FIRECRACKER (aka Naked Fist, 1981), TNT JACKSON (1974) and TOO HOT TO HANDLE (1977), all made in the Philippines. I'm looking forward to this release A LOT as FIRECRACKER and TNT JACKSON are highly entertaining and FIRECRACKER has never been released on DVD before (TNT has an awful public domain DVD which come out short when you compare it to my old Danish VHS!!). I've got them all on VHS but needless to say (with Shout Factory's rep. for using fabulous prints) this release is bound to smoke my old tapes!
FIRECRACKER is Cirio H. Santiago's remake of his own TNT JACKSON, and he even remade the damn film AGAIN in 1992 as ANGELFIST. It would have been fun if SHOUT! Factory had chosen to include all three versions and put TOO HOT TO HANDLE on another release (ANGELFIST, however, is available on fairly good DVD from New Horizons). Two more US-Filipino films are slated for release from SHOUT!: SAVAGE! (1973) and FLY ME (1973)
DEMONS OF THE DESERT (fan title) Dir: Luis Quintanilla Rico
Most of my Mexican cinematic intake has consisted of equal parts 1960's horror flicks like the DR SATAN movies, equal parts EL SANTO movies plus BCI's "South of the Border" DVD volumes! However, this is something quite different (to say the least!). Take a pinch of MAD MAX 2, add Roger Corman's 1970s biker movies, and move the setting to Mexico. Oh, and by the way, did I forget to say "...and ad Jim Jones' Mexican cousin too!", haha. That's exactly what LOS DEMONIOS DEL DESIERTO is!
Somewhere in the deserts of Mexico live an outlaw biker cult who, dressed like the worst Hollywood attempt at punk, follow an insane *diabolical* leader whose goal is to kill all ordinary people and make their sons his brainwashed followers. They kill travellers and steal their belongings. When the movie begins, they kidnap two beautiful young girls while they're getting ready for the one girl's wedding.
The two main characters are two cops (the girls' boyfriends) and when they learn about the girls abduction they grab their machine guns ("ordinary guns won't do") and set out to find and rescue the girls, and kill the cult members and their leader. Mayhem and violent insanity pursue.
After having killed a coupla goons you need a coupla beers!
LOS DEMONIOS DEL DESIERTO is great fun. I mean how could a movie about two elderly renegade cops (they're about twice as old as the girls who play their girlfriends!) who fight Jim Jones punk cult members not be a lotta fun!?!? And it certainly is!!! And it's pretty gory too. And the ending is, well, lemme just say I didn't quite see THAT *ONE* coming.
LOS DEMONIOS DEL DESIERTO is unfortunately not easy to find. I believe it's only ever been released on VHS in Mexico. The print I got hold of is an English subtitled (fan translated) version. The print looks pretty good. Find it if you can, wild entertainment guaranteed.
Suck my thigh before I kill ya!
Thanks to the friend who sent me The Demons and a handful of other cool & rare flicks!!
I wrote about BRUKA QUEEN OF EVILhere and posted the trailer. Andrew Leavold and I have been talking about this film for the past couple of years and now Andrew has finally got hold of a copy! It is with delirious and over-joyous delight that I re-post Andrew's review from his blog BAMBOO GODS AND BIONIC BOYS. /Jack J
1975 – Bruka (Emperor Films International)
[Philippines release date 18th July 1975; a Hong Kong-Filipino co-production, export title “Bruka Queen Of Evil”]
Director Albert Yu Producer Jimmy L. Pascual [other sources credit Jimmy with Screenplay] Dialogue Yuen Shiao Po Cameraman Leung Kwok Kuen Music Chow Fu Liang Editor Lee Yam Hai In Charge of Production Fely Pascual Production Manager Vic Kwong Assistant Director David Yau Interpretor Teddy Chiu [as Tedmund Chiu] Special Effects Michael Fung Lights Chui Kwok Kuen Makeup Soledad Mauricio Wardrobe Romana Tablate Stills Wong Tit Huang Setting Maurio Carmona Props Ng Chau Electrician Tiburcio Pacia
Cast Alex Lung, Rosemarie Gil, Etang “Ditched”/Discher (Bruka), Sandra de Veyra, Yukio Someno, Anthony Lee, Michael Kwan, Charlie Davao, Connie Angeles, Darius Razon, Tintoy, Matimtiman Cruz, Roldan Rodrigo, Bruno Punzalan, Greg Lozano, Ramon D’Salva, Pedro Faustino, Alfonso Carvajal, Eileen Montinola, Ben Manalo, Michael de Mesa, Rocco Montalban, Kristina Kasten, Sancho Tesalona, Eddie Nicart, Jimmy Cruz, Gigi Vellasenor
Review by Andrew Leavold
Back in 1974, a Filipino producer named Jimmy L. Pascual ended his two year run of Hong Kong-based kung fu productions and brought his film outfit to the Philippines to make a film called Devil Woman. Essentially a chop sockey cashing in on the kung fu craze like Pascual’s previous films (The Bloody Fists [1972], The Awaken Punch [1973] amongst others), Devil Woman is a rudimentary revenge saga with fantastic elements and snake motif, a familiar ingredient in Asian horror. Despite the regulation atrocious dubbing and wooden dialogue, Rosemarie Gil is positively regal as the snake-haired queen seeking revenge on the townsfolk for burning her parents alive, and the film was a minor hit, even receiving a theatrical run in the US, and has retained a small fanatical cult following thanks to Quentin Tarantino’s regular screenings.
