“Lethal Combat: Techno Warriors 2” Filipino Poster

AKA: Digital Warriors 
Director: Philip Ko Fei
Cast: Darren Shahlavi, Lee Kwang-su, Yukari Oshima, Zoren Legaspi, Jimmy Ko, Man-Kei Lin, James Jim-Si Ha, Philip Ko Fei, Winston Ellis, Thorsten Nickel
Running Time: 93 min.

By Paul Bramhall

Let’s address the elephant in the room – I’m convinced nobody was clamouring for a sequel to the 1997 sci-fi action mashup Techno Warriors. Philip Ko Fei’s incomprehensible Philippines shot action flick gave us a dystopian future (set in 2020!), where a villain called the Black Ninja escapes from the Cyber World into the real world, and cops from both worlds team up to stand a chance of taking him down. What Techno Warriors lacked in narrative cohesion it did make up for in its energetic pacing and high kicking action sequences, so much of which were shot Ko Fei decided to make a follow-up, ensuring the scenes that were left on the cutting room floor didn’t go to waste. The result would come 3 years later in the form of Lethal Combat: Techno Warriors 2 (or as it was released in some territories, Digital Warriors).

In my review for Techno Warriors I complained that “Explaining the plot…could easily be described as headache inducing”, however compared to Lethal Combat I can safely take that back, as almost nothing make sense from the first scene. Essentially a thematic sequel rather than a direct continuation (even though characters names remain the same, and scenes from Techno Warriors are frequently shown in flashback, albeit in a different context to how they first appeared!), Lethal Combat opens with returning cops Darren Shahlavi and Lee Kwang-su. Neither Tamara Guo or Monsour Del Rosario (despite him being listed on both the HKMDB and IMDB sites!) return this time around, replaced by Yukari Oshima (naturally billed by her Filipino alias of Cynthia Luster, in what would be her final role until a one-off return in 2011’s Legendary Amazons) and Zoren Legaspi (a stalwart of 90’s Filipino action flicks like Shotgun Bajo).

After an opening warehouse shootout against some villainous computer game developers who are secretly smuggling uranium (why we never find out, and it’s never mentioned again), Shahlavi and Kwang-su are killed in a hail of bullets, with Legaspi turning up to already find them dead. Harrowing stuff, so naturally he attends a press conference to discuss their deaths in the next scene wearing a brightly coloured tie adorned with images of Marilyn Monroe. Legaspi’s girlfriend is a game developer working for Banana Computers (even though she’s clearly using a Mac), and as a homage to her boyfriends fallen comrades, she scans the images of Shahlavi and Kwang-su to turn them into ‘Digital Warriors’, who’ll be the main characters in her new game.

However it turns out game developing is a dangerous profession, as Bill Gates (I kid you not) from Mango Computers has called a secret meeting of Asia’s top game developers. He wants to make a game that’ll surpass Streetfighter which should contain “Asian characteristics” to appeal to China’s massive population, and he’s willing to pay big bucks for anyone who can help him succeed. Banana Computers look set to impress the most, however they have heavy competition from the devious Durian Computers, and there’s also internal strife with a rival developer (played by a Filipino actor who isn’t listed anywhere, possibly because he manages to being even more annoying than Niño Muhlach in Techno Warriors). When the rival developer seizes the chance to hijack the game, he inadvertently releases the games villain (you guessed it – the Black Ninja) into the real world, and soon Shahlavi and Kwang-su follow suit.

I confess I’m an unashamed fan of Philip Ko Fei, I mean one look at his filmography and you can see he’s a guy who’s done it all. From being the villain in countless 70’s kung-fu flicks whose presence immediately elevated any production he was in, to choreographing the ninja action in many of Godfrey Ho’s cut ‘n’ paste efforts in the 80’s, to directing a whole bunch of Philippines shot action cheapies in the 90’s. Unfortunately despite his time working with Godfrey Ho, it’s clear that Ko didn’t pick up too many tips on how to put together an effective cut ‘n’ paste job, as in Lethal Combat the leftover scenes from Techno Warriors rarely gel with the newly shot scenes of Yukari Oshima and Zoren Legaspi.

I get the distinct impression nobody really knew what they were doing during the production of Lethal Combat, with any attempt at plot cohesiveness left to the awful dub, and Oshima and Legaspi spending an inordinate amount of time looking listless while staring at a computer screen. There are a number of dialogue scenes which play out as one shot but have bizarre and awkwardly placed long pauses, almost as if another scene was supposed to be intercut before going back to them, but the editor just gave up and walked away. Other attempts at plot logic are simply abandoned all together, like when the characters do escape into the real world, but then in a latter scene Oshima and co. are still watching the action play out on the computer screen. Aren’t they supposed to be in the real world now? I have a feeling the expected audience for Lethal Combat likely wasn’t expected to be anyone beyond the crew’s family and friends.

Speaking of the awful dub, it at least comes with plenty of unintentional hilarity. These Filipino shot productions were notoriously low budget, so it wouldn’t come as a surprise if the dubbers were also purchased on the cheap, and they simply decided to see how much they could get away with. Most of the clangers are given to Ko Fei’s Black Ninja, who at least gets to show his face this time around (perhaps that’s why Lethal Combat exists?). During his fight with Shahlavi he quips “you have a cute butt, you should join our side!”, and after finally defeating him announces “How’d you like them apples? I suggest you surrender now and call me master!” Other times a character combines the Adidas and Nike slogans by proclaiming “Impossible is nothing, just do it!”, and we even get a villain named after the popular Filipino beer Red Horse.

