna go for the YT channel versions because it's now considered old-fashioned to own hard-copies and won't bother with the (mostly) awesome Shout versions.

Published on 9 May 2013
Hollywood rebel Roger Corman offers his unique brand of entertainment at Corman's Drive-In on YouTube Paid Channels. Coming soon!

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]

When you're BACK AT THE OLD HOUSE in your dreams...

Last night's very vivid dream. I was in the house that I grew up in. My girlfriend that I was with for a decade (and more than a decade ago) was there. My dad was there. I have a faint notion that my mum was there in the early part of the dream leading up to the part that I can actually remember. My dad was in his blue work-clothes that he wore when he would do some work on the house or the garden. Then he went for a drive to get something. I think I said, "Now that they're out of the house you can play some music" and my girlfriend takes off all her clothes and plays some loud music on a stereo (in the dream there's no stereo or radio, the music just kind of comes from the house itself!). She then puts on a jumper and makes a phone-call. She says to her friend Lisa at the other end of the line, "Now I can finally play some loud pop and rock music". I utter, "bullshit!" and I can immediately see it was a mistake so I lower my voice so that the person on the phone can't hear me, and I continue "You can always play pop music". My girlfriend replies, "Oh, okay". I get a feeling it's not quite okay. In my dream I blame myself for the outburst. Then while she's still on the phone standing next to the old desk in the lounge-room, I walk to the other end of the lounge-room and see a dog outside on a dog-leash. I can't see who's at the other end of the leash. In my dream I recognise the dog but now I can't for the life of me remember whose dog it was. Then a moment later I see who's at the other end. It's my dad and he's coming around the house with the dog. In the dream I reckon he wants the dog to meet our own dog (which was my dog really). In the dream I'm thinking our dog will have a fit when it sees the other dog and it'll start barking like crazy. I think about telling my dad not to bring other dogs around because our dog is old and it'll just have a stroke. Then I woke up.

All of it very strange. And all of it gone. As you know my dad passed away in February. My gf from back then is no longer my gf. My dog got diabetes and was put down. We had her for 12 years. Unfortunately, it happened while I was away for 6 months at some school in 1984/85. In my dream the house looked like it did in the old days when my mum was still with us. In reality my dad changed it all after she passed away. The widow after my dad, his second wife, still lives there. I'm not sure what it all means. Probably the Universe saying, "Get your arse in gear and move on, buttmunch!"


For more of the old dreams click the "dreams" label at the bottom of this post.

DEADLY DREAM WOMAN (HK, 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

update

To Danish/Scandinavian readers: the Danish section is gonna be back up shortly, no worries.

Jeff Hannemen - RIP

This is very sad news indeed. JEFF HANNEMEN of SLAYER has died. He was 49.

The news on the SLAYER facebook page.