For years, fans of Devil Woman saw posters for a film called Bruka Queen Of Evil featuring Rosemarie Gil’s distinctive coiffure, and assumed it was one of Devil Woman’s numerous export titles. When a trailer finally appeared, the Devil Woman herself, Manda the Snakewoman, was indeed in the film – but with entirely different footage of bats, walking trees, and an army of little people. Was this the Filipino cut of Devil Woman for the local market merely redubbed and resold, or an entirely different film? Alas, no version of Bruka could be found, even amongst the most intrepid of Asian collectors.
Imagine my surprise, then, to discover a copy of Bruka Queen Of Evil last month in my post box. Ten minutes later, I can confirm Bruka is no Devil Woman. Although made by the same production team and with many of the original’s cast, its immediate sequel Bruka is an entirely different creature. A quantum improvement on Devil Woman, the film throws open Manda’s own personal narrative, giving her both a legacy and a destiny, and adds a new protagonist’s magical quest against a seemingly improbable array of oddities.
Bruka begins as Devil Woman ends, with Manda engulfed in flames as she falls over a cliff. Miraculously she survives, and wakes in a cave next to a white-haired hag and a cadre of dwarves. “I’m your grandmother,” the hag Bruka declares, and to prove the point, unfurls her fifteen-foot snake body. She then shows Manda flashbacks to her birth in a crystal ball, revealing Manda’s mother to have chosen a mortal husband over her reptilian heritage. Manda’s so happy at the family reunion, she literally dances for joy! Surrounding her is a brand new arsenal for her protection: bats, rock creatures, tree-men, and shape-shifting dwarves into snakes. Veteran contrabida Charlie Davao is the test case, a poor villager who sees a figure under a sheet in his yard. It turns out to be a wooden cross covered in reptiles who almost drown him in venom. And with that, the Devil Woman sequel has already shape-shifted itself to the next level of weirdness.
Grandma Bruka now gives her granddaughter a special gift – a black stone which turns her head full of angry snakes into human hair for as long as she keeps the stone in her mouth. To test the theory, she goes for a jungle stroll and kisses the first unfortunate hippie with a guitar who stumbles upon her. Spitting out the stone, the snakes pounce. Exssssscelent! In Bruka, Manda is no longed killing simply for revenge, and is instead awakening her true inner evil, and exploiting her outward normalcy to indulge her more primal, destructive instincts.
In Bruka, Manda faces a new antagonist in the shape of poor and angry Chinese Hong Pin (Pascual’s kung fu kicking regular Alex Lung). He takes on the job of finding rich Mr Tony’s daughter Louisa to buy food for his ailing family. In an eerily effective sequence he walks into a village obliterated by Manda’s snake scourge, bodies strewn everywhere covered in flies and bite marks, and he helps bury the bodies alongside a priest (Ramon D’Salva) and his hunchbacked assistant. The forest is full of peril, warns the hunchback, and Hong Pin must seek a hermit’s help. And as if on cue, Bruka’s dwarves burst into the church, dissolve into snakes and cover the priest and cripple. With the hermit’s rope-belt-turned-into-a-pole, Hong Pin makes his way through hostile territory, through all manner of creatures, to the cave containing Louisa and her virginal companions, all ready to be sacrificed to the Snake Queens’ insidious blood cult.
Pascual’s Philippines output for his Emperor Films International included another starring role for Lung, Dragons Never Die (1974), released in the US on a double bill with Devil Woman, and three Tagalog horror films released in 1975 alone for the local market (Isinumpa, Pagsapit Ng Dilim and Pandemonium: Lupa, Langit At Impiyerno). But if there was ever destined to be Filipino Lords Of The Rings with evil, fondling, Riverdancing hobbits and bleeding trees, this is the one film to rule them all. Those with a snake phobia, BEWARE; those with eyebrows ready to be raised and a keenly-honed appreciation of the absurd, enjoy, and I’ll see you at Ermita’s all-dwarf bar Hobbit House for after-movie rum cocktails.