If anything is a plus, Ko Fei does get a lot more to do on the action front this time around, with the presumably unused Techno Warriors finale pitting him against Shahlavi and Kwang-su here re-purposed into the plot, giving us the opportunity to witness that he still had the moves at almost 50. The most interesting addition to Lethal Combat is the inclusion of an uncredited Thorsten Nickel, the German martial artist most well known for being cast as the bad guy in the Jackie Chan starring Thunderbolt, in which he was given precisely zero fight scenes. Here at least we get to see that he can actually fight, although it’d be easier to theorise around why his talents weren’t utilised in Thunderbolt than it would be for me to try and explain what his role is.

The biggest issue in Lethal Combat though (and all of them are pretty big) is that it’s clear all of the best fight scenes were used in Techno Warriors. Here we’re left with the “wasn’t quite good enough” reel, which when you consider it’s from a movie which was already low budget, is never going to be good news. It’ll always be a pleasure to watch Shahlavi unleash his kicks, however there’s no real standout moments on display, and when you also lose the frantic pace that Techno Warriors came with, it’s not helped by the fact most of the surrounding scenes around the fights become increasingly dull as the plot progresses. Criminally Yukari Oshima is hardly used at all, and as the one person capable of elevating even the lowest budget production, to see her relegated largely to the side-lines perhaps makes it a small mercy that this would be the last movie she’d appear in during the 2000’s.

Ko Fei would go on to direct a further 18 movies between 2000 to 2003 until his retirement from behind the camera (he’d act intermittently in the succeeding years), so it’s not a surprise with such a quantity over quality approach that Lethal Combat ended up as an unwatchable mess. Perhaps the best way to approach a viewing is as a collection of deleted scenes, with fast forwardable filler inbetween.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 3/10

Note: Since there’s almost no trace of Lethal Combat’s existence anywhere, here’s the full movie, but dubbed in Tamil. We apologize. 

The post Lethal Combat: Techno Warriors 2 | aka Digital Warriors (2000) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Day Zero” Theatrical Poster

Director: Joey De Guzman
Cast: ​Brandon Vera, Pepe Herrera, Mary Jean Lastimosa, Joey Marquez, Ricci Rivero, Freya Fury Montierro, Yohance Levi Buie, Jema Galanza, Jovit Moya
Running Time: 82 min.

By Paul Bramhall

In the late 2010’s it began to feel like the Philippines film industry was finally stepping out of the insipid stupor it had spent most of the 21^st century in, and was making a legitimate effort to produce some solid action filmmaking to catch up with its Southeast Asian neighbours. In the twilight years of the decade alone we got Erik Matti’s Buy Bust, Pedring Lopez’s Maria, Richard Somes’ We Will Not Die Tonight, and Vincent Soberano delivered a double whammy with The Trigonal: Fight for Justice and Blood Hunters: Rise of the Hybrids. While none of them proved to be the watershed moment the likes of Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and even Cambodia had experienced, what couldn’t be argued is that things were heading in the right direction. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and like most countries any filmmaking endeavours were placed on ice for an extended period.

Thankfully in 2022 the local film industry started to pick itself up and shake off the dust, with Day Zero arriving by combining those always welcome bedfellows – the action and horror genres. A radio voiceover kicks off proceedings by explaining that a mutated version of dengue fever has emerged, one which causes its victims to turn into rabid zombies with a propensity for violence. Like any zombie movie that knows its worth, no further explanation is required (and we definitely don’t get any), with the familiarity zombie flicks come with since 28 Days Later re-popularised the genre 20 years ago meaning their success depends more on the execution of the ‘how’ than the ‘what’.

Day Zero is director Joey De Guzman’s sophomore feature length production after the 2019 horror The Ghosting, and it could well be the fact that the previously mentioned Erik Matti is on executive producer duty that the latter’s Buy Bust co-lead Brandon Vera here steps up to starring role status. Half Filipino and half Italian, Vera was originally a mixed martial artist who worked in both the UFC and ONE Championship promotions, before looking to try his hand at acting with his role in Buy Bust. Notably he hasn’t done any movie work since working with Erik Matti, and while it’d be easy to draw parallels with another half Filipino actor who came from a martial arts background, namely Dave Bautista, judging by his performance in Day Zero it’s fair to say he still has some way to go.

Playing a U.S. Special Forces member imprisoned in Manila for getting into a scuffle that led to the victim being permanently disabled (echoes of Donnie Yen’s angry cop in SPL!), any screen presence that Vera had in Buy Bust has here gone MIA, instead coming across as a somewhat gormless hulk. We learn he wants nothing more than to reunite with his wife, played by half Filipino half Iranian Miss Universe Philippines 2014 Mary Jean Lastimosa, and their definitely not inspired by A Quiet Place deaf mute daughter, played by newcomer Freya Fury Montierro. Predictably, by the time things get to the denim wearing zombie apocalypse and the prison becomes a free for all, Vera makes it his mission to get across town and find his loved ones. Oh, and he’ll do so with his effeminate comedy relief inmate from the inside, played by Pepe Herrera (Always Be My Maybe), who was also his sign language teacher (don’t ask).

