A video night long ago in downtown Copenhagen

More exciting stuff!!! This time from a video night long ago. Present were yours truly with a cell phone camera, Nils Markvardsen (editor of the film mag eXtase), Heine Sørensen (video collector since the late 70s), and Henrik Larsen (Obskuriøst magazine editor who went off in a different direction long ago soon after this night. Hey, Henrik, let's forget the past! Heine and I would love to hook up over coffee sometime).

I don't remember the films so this is really all that's left, LOL.



Nils, Henrik and me (camera)



Henrik and me (camera)




The voices of Nils, Heine, me (camera), and we get a quick glimpse of Henrik

The name's Arkin. Cüneyt Arkin!

Wauw! Check out this exciting trailer for KANUN GÜCÜ (1979). I wish some more of this stuff was out subbed.



Oh and this one:



AWESOME!!!

Video International

One of the most legendary video companies in Denmark was Video International. The label existed back in the 1980s and was run by just the one guy. I'm not even sure of his name. Anyway, Video International put out tons of cool titles, titles that are now sought after by VHS collector scum everywhere (like myself, haha). For an incomplete list of their releases go here.

Old-timer VHS collector Heine Sørensen outside the old Video International building on Gasværksvej 16, Copenhagen.

At some stage, I believe it was towards the end of the 1980s, the owner jumped the boat and took off in direction Far East. Apparently the tax authorities were breathing down his neck so at some stage he just decided he'd had it and left it all behind; the company, the video tapes, even his wife!! A couple of (individual) collectors have tracked him down to Thailand but the trail grows cold there. None of them actually found his exact whereabouts. The first collector to track him down was Thure Munkholm of Uncut.dk and the second collector, Diabolik/Hans Jørn of Cinehound, told me he'd found out that the Video International owner's name was actually attached to all kinds of crime!

BLOOD OF DRACULA'S CASTLE (cover courtesy of Dag-Johnny)



Anyhoo, a little while ago me and my mate Heine Sørensen set out to find the old Video International headquarters and sure enough we found it in the middle of Copenhagen. Unfortunately, none of the old HQ was left. I had kinda hoped no one would have touched the place and that we would be able to just walk in and we'd be standing in the middle of tons and tons of rare, dusty video tapes that wouldn't have been touched since he took off back in the 80s. Well, needless to say all what was left was the building which is now used by people who don't even realise they're living where this legendary video label used to be. And all we've got left are old moldy video tapes and a couple of photos that I took of Heine outside the old building. Boo-hoo. :-(

JUNGLE VIRGIN FORCE was one of five Indo flicks that Video International put out. The other four were: DEVIL'S SWORD, ESCAPE FROM HELL HOLE, BLAZING BATTLE, and THE INTRUDER ("Rambu").

[click both covers for bigger size]

Maybe I didn't drink enough water today...

...maybe my mind is deceiving me again (get off me damn bugs!!!) but I could have sworn I'd seen this post before: Moveon.net

Now, I'm sure I saw a dancing dwarf here somewhere.

De Dødes Tjern on dvd in October (or: Hell Comes To Your Tjern)

Great news! Two weeks ago, I wrote to Nordisk Film in Denmark and asked them about a possible DVD release of the Norwegian 1958 horror movie DE DØDES TJERN and today I (finally) received an e-mail from Nordisk Film's branch in Norway saying the film is going to be released on October 14!

Great news indeed! It seems it'll be a Norway only release but I can live with that. Let's cross our fingers it'll have English subs so people everywhere can get to enjoy this classic (and I say that even without every having watched anything but the two clips I linked to in the first post!!!).

Thanks to Elvira Vegas Messel of Nordisk Film Distibusjon for the info. She also read my first blog entry. :D
Now, Elvira, how about a review copy??? LOL.

I know; overkill. LOL.

The world's coolest track on Friday

Ahh, The Pixies with "Where is my mind". I lived in a shared house filled with Kiwis in Gant's Hill, Essex when this came out. Obviously, the Pixis' obscure music was what kept my mind from disappearing completely into the abyss. New Zealanders are weird, man!! LOL.

The video is a fun fan made video by the way.

Lost Asia: YOUNG FLYING HERO (1970)

For the longest time this film (which appears to be an amazing kung fu monster movie!!) was considered lost among fans! Well, as we speak it's on its way to Casa J!!

:-D

YOUNG FLYING HERO (Taiwan, 1970)





Unfortunately, this remains lost:

DEVIL FIGHTER (Taiwan, 1969)

Argento on Danish ex-rental

Over at Uncut.dk messages board we're trying to figure out how many collectors have these very rare Danish ex-rental tapes of Argento films. I know, I know, a completely waste of time but, well, that's how it is to be a geeky collector. :-D

In the early days these Danish tapes were very sought after by international horror and splatter movie fans as they offered uncut, English dubbed prints. Well, most of them were uncut anyway. ;-)

So, if you're either in Denmark or somewhere else; if you have one of these tapes do let us know. Cheers. You'll find the thread here.

And if you don't collect your films in a modly format that belongs to a bygone era then if nothing else you can enjoy these very rare covers that sure beat the crappy photoshop covers of today's DVD releases. They just don't make 'em like this anymore!







(click scans for bigger size)
All above scans are courtesy mr. Diabolik.

