Alan Tang R.I.P.

Unfortunately Alan Tang has died. :-(



I first saw him as one of the two "brothers" in FLAMING BROTHERS opposite Chow Yun Fat many years ago on a shoddy VHS dupe without subtitles. It was one of the first HK films to be reviewed in "In the Flesh" fanzine (from the UK). He was in tons of films and produced even more. He made films already back in the 60s but the ones I'm most familiar with are the later ones from the 80s. Last year I bought the MADE IN HK video tape of FLAMING and the re-released HK dvd too. Not so much just because of him but simply because this is a cool heroic bloodshed film - but at the same time he was someone who made an impression! And now he's gone at the way too young age of 64. RIP, Alan.

SCORPION THUNDERBOLT - rare LETTERBOXED trailer

Check out this uber cool trailer that someone sent me (and which I just uploaded); It's for the highly entertaining Richard Harrison HK movie SCORPION THUNDERBOLT which is one of my two personal favourites among the many Richard Harrison cut & paste films there were made in HK in the 80s. The other one is MAJESTIC THUNDERBOLT.

The trailer is cool on it's own - but in addition to this it is also awesome because this is the fully letterboxed trailer! It's very rare to see a letterboxed trailer for these films, just as rare as it is to actually find the films in the letterboxed format! The only release of SCORPION that I'm aware of that is lbx is an old video tape from France. All other video tapes are fullscreen and there are NO dvd releases anywhere! And get this, the owners don't have a lbx print either! Anybody who buys the film for distribution would get a fullscreen print!!! In other words, you need to overlook the less than perfect quality of the video tape the trailer origins from. This is the only way to watch this!

About these films in general:
If you've only watched some of the lesser (in my opinion anyway) ninja films then you may feel a little let down by them. I admit not all of these films are great - or even very good for that matter. But if you're into wild and weird worldweird cinema then you really need to give at least SCORPION THUNDERBOLT a shot. It's head and shoulders better than the rest of the pack (well, except for MAJESTIC which is pretty cool too like I said)! And by the way, this isn't a ninja film! It's a mix of revenge, monsters, sex, and horror!!!

And if you'd like to know more about these films and which films the original prints came from I urge you to check out Jesus Manuel's blog Golden Ninja Warrior Chronicles. He's just finished a six part series called "Curse of the IFD THUNDERBOLT series".

VHS / Greece / fullscreen / English dub / Greek subs

VHS / Japan / fullscreen / English dub / Japanese subs

Thanks to my friend who sent me the trailer. I'm not sure if I should mention him by name as he's with a video company so I'll play it safe and leave it out, but thanks mate!

CANNIBAL MERCENARY 2!!!!!

GOOD GAWD!!!!!

Sergeant Rock (another rabid collector) from Cinehound forum jusssch slluch slauhsshh... mouth won't work... sschhhluch...

Calm now, Jack!! Sergeant Rock just sent me this scan which is of a video-cd and it's a SEQUEL to CANNIBAL MERCENARY!!!

O_O

The original film is from 1988 and this sequel is from '89!! The VCD carries the same Thai English title as the first one EMPLOY FOR DIE with an added "2". What a piece of fucken awesome news!!! Unfortunately it's probably gonna be very (like in veeeeery) difficult to track down a copy. Most likely this Thai VCD is the only release there is. Last year I spoke to an American who runs the TK Worldwide DVD eBay store outta Thailand, I asked him about some specific titles and he said there are tons of new VCD releases all the time and they disappear right away. But at least we now know it exists!!!

Big cheers to Sergeant Rock!!!


Here's a rundown of the plot. It's from the same site that the cover scan came from. And I don't think the writer was especially happy about these films, haha. But it'll give you an idea of what the film is about.

"Once again, Leu is ordered by his boss to form a mercenary team to stop drug propagation in Thailand and get rid of a dangerous drug lord, called Bad dog, protected by scores of tough men. It could be a "seven mercenaries" Thai remake. Six former soldiers join. Every team member has a reason to join, i.e. need 300 000 baht to cure a sick mother... They go inside the jungle. They are on unofficial mission so even the police and army can shoot them. They are mercenaries so they are employed for die. During the progression in the jungle two mercenaries die (through machete and acid bath). On the way, they help lost migrants including one lady with a baby. During the final face to face with the drug lord, all his teammates die. Leu would like to exchange his life (แลกตาย) with them as he promised that no team members should die. This is a typical 1980s Thai war movie with few interest. The action sequences are not credible enough. During the anti-communist years, movies with soldiers and mercenaries fighting in the jungle were popular. Most of these movies were low-profile, though some were popular as they played to the national sentiment. At the end of 1980s, when the communists were defeated, such action films faded."

This is a repost from Saturday from my other blog (one of them, LOL) but since the original CANNIBAL MERCENARY entry is probably the most popular and googled on my Asian blog (where I reposted it yesterday) I might as well post it here too. If any of you have this VCD please get in touch!

More people in the backyard!

Too few people are bitten by the worldweirdness bug so when someone not only pays attention to my fanatical drivel about obscure half (or entirely) forgotten movies but even goes out, gets hold of the films... A-N-D writes up reviews of them then I'm pleased beyond comprehension! Big cheers goes out to Brian over at Cinekult AND Joachim Andersson on Rubbermonsterfetishism who both chowed down my BLACK MAGIC WITH BUDDHA review and went home and reviewed some of "my" movies on their own blogs! Kudos to them both!!