Lastimosa and Montierro are of course having a hard time in their 7^th floor apartment since the whole block is succumbing to the new strain of dengue fever, and considering the zombies react to sound more than sight, the fact that Montierro uses a bell to get attention naturally doesn’t bode well. The apartment block setting also allows us to meet the usual set of expendable characters – we get a young loved up couple, played by basketball player Ricci Rivero (Rabid) and volleyball player Jema Galanza (here making her acting debut), and of course the overprotective father, along with various other characters who don’t get enough screentime to be worth mentioning. Surprisingly Vera makes it across town with minimum trouble, and soon the family are reunited to battle zombies, indulge in sappy reconnection moments (usually involving sign language), and promise to never leave each other.

Frankly, there’s not an ounce of originality to be found in Day Zero, and the fact that its shooting locations are limited to a handful of rooms and corridors definitely doesn’t help. By far its biggest issue though is the ropey acting. I imagine the first question on the audition application form read something like “Are you a. half Filipino, or b. a popular sports star? Only proceed to complete the rest if you answer yes to either.” Every character feels like a cardboard cut-out, with Vera in particular making for the most unconvincing member of U.S. Special Forces who’s ever graced the screen, admittedly not helped by a script that largely limits his dialogue to short bursts of a few words at a time. I swear he utters “hurry!” at least 5 times during the punchy 80-minute runtime. Initially I thought it must be because he isn’t fluent in Tagalog, however upon further research it seems this isn’t the case, and it really is because the script is just weak.

The zombies themselves at least look the part, even if they do fall into that category of only having their face made up to look undead, and the rest of any flesh on show look perfectly normal. While there’s some decent flourishes of CGI for certain kills, there’s a surprising lack of any real gore, with any scene involving zombies eating people consisting of the person being bitten showing a pained expression and little else. There’s also a bizarre habit of showing blood splatter in isolation, so a zombie gets shot in the head – cut to a shot of a wall having blood thrown at it. A zombie has its neck cut – cut to a shot of a wall with blood running down it. The lack of connectivity in the editing makes much of the pacing frequently feel disjointed, which when combined with some less than stellar line delivery, often gives a slightly off kilter feel to proceedings.

My favorite revelation though goes to the fact its revealed that, if there’s no one around for zombies to chase after, they take a nap. I’m not sure if this was an intentional choice that allowed for more zombies to be onscreen at once without them all needing to be given zombie makeup, since the preferred napping style of the zombie is to squat and hold their head in their hands so you can’t really see their face, but either way it made me laugh. This whole napping concept isn’t a theory on my part either, its actually explained on the radio broadcast. If 28 Days Later popularised the running zombie, could Day Zero be responsible for popularising the napping zombie!?

Action wise there’s little to write home about. My heart sank when Vera finds himself surrounded by 5 knife wielding inmates within the first 10 minutes, who then proceed to come at him one by one, while the others gently wave their blades around meaninglessly. That kind of background weapon waving may have worked in 70’s Shaw Brothers movies, but not a close quarter fight scene in 2022. There is some promise on display in the final reel when Vera goes on a one-man rampage armed with a machine gun, a dagger, and his fists and feet against a small army of zombies. The sequence has an energy to it that’s been lacking up until that point, but certainly not enough to make the rest forgivable, and I have the distinct feeling it’s one of those instances were an average scene impresses because the rest has been so mundane.

With shoddy acting, inconsistent pacing, and dubious continuity, Day Zero is a hard sell for even the most dedicated zombie fan, offering up little more than recycled scenes from any number of other zombie movies, most of which I’d be willing to bet are far superior. In the closing line before the end credits roll the radio announcer says, “May the lord have mercy on us.” If you decide to give Day Zero a shot, then I wish the same for you.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 3/10

The post Day Zero (2022) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“White Force” Film Artwork

Director: Eddie Romero
Cast: Sam J. Jones, Kimberley Pistone, Tim Hughes, Raul Aragon, Jaime Fabregas, Vic Diaz, Ruben Rustia, Ken Metcalfe, Mike Monty, Tsing Tong Tsai, Anthony Ogunsanya, Eric Romero, John Falch, Mauricio Go
Running Time: 90 min. 

By Paul Bramhall

The Philippines has always had a slightly different take on the action genre compared to its South East Asian counterparts. The western influence through being an American colony for almost 50 years, gaining independence in 1946, saw it become a haven for actors who didn’t quite make it in Hollywood, and all manner of directors – from A-list names like Francis Ford Coppola using it to double as Vietnam in Apocalypse Now, through to B-movie maestros like Edward D. Murphy leveraging the budget-friendly conditions to create masterpieces like Raw Force. Plenty of Filipino directors got in on the action as well, from the post-apocalyptic madness of Cirio H. Santiago (Equalizer 2000, Stryker), to the bullet riddled mayhem of Teddy Chiu (Ninja Warriors, Blood Ring). 

Another Filipino director synonymous with the B-movie was Eddie Romero. It wasn’t always that way though, with the young Romero directing his debut just one year after the Philippines gained independence, with 1947’s Ang kamay ng Diyos, made when he was just 23. It would be his latter work though that would define his legacy. The likes of the Blood Island Trilogy, made during 1968 – 1970 and starring frequent collaborator John Ashley, found Romero embracing the world of B-movie horror (although whether it was an intended embrace is up for debate), and would lead to trashy fun like Twilight People and Beyond Atlantis. Soon he was also directing blaxploitation and women in prison exploitation flicks like Black Mama White Mama and Savage Sisters, but by the time the 80’s rolled around he turned his focus once more to the dramatic fare that he was associated with at the start of his career.