Crazy Indonesia: The amazing THE WARRIOR series

Mexican lobbycard for "The Warrior"

If you have never come across any of the JAKA SEMBUNG films starring Barry Prima you have been missing out on some WILD cinema!! The Jaka Sembung series, or THE WARRIOR as it's known in English, is a series of totally awesome and highly entertaining adventure films from Indonesia. Gory adventure films I might add! In short the series deal with the historical freedom fighter Jaka Sembung who fought the Dutch imperialists when they occupied Indonesia until fairly recently. A rather amusing detail is that one of the markets where the films have been most widely distributed on video is actually Holland. Indonesia's old scurge. :-D

The first film is THE WARRIOR (original title: Jaka Sembung Sang Penakluk) from 1981. It's directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra and stars Barry Prima in the lead role as Jaka Sembung. Also Eva Arnaz and Dana Christina are featured. Just like Barry Prima they starred in tons of genre films in the 80s. Barry Prima stars as the main character thru out the whole series. Here's a trailer for THE WARRIOR:



Fortunately, THE WARRIOR is easy to get hold of as it has been released on a spiffy wee disk by those gents from Mondo Macabro, Pete Tombs and Andy Starke. The first film is also out on a handful of different video releases, both in Greece, Holland, and the UK. There are also versions dubbed into other languages such as German. Beware of the UK tape as it's cut. It's missing no less than 31 seconds!!!

Unfortunately, the Mondo Macabro release is the only DVD of any of the films in the series. :-( Mondo Macabro were considering to put out the four sequels which would have been amazing not least since the last two films have never been released outside of Indonesia/Malaysia, nor have they ever been dubbed or subtitled into English. However, unfortunately the MM's DVD hardly didn't sell at all! According to Pete Tombs (from his posts on Cinehound message board) many "fans" were happy enough with downloading the film (illegally) from torrent sites. It's terrible to think that because of this we may never see proper DVD releases of these sequels.

Here's my VHS from Holland:



The second film in the series is THE WARRIOR AGAINST THE BLIND SWORDSMAN (original title: Si Buta Lawan Jaka Sembung). Directed by Dasri Yacob, 1983. The film was released on VHS in Greece, Holland and the UK. The UK tape is cut by 5 seconds. Check out the trailer here:



As the title suggests Jaka Sembung teams up with the blind swordsman character (it's a slightly odd title as they're actually not fighting each other but teaming up against the oppression!). The blind swordsman later returned in the spin-off sequel simply entitled THE BLIND WARRIOR (more on that later).

And here's my Dutch VHS cover for the film:



The last English dubbed THE WARRIOR sequel (unless you count the spin-off as a sequel) is THE WARRIOR AND THE NINJA (original title: Bajing Ireng Dan Jaka Sembung). Directed by H. Tjut Djalil (1983) who also directed LADY TERMINATOR, MYSTICS IN BALI, and many more. Some sources claim THE WARRIOR AND THE NINJA is aka The Warrior 2 but my Dutch VHS release clearly labels THE WARRIOR AGAINST THE BLIND SWORDSMAN as films #2. But whether the two films were swapped around in some territories I don't know. But my gut feeling tells me it's merely a fuck-up by fans who didn't spend enough time on their research.

EDIT: After I wrote this article and originally posted it on my other blog it has come to my attention that there's a good chance THE WARRIOUR AND THE NINJA is indeed film #2 in the series. It doesn't matter that much tho in regards to viewing enjoyment as they're totally unrelated in their plot lines.

Here's the trailer for NINJA:



And here's my Greek VHS release which is the one to go for as it's letterboxed. There's also a letterboxed tape from Australia but finding that one is probably more rare than getting laid at a dike slumber party (to coin an old Damon Foster joke, haha). Unfortunately, all the video versions I've seen are too dark during the night scenes. The best version (during the night scenes) is actually the Malay VCD where you can see what the bloody hell is going on, LOL. Unfortunately, it's in Indonesian, it's fullscreen, and pixelates all over the place. There are als Dutch and UK releases. Amazingly enough the UK tape is uncut according to the BBFC. :-O



The last two sequels are BERGOLA IJO , dir: Arizal (1983) and JAKA SEMBUNG DAN DEWI SAMUDRA, dir: Atok Sugiarto (1990). None of them have English titles and I haven't been able to find any trailers for them, nor do I have any scans of the VCD covers. But anyway, regardless of how rare these films are (apart from #1) or that two of them aren't in English, if you enjoy wild and crazy movies then you really ought to check out the JAKA SEMBUNG / THE WARRIOR series.

And finally, the bastard 6th film in the series; the spin-off sequel THE BLIND WARRIOR (original title: Neraka perut bumi) in which the blind warrior character from THE WARRIOR AND THE BLIND SWORDSMAN makes a return. Directed by RATNO TIMOER in 1987. Timoer also did THE DEVIL'S SWORD (also released by Mondo Macabro, and highly recommended!) and many more. In contradiction to the "real" THE WARRIOR sequels this was actually released on DVD - twice even!! In the UK and Germany (both DVD's carry English and German dubs). Unfortunately both DVD's are long out of print but at least you have to chance of getting a copy from a friend. There was also a German dubbed VHS and an English dubbed VHS was released in Hong Kong (with Chinese subs). If you can find a copy of that video you're one lucky fellar cos it's very rare.

The German VHS which basically uses the same cover as for the German and UK DVD releases.
[click scan for full size]

There's no trailer for THE BLIND WARRIOR on YouTube so here's a clip from the film instead. It's... over the top - as is the entire series!!! You should try and find them.



THE WARRIOR AGAINST THE BLIND SWORDSMAN and THE WARRIOR AND THE NINJA are available from Far East Flix (yes, they are boots off Dutch video tapes). The picture quality equals VHS quality.