I recommend you check both their reviews. :D

Don't mess with French samurais

How will I ever sleep again...

...with this *happy fella* now living in my lounge room!!?? o_O




I got him a while back but he's been sitting in my dad's garage for 6 months or so. I finally went to pick him up today but he needed a good scrub before getting here. I got him from some market that you could label somewhere in-between antique store/junk shop/op shop/thrift store/second hand market/WHATHAVEYOU market! LOL. He's around 115 centimetres (45 inches) tall and can hold 60 CD's. It took around TWO hours to wash off the nicotine stains from having (probably) sat in a smoky house for a really long time! Yuk! Anyway, he's here now and I think it's most fitting if I use him for my collection of garage rock/60's punk CD's, don't ya reckon? Caveman's music, haha. I've actually got TWO more like him (different but the same, kind of) sitting waiting in my dad's garage. Oh, and I got a new bookcase today as well, actually the first of two (and yes the other one is... in my dad's garage, LOL). They each have 7 big shelves. And they're deep too! Very important for storing those sell-thru tapes that aren't collectable among hardened collectors but that you don't wanna chuck away.

in greek...

[er der nogen af læserne her, der stod bag bloggen "Violet Verden", som forlængst er væk? Der er ikke nogen grund, men det har sgu altid irriteret mig, at jeg ikke vidste, hvem det var, LOL. Ikke mindst, fordi vedkommende linkede til mig. Nogle af blogskribentens alternative musikvideoer fra 80'erne var ret cool! Trist at den forsvandt]

Lewd Lizard (HK, 1979)

Here's another entry to the genre that I've labelled the "Dark and nasty Hong Kong horror movies of the 80s". They're not all actually from the 1980s but they all have that vipe, that tone of dark HK horror movies. Hell, they're not all even from Hong Kong! I definitely think THE DEVIL and WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD belong in that category and they're actually from Taiwan.

The film in this post, LEWD LIZARD, is a very rare nasty Hong Kong horror movie from 1979, and let me warn you right away; if you couldn't stomach KILLER SNAKES because of the cruelty to animals then... there's a good chance you're not gonna like this one one bit either! I watched LEWD LIZARD a long time ago via a VHS dupe I got from a tape-trader and I didn't wanna re-watch that old crummy tape cos it looks like it's a fourth or fifth generation dupe. So when I began preparing for this new blog I looked around for a better copy and found... practically nothing!! LEWD LIZARD has proven to be thee most difficult HK horror film to track down. There's NOTHING out there. No old video tapes, no old video-cd's, no laserdiscs, not anything! Anywhere! All I found was two bootleggers who were selling bootlegs of it and from their description it seems it's a copy off the same old crappy VHS that they've got (same description of tape roll at the beginning of the film).

Anyway, I ordered a copy and, uh, I'm afraid this DVD-R bootleg looks about the same as my old video dupe did! But at least it has (crummy!) cover art. LMAO. Anyhooo, I'll post a handful of screen grabs here and then write up a review when I've re-watched it properly again. Screw the bad picture quality, I wanna watch this! xD xD xD

NOTE: Needless to say, if ANY of you out there has an original VHS and could/would do me a DVD-R copy I'd be VERY happy!!!

Sunday's most mega ultra unreleased rarescope

Following my long Sunday tradition of posting clips from rare unreleased rarescope sword fighting films here's a clip from WRATH OF THE SWORD. Check it out it's pretty cool.

L'eroe di Babilonia (Italy/France, 1963)

aka The Beast of Babylon Against the Son of Hercules (USA) / Heroes of Babylon (UK) / Die Sklavinnen von Damaskus (Germany)


[German title lit. trans.: Slave Women of Damascus]

Directed by: Siro Marcellini
Cast:
Gordon Scott: Nippur
Geneviève Grad: Tamira
Andrea Scotti: Namar
Célia Cély: Agar
Moira Orfei: Ura
Mario Petri: Kyros
Piero Lulli: Balthazar
Andrea Aureli: Anarsi
Giuseppe Addobbati: Licardio
Paola Petrini
Harold Bradley: Mursuk


I know nothing about the Italian peplum film genre ... and I know quite a bit about it!! Huh???

Well, I've never really watched that many of the films (I think this is the third one I've watched in total!) but my old friend Henrik Larsen used to tell me lots about them and in the old days I would read all his reviews and articles about the genre in his magazine Obskuriøst. So I'm not gonna bother with a review of a film that belongs within a context I'm not familiar with. Instead I'll post a bucketful of screen grabs and let you decide if you think it's something you'd like to explore any further.

It's a bumpy road padded with big sweaty, half naked men and often grabbing each other. Apparently these films are favourite viewing in gay circles and you can certainly see why. However, you can't complain about the lack of gorgeous women in L'EROE DI BABILONIA as there were aplenty! But don't expect any nudity, this is from 1963 after all, but, hey, "less is more"! I don't know how well L'EROE DI BABILONIA holds up against the rest of the genre but I was well entertained.

As far as I remember Henrik once told me there are about 200 films within the peplum genre and it lasted from the mid-1950s thru to the early 60s. After that the audiences got bored with the whole thing and the Italian film makers discovered the westerns and invented the spaghetti western genre instead!


"Silence! I kill you!"















NB: The cast credits list is from German Wiki. Blame them if it's not correct!