Which brings us to 1988’s White Force, which must have been an unintentional blip in his filmography, considering his output at the time was centred around tales of Filipino history and folklore. Quite what the title is alluding to is never made clear, however one theory could well be that it’s referring to its leading man – Sam Jones. Most famous for playing Flash Gordon in the 1980 production of the same name, Hollywood never really knew what to do with Jones, and as with many actors who find themselves on the fringes (George Lazenby and Chris Mitchum – we’re looking at you), Jones eventually ended up in Asia. In 1985 he turned up in Jungle Heat, the international version of Hong Kong’s Vietnamese actioner Last Breath, which featured the likes of Dorian Tan Tao-Liang and Chan Sing. In 1987 he’d star alongside Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave lead Jun Chong in Silent Assassins, and a year later, he hit the Philippines.

White Force would be the first of two movies he’d make in the Philippines, with the second being the 1989 Teddy Chiu actioner Trigon Fire, before he was temporarily rescued in the early 90’s by PM Entertainment. Despite being made in the late 80’s, save for the technological references, White Force could just as well be a Filipino actioner pulled straight from the 70’s era. Jones plays an undercover agent who’s a part of some kind of non-descript international intelligence agency which is never clearly explained, whom we meet in the opening navigating the jungles of northern Thailand (re: Philippines). I have to say the post-dubbing job that White Force has been subjected to makes for a rather surreal experience. All of the actors are dubbing their own voices, however the fact that Jones spends the whole time trekking through the jungle making breathless wisecracks belies the swelteringly humid conditions he’s supposed to be enduring.

Anyway, he’s on the trail of a drug ring, who his mentor and partner intended to infiltrate and bring down. Played by Ken Metcalfe (Master Samurai, Enter the Ninja), his identity has been discovered, and Jones arrives too late to save him. Returning to Manila, Jones finds himself framed for Metcalfe’s murder, and is forced to go on the run with his partners daughter, played by Kimberley Pistone (Plain Clothes, About Last Night). With only a laserdisc holding the truth (the 80’s equivalent of the microfilm!), can he convince Pistone that he didn’t kill her father, bring down the corrupt members of the agency in cahoots with the drug gangs, and will he ever take off that Glenn Miller bomber jacket that he wears in every scene!?

It’s not too much of a spoiler to say the answer to the last question is no. It should be pointed out that the laserdisc in question isn’t the same size as the laserdisc that competed against the VHS and DVD formats in the following decade. In fact, the laserdisc here is portrayed onscreen by a cymbal. I wish I was kidding. However even once the disc is in his possession, Jones still needs a way to decode it, which leads to the introduction of the Wizard – yes that’s the characters name. Played obnoxiously loud and teeth gratingly unfunny by Jaime Fabregas (Fatal Vacation, Black Mamba), unfortunately his character is one we’re stuck with for the rest of the movie, joining Jones and Pistone as a trio on the hunt for the truth and to clear Jones’ name.

Sadly, when compared to his contemporaries output from the same year like Teddy Chiu’s Final Reprisal and Cirio H. Santiago’s Future Hunters, White Force is a slog to get through, and tends to frustrate more than it entertains. Jones is at least invested in his character, and does his best to spark up some chemistry with Pistone, but onscreen it just isn’t happening. What we’re left with instead is a lot of exposition, interspersed with just enough outbursts of action and bizarreness to keep you watching. The bad guys are particularly entertaining, played by Australian actor Tim Hughes (The Quest, Killer Elite), and Filipino B-movie regular Mike Monty (The Black Cobra 2, Eternal Fist). 

Together they build Jones’ character up in a way that’s usually reserved for the likes of Forrest Taft and Casey Ryback (that’s right, I’m referencing not one but two Steven Seagal characters), but pre-dates both. We’re told that “Quinn thrives on the impossible”, and in a latter scene Monty exasperatedly announces, “He’s only human for Christ’s sake!” They even hire what I assume to be a super-assassin to get rid of him, which leads to one of the few bright spots in White Force’s runtime, a car chase which ends on an entertainingly gory note involving a mid-air impaling. For those Filipino B-movie fans out there, it’s worth noting that the stunt driving is handled by Eddie Nicart, the man responsible for directing most of Filipino midget Weng Weng’s starring features (of which For Your Height Only is the most well-known).

Despite the general lethargy of White Force, it still threw in a couple of memorable scenes. I think my favorite was a completely random scenario involving Jones breaking into the police chief’s family home to kidnap him at gun point. Played by Vic Diaz (Fighting Mad, Bloodfist), the scene opens on an extended sequence involving Diaz giving his teenage son (who we never see before or after) a telling off at the dinner table for dressing like a punk and hanging out on “the streets”. How does this randomly inserted family moment involving a supporting character have any bearing on the plot? It doesn’t! Jones then bursts in gun in hand, and politely tells Diaz’s wife and kids that he just needs him for a short while. Instead of panicking as you’d expect, his wife asks if he can take a cup of coco with him, as he usually drinks one before bed! It’s Twilight Zone stuff.