Fred Anderson of Ninja Dixon blog has just uploaded the trailer for his upcoming DVD release of THE KILLER ELEPHANTS (Thailand, 1976). Fred has recently launched a one-man company entitled ATTACKAFANT ENTERTAINMENT and besides THE KILLER ELEPHANTS Fred has also bought the rights for THUNDER OF GIGANTIC SERPENT (1988). These DVDs are not bootlegs or public domain crap but official DVDs. ATTACKFANT is based in Sweden and the two DVDs will carry English dubs. You'll find their Facebook page here.
And here's an old upload (from someone else) of THUNDER OF GIGANTIC SERPENT. Obviously, the uploader copied it off the IFD homepage and the picture quality ain't too happening but you'll get an impression of this crazy movie. The bad quality is of course not representative of how the new DVD is gonna look.
I wrote about the wild and crazy movie FIREFIST OF INCREDIBLE DRAGON the other day and here's a bit of new info from two nice gents; Knudsford of ASIAN CULT CINEMA SHOWCASE blog in Japan has provided highly interesting info on the film's origin and Peter "Kothar" from Cinehound has sent me cover scans for the French VHS and DVD releases.
THE DIFFERENT RELEASES:
Peter, along with my buddy David Z in the US, confirms that the French print is a good-looking letterboxed print and that it runs a whooping 11 minutes longer than the UK DVD!!!
Unfortunately, the French DVD isn't English friendly. :o(
Whether the French VHS and DVD contain the original uncut Korean print instead of the Tomas Tang version remains to be seen. One rather unfortunate piece of info I learnt via the British Board of Film Classification's (BBFC) homepage is that they cut out no less than 51 seconds of the UK DVD!!! As I wrote in my first post the film is also out on VHS in the US and I would assume that version is the uncut print (of the shorter Tomas Tang version).
ABOUT THE FILM:
Firstly, FIREFIST OF INCREDIBLE DRAGON isn't a Hong Kong movie at all as it says on the IMDb!
Whaaat? Surely you jest, Jack!?!? O_O Incorrect info on the highly trustworthy IMDb??? Nooo!!! @_@
Obviously, I'm laughing my ass off here. xD As soon as I saw that Tomas Tang moniker I suspected foul play but with info as difficult to come by in regards to an ultra obscure and rare movie like FIREFIST you sometimes got to run with what you're being given. Even shitty info provided by drunken IMDb monkeys.
However, here's the correct info which Tommy translated from Korean:
소림사 주천귀동 Juchon-Gwidong in Shaolin Temple (1982) Chinese title: 少林寺酒天鬼童 Production Company Shin Han Art Films Co., Ltd Producer Kim Gi-Yeong Release Day 1982-06-19 Running Time 82 min. Director Kim Jong-Seong Cast: Lee Jae-Yeong, Im Poong, Han Hee, Joo Yong-Jong
I'm a bit curious as to the 82 minute running time info. Peter tells me the French tape runs 88 minutes!!! Did the Koreans have a censored print or is it simply a misprint?
None of these two French covers are particularly good I'm afraid! Actually they're terrible at conveying what kind of film is inside the box! You would think this is an ordinary - and kinda boring looking - martial arts movie. Well, like I said (i.e. rambled about frantically) in my first post this isn't an ordinary kung fu film by anybody's standards! I would loooove to see this being given a proper release by Mondo Macabro!! Are you listening Peter Tombs!!!
Big thank-you's fly out to Knudsford, Peter, and David!
Money wise I'm scraping the barrel now. No more tapes, no dvds, no nothing for the rest of the month. I'm stuck with tinned food and crumbs off the floor. Fortunately I've stacked up on coffee and old paperbacks. I intend to read the latter tho.
The people at Customs finally sent me the tapes after I had to send them my invoice. I'm allowed to import goods into Denmark for a measly US$12 and these tapes were $10 each. I would have had to pay both the extra vat PLUS their fee (a whooping 30 dollars!!!). And all for some crappy Turkish tapes which I didn't even need in the first place! I just thought they would be fun to have because I'm a fan of those films. Well, FORTUNATELY the seller had sent me an invoice only for the ONE tape and he hadn't bothered to make a new one for both tapes but instead included the price for tape #2 IN THE POSTAGE FEE, hahahaha. Well, THAT WAS MY LUCK!!! This meant the invoice for the one tape was for $10 (and $21 for the postage!!!) and I got the tapes without problems. LMAO!!!
Oh, and when I opened the parcel I discovered one of the tapes was even a bloody Betamax tape, haha.
PS: And don't ask me why the Customs people didn't go: "Hang on, there's TWO farken tapes here! Where's the bloody payment for the second one!!" I have no idea. But then again they wrote they had a parcel that contained *DVDs*. o_O