In another we have Jones get involved in a tussle with some cops in a public bathroom at a market, one of whom drops his gun, only for a kid to pick it up and run off with it. I was expecting Jones to run after him, but instead he just lets it be. I mean, a kid with a loaded gun, what can go wrong? For those that make it to the end, we get the traditional warehouse shootout, over which plays a truly bizarre soundtrack which literally sounds like someone tapping away on a keyboard blindfolded. However even this offers up nothing spectacular, and ends with one of the sloppiest fights ever committed to screen. In one scene Hughes plans to torture the captured Pistone, using a technique that will “reroute all your nerve-centers to your eyes, the rest of your body will be paralysed.” Ironically, watching White Force could well be said to have a similar effect.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 3/10

The post White Force (1988) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Watch List” Theatrical Poster

Director: Ben Rekhi
Cast: Alessandra de Rossi, Jake Macapagal, Arthur Acuna, Jess Mendoza, Angeli Bayani
Running Time: 94 min. 

By Paul Bramhall

Before viewing Watch List it’s important to understand the very real backdrop that the production is set in. When Rodrigo Duterte was elected president of the Philippines in 2016 he launched the War on Drugs, encouraging both the police force and citizens alike to kill anyone they knew was involved with illicit substances. Believing the country was becoming a ‘narco-state’, within the first 3 months officials put the death toll at 3,000, and writing this in 2020 some human rights groups put the figure close to 30,000. While many Filipino’s voted for Duterte based on the fact he’d promised this exact hard-line approach, the ugly reality of implementing such a policy in a country where corruption is rife soon began to rear its head.

Corpses started to show up dumped on the streets, often riddled with bullets or with their heads wrapped in masking tape, usually with an accompanying cardboard placard declaring them a drug offender. Articles began to run about the use of police sanctioned death squads, revealing the police themselves were working with questionable characters or those who had no other choice but to carry out the killings. An increasing number of victims were reported as having no links to drug use, the result of a blatantly flawed system, which takes allegations of people using or dealing drugs at face value with little investigation. If you wanted a vendetta settled with no questions asked, all you need to do is ensure the person you have a grievance against is labelled as being involved in drugs, and if they turn up dead, well, they deserve it.

The Filipino film industry has shown a distinct reluctance to tackle the War on Drugs in a negative light, and understandably so. The countries most popular broadcaster, ABS-CBN, had its licence to broadcast expired in May 2020 by Duterte, forcing them off the air. It was a decision that many believed came about due to their critical stance against many of his policies. Ironically ABS-CBN are also behind a restoration programme rescuing some of the Philippines most important cinematic works, a programme which has also now lost its funding. 

What we do have are a number of pro-War on Drugs productions. A couple of the most prominent are 2017’s Kamandag ng droga, essentially a series of vignettes highlighting how drug use will only lead to misery and death. Duterte even cameos, delivering a speech to the audience in which he encourages them to report drug users so they can be shot by the police (he goes on to say “Or do it yourself if you have the gun. You have my support.”) Another is 2019’s KontrAdiksyon, helmed by prominent Duterte supporter Njel De Mesa, who was conveniently appointed to the board of directors of the MTRCB (Movie and Television Review and Classification Board) after making a number of promotional videos for Duterte during his 2016 campaign. Both productions failed to light up the box office.

So Watch List is unique, in that it takes a decidedly cynical view of the War on Drugs, and those that it affects on the bottom rungs of the social ladder. In many ways it shares DNA with another Manila set production, 2013’s excellent Metro Manila, in that both are helmed by non-Filipino directors. Whereas Metro Manila was directed by Sean Ellis from the UK, Watch List sees American filmmaker Ben Rekhi sat in the directors’ chair. Watch List marks Rekhi’s third feature length movie after his well-regarded 2005 debut with the indie flick Waterborne, and sophomore feature The Ashram in 2018. While both movies had their own distinctive style, Watch List arguably marks the directors most mature work to date.

The Watch List the title refers to is a list compiled by the government of citizens with a previous drug conviction, who in 2016 found themselves the target of the police crackdown, regardless of how recent or long ago the conviction was. The plot focuses on a couple, played by Jess Mendoza (We Will Not Die Tonight) and Alessandra de Rossi (Woman of the Ruins). Living in a Manila slum with their 3 kids, thanks to a previous conviction they find themselves the target of a police raid their slum is subjected to. Despite surrendering, one-night Mendoza is killed by a pair of vigilantes and labelled a drug peddler, leaving de Rossi to fend for herself and her kids. Finding it impossible to find work, she seeks out a cop involved in her murdered partners case, played by Metro Manila’s Jake Macapagal, and offers to help their drug operation by leveraging her old connections, little knowing exactly what she’s letting herself in for.

Like the pro-War on Drugs titles mentioned, Watch List also uses footage of Duterte, as inserts from 2 of his speeches ominously play over the opening credits. We listen to him explain how he won’t stop until every last person involved in drugs is either “surrendered, or put behind bars, or below the ground if they so wish”, and state that “there is 3 million drug addict, I’d be happy to slaughter them.” The flippant attitude towards murder and the cheapening of life resonates throughout Rekhi’s feature, and could almost be argued to be propaganda against the War on Drugs as much as the other productions are propaganda for it. The message is blatant, however the narrative affects largely due to the powerhouse performance by de Rossi.

A veteran actress of both the small and big screen since the late 90’s, she brings a sense of humanity to the role which elevates the expected plot beats and anchors the movie. As a woman pushed to the edge of desperation, a role which could easily be played as a victim is transformed into one of subdued defiance, and a willingness to do anything for her family. The always excellent Macapagal (not withstanding Showdown in Manila) conveys the underlying motives of his character in the subtlest of ways, a cop so far entrenched in his own corruption that he probably believes what he’s doing is right. He sets de Rossi up with a mentor in the form of actor Art Acuña (The Bourne Legacy), who seems affiliated with Macapagal’s cop but clearly isn’t one, and soon de Rossi finds herself thrust into the darkness of Manila’s night, roaming the streets on Acuña’s scooter as the once hunted becomes the reluctant hunter.

Despite the familiar tropes of Watch List and a certain inevitablity of how it’s going to end, Rekhi makes it work by focusing on the characters as much as the circumstances. The actor playing the oldest of the kids, Micko Laurente (BuyBust), is a standout. As a character coming to terms with the death of his father, while harbouring suspicions around what his mother is up to, all the while attempting to study and look after his siblings at the same time, he has a lot on his plate. De Rossi has battled to keep him on the straight and narrow, not one which is easily fought when his friends are already dealing, however the issue becomes exasperated once their trust is broken, and ultimately leads to an expected final reel which still delivers the intended emotional impact.

Filipino cinema has become increasingly more prominent in recent years, thanks to titles like Erik Matti’s On the Job and BuyBust. Matti clocks in a producer credit on Watch List, and it’s not difficult to see why he came onboard. While Rekhi’s movie doesn’t offer anything new with its narrative, to see a movie which so boldly flys in the face of most other productions coming out of the Philippines alone makes it worthy of note. Thanks to the stellar performances from its cast though, Watch List elevates itself from being more than just a curiosity piece, and the end result is a genuinly engaging piece of work that feels equal parts drama and thriller. The final frames will linger in the mind for some time to come, as the cycle of drug use and violence fades to black, the only certainty being that it’s destined to repeat itself. If you have the opportuntiy to catch Watch List, make sure you do.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7.5/10

The post Watch List (2019) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Maria” Theatrical Poster

Director: Pedring Lopez
Cast: Cristine Reyes, Germaine De Leon, KC Montero, Guji Lorenzana, Freddie Webb, Jennifer Lee, Cindy Miranda, L.A. Santos, Ronald Moreno, Ronnie Lazaro, Andrea Del Rosario, Johnny Revilla, Sonny Sison
Running Time: 90 min.

By Paul Bramhall

Say what you want about Atomic Blonde, but one thing we do have the 2017 Charlize Theron actioner to thank for, is the resurgence of the female lead action flick. While Hollywood has been looking to recreate the success of David Leitch’s tour de force ever since (Red Sparrow, Peppermint etc.), in the first half of 2019 South East Asia has already served up a double helping of femme fatale action. After displaying her martial arts talents as co-lead in The Rebel and Clash, Vietnam gave us the Veronica Ngo vehicle Furie, and in the Philippines director Pedring Lopez is back with the Cristine Reyes headlining Maria.

Lopez is gradually becoming one of the most distinctive voices for genre cinema in the Philippines. After his 2015 movie Nilalang gained international exposure, thanks largely to its killer combination of a face slicing ancient demon facing off against Japanese AV actress Maria Ozawa, Lopez had lined up his next production to be the Mark Dacascos action vehicle Breach. Scheduling conflicts have meant that Breach has, at the time of writing, yet to get off the ground (which could be a blessing in disguise, since Dacascos hasn’t made a decent action movie in almost 20 years. Here’s hoping John Wick 3 changes that!). In its place, Lopez has directed the found footage horror flick Darkroom, and is now back with his most ambitious production to date, Maria.

In some regards the Philippines has already been ahead of the curve with its female driven action movies, thanks to turns from Anne Curtis in BuyBust and Erich Gonzales in We Will Not Die Tonight, both from 2018. Maria shares both Nilalang and BuyBust’s action director in the form of Sonny Sison, who has been tirelessly working towards his own personal mission of putting Filipino action cinema back on the map, since it’s been decidedly MIA for the last 30 years. While the general opinion on Nilalang was that the action was fun considering what resources the crew was working with, BuyBust proved to be massively polarising with its approach to a more realistic action aesthetic. In that regard, for many fans of action cinema, Maria could well be considered a make or break moment for the appeal of the countries output overseas.

Like Erich Gonzales and Anne Curtis, lead Cristine Reyes is not an action actress by trade, mainly due to the fact that in the Philippines there’s no such thing. A model and actress, Reye’s filmography is entirely dedicated to the types of production that make commercial Filipino filmmaking so safe – saccharine romantic comedies, toothless horrors, and dramas that wouldn’t be out of place on a Sunday afternoon HBO slot. I’d like to comment on a few of them, but I’ve attempted commercial Filipino cinema before, and rarely get past 30 minutes. So as much as Maria will likely be an introduction for international audiences to Reyes, for local audiences it also marks a clear departure from the type of roles she usually plays.

The plot is nothing new – an assassin, the spin here being that it’s a female one, has long since given up her life of killing, and is living under a new name with a husband and child, who know nothing of her past. The husband is involved with a shady politician, and when the assassin’s former crew are hired to kidnap the daughter, they get quite the surprise when it leads them to crossing paths with their old colleague, long assumed dead. Despite the plot, the scenes of Reyes together with her husband and daughter (played by Guji Lorenzana and Johanna Rish Tongcua respectively) at home are everything I’ve come to dread from Filipino cinema. Like a 50’s slice of white-picket Americana, the family playfully bicker about breakfast in a sun kissed kitchen, and a brief spat is resolved by Reyes offering to cook a “special dinner” later on that evening.  It’s torturous to watch.

These scenes are like the movie equivalent of the template happy couple you see in photo frames, before you put in your own, and markedly at odds with the surprising amount of graphic violence that’s on show involving scenes with the bad guys. Snitches are given the steel baseball bat treatment, soldering irons are put where the sun don’t shine, and fingernails are subjected to some nastiness via a pair of pliers. So it almost comes as a relief when the bad guys raid the home of our happy family, and things get flipped on their head in a matter of seconds, when Reyes’s domestic bliss is obliterated in front of her eyes. So sets the titular Maria off on a path of bloody vengeance against the ‘family’ that she used to be a part of, and any thoughts that Lopez’s latest was going to take the safe route are quickly abolished.

The bad guys are a lot of fun to watch. The influence of The Raid 2 is apparent, with the setup of a crime boss and his hereditary successor waiting in the wings. However here the scenario is expanded to include a pair of sons, one played by Ivan Padilla, who is the favoured next in line, but not particularly capable, and the other played by KC Montero, who has a ruthless ambitious streak that puts him at odds with his father. The tension between the pair adds a welcome layer of depth to an otherwise straightforward revenge plot, as do the other supporting characters. The usual head henchman trope is turned on its head to be a pair of henchwomen, played by Jennifer Lee and Cindy Miranda, and the addition of Ronnie Lazaro is a welcome one, playing the retired assassin trainer now running a bar (what is it with assassin trainers running bars when they retire!?), who gets pulled back into the world he left behind.

Really though, Maria sells itself on the promise of action, and to that end, it delivers. Before the credits have even rolled we witness Reyes sneak into a mansion, taking out numerous bodyguards with a karambit blade, and it’s a solid sign of what can be expected. The training Reyes has put in is visibly on show, as is the work by Sonny Sison and the Red Line Action Team. This is probably the best flow and edititing I’ve seen in a Filipino action movie, with each movement and impact executed with purpose, and none of the pulled punches or hesitancy that plagued other recent productions on display. The editing may rely on quick cuts, but it doesn’t hinder the rhythm of the action on display, and it also isn’t afraid to get bloody either.

Action director Sonny Sison had expressed his admiration for the action on display in Korean movies like Oldboy and The Man from Nowhere when I interviewed him in 2017, and the influences of both can be felt in a couple of Maria’s key action beats. One has her take on a stream of attackers in a warehouse that takes place in a makeshift corridor, echoing Choi Man-sik’s infamous hammer hallway fight in Oldboy, and the other takes The Man from Nowhere’s bathroom fight as its template. Pitting Reyes against Jennifer Lee for a knockdown dragout brawl, and dressed to impress, their faceoff ends on a suitably wince worthy note. In an action movie landscape which is dominated with male bathroom fight scenes, it’s taken until 2019 to give us a worthwhile female centred throwdown. The moral of the story? You don’t need urinals to create a great bathroom fight scene.

Sison himself gets in on the action for a rare onscreen appearance in recent years, cameoing as Padilla’s MMA trainer in a sparring match that quickly escalates (look out for the patented Sammo Hung back-kick!). Outside of the bladed action and open handed fights, Maria also crams in a worthy amount of gunplay, featuring pistols to semi-automatic weapons to sniper rifles, who ever thought John Wick would have a rival in the Philippines!? The gun fights are efficiently executed, and I particularly liked how they still played a part in the action even when the bullets ran out, whether it be to club someone in the face or strangle with the strap, small touches like this indicate the amount of thought that’s gone into the action design.

Sure Maria isn’t perfect, the script veers from being incredibly cool (there’s a great line involving Cain and Abel) to incredibly cheesy with reckless abandon, and one fight scene features one of my pet hates – a song plays over it, which serves as a distraction rather than a compliment. But these are minor gripes in what is essentially an 85 minute lean and mean action movie that wastes no time getting down to business, and pulls no punches. I ended my review of Nilalang by saying it showed “plenty of potential for the future of Filipino action cinema.” With Maria, that potential has been realised.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7.5/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zed6XCPnwQ

The post Maria (2019) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“BuyBust” Theatrical Poster

Director: Erik Matti
Cast: Anne Curtis, Brandon Vera, Victor Neri, Arjo Atayde, Levi Ignacio, Nonie Buencamino, Lao Rodriguez, Joross Gamboa, Sheenly Gener, Mara Lopez, AJ Muhlach, Tarek El Tayech, Maddie Martinez, Ricky Pascua
Running Time: 126 min.

By Samson Kwok

Even though the year is only half way over, I already know that there is a very good chance that Filipino director Erik Matti’s BuyBust will be my favorite action film of 2018. Watching this film, I got the same sense of excitement as when I first saw Thailand’s Ong Bak, Indonesia’s The Raid and more recently, Cambodia’s Jailbreak. It features the same kind of crazy, real and dangerous action that is hard to find in Hollywood productions, where CGI can make anything seem possible but everything feels fake.

The story is simple: an anti-drug squad carries out a raid with the intention of capturing a notorious drug lord. If you think it sounds just like The Raid, you are right. However, while the basic premise of the story is very similar to the 2011 Indonesian hit, there are quite a lot of differences in the details; and instead of a rundown apartment, the drug boss here is ruling over a heavily populated slum. The battlefield is therefore larger, more chaotic and much more dangerous.

The lead character is drug enforcement agent Nina Manigan, played by actress Anne Curtis. She is part of the squad headed by Bernie Lacson (Victor Neri). There are a number of fellow team members and one of them is Rico, played by mixed martial artist Brandon Vera. The police have captured a lower level drug dealer Teban (Alex Calleja) and with his help, the squad set out to capture drug lord Biggie Chen (Arjo Atayde). Of course, things do not go as planned and soon the team is trapped inside the slum that resembles a maze and the members come under attack by hundreds of criminals headed by Chen’s right-hand man Boss Chongki (Levi Ignacio, The Hunted Hunter) and a group of angry civilians led by Solomon (Ricky Pascua), who has decided enough is enough. Soon the slum becomes a place of anarchy and the goal for the squad shifts from catching the bad guys to getting out of the place alive.

The action scenes in BuyBust are jaw-breaking for the cast and jaw-dropping for the audience. There are some inventive sequences that prove that when the situation is desperate, really anything could be used as a weapon. Reportedly, there were over 300 people in the stunt team and judging by the scale of some of the scenes, that does not come as a surprise at all. The main action sequences include the fights against Chongki’s gang, Biggie’s guards and Cocky’s crew, the tree ambush, the lightning fight, the war on Widow’s Alley and the rooftop battle. They are all superbly choreographed (by action director Sonny Sison), lensed (by cinematographer Neil Derrick Bion), edited (by editor Jay Halili) and scored (by composers Erwin Romilo and Malek Lopez). Stars Curtis and Vera both shine in the complex action scenes. I think the Widow’s Alley and rooftop mob fights will become classic fight scenes that generations of action fans will be talking about for years to come.

As usual, director Matti has a lot to say about corrupt cops and the government’s war on drugs and is not afraid to express his opinions here. All the anti-drug campaigns seem futile because at the end of the day, it is still the drug dealers who are running the country. It is the poor civilians who have to suffer at the hands of both the criminals and the police, and the film suggests that it is common for innocent people to lose their loved ones and their own lives. One particularly memorable scene shows a good man who wants to help but decides to hide behind closed doors when the law enforcement officials cannot guarantee his and his family’s safety.

BuyBust, which recently screened as the Closing Night Film at the popular and influential New York Asian Film Festival, will without a doubt turn Erik Matti into the best known Filipino filmmaker in the world. It is a mesmerizing piece of cinema that features brilliant action, crazy stunts and top-notch production values. This is action cinema at its very best and a must-see for every fan of the genre.

Samson Kwok’s Rating: 9.5/10

The post BuyBust (2018) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Metro Manila” Theatrical Poster

Director: Sean Ellis
Cast: Jake Macapagal, Althea Vega, John Arcilla, Erin Panlilio, Iasha Aceio, Moises Mag Isa, Angelina Kanapi, JM Rodriguez, Ana Abad Santos, Reuben Uy
Running Time: 114 min.

By Paul Bramhall

The well-worn tale of naïve country folk heading to the big city for brighter prospects is one that’s been used in cinema for almost as long as the medium has been around. It’s particularly prevalent in Asian cinema, from Chen Kuan Tai in Boxer from Shantung, through to Iko Uwais in Merantau, such tropes have provided the perfect framework to craft countless gritty action movies. The Philippines though has taken a more drama-centric approach, dating back to the likes of Lino Brocka’s 1975 masterpiece Manila in the Claws of Light (recently given the 4k treatment thanks to Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project), and now given its most recent update in the form of Metro Manila.

What’s perhaps most interesting about Metro Manila, is that it is in-fact a co-production between the UK and the Philippines. Much like the previously mentioned Indonesian movie Merantau was directed by British filmmaker Gareth Evans, so Metro Manila also has a Brit as the helm in the form of Sean Ellis. The director of such dramas as Cashback and The Broken, Ellis came up with the idea for Metro Manila while he was on a visit to the Philippines, and happened to witness an argument between two guards of an armoured truck. Upon his return to the UK, he put together a 20 page treatment for a story, and shortly after began work on the screenplay itself with U.S. based screenwriter Frank E. Flowers.

The catch for Ellis of course, was that having gotten the idea for the story while he was in Manila, he also wanted to film it there. It was an ambitious task, considering not only is it all but impossible to get international backing for a Tagalog language production, but also that neither Ellis nor Flowers knew the language. Regardless of such challenges though, they ploughed ahead, ultimately overcoming them by writing the script in English, and asking the Filipino actors to translate their own lines. The decision was also made to film on the streets of Manila guerrilla style, and it’s one which arguably benefits the look and feel of Metro Manila more than if it had a big budget behind it, as the street level filming amongst the crowded Manila alleys lends it an almost documentary like feel.

The story focuses on a struggling married couple and their two children. The father, played by Jake Macapagal (Showdown in Manila), was recently laid off from an out-of-business silk factory, and is trying to make ends meet as a rice farmer. However with a poor harvest, almost no money to their name, and a young daughter with a toothache, they make the decision to move to Manila, where he believes it’ll be possible to find work. Once there, they soon find themselves swindled out of the little money they have by the predatory conmen populating the cities densely packed urban sprawl, and end up living destitute in the largest slum area of Tondo (the area that parts of the Korean movie Master were also set in). Things eventually start to look up when Macapagal secures a job as a guard at an armoured truck company, and is taken under the wing of a more experienced guard played by John Arcilla (The Bourne Legacy). However it’s soon revealed that Arcilla is not all that he seems to be.

While on paper Metro Manila may sell itself as a taut crime thriller, in reality it’s far from it, with the eventual heist element of the plot only being revealed a whole 80 minutes in. Instead, Ellis has crafted a superior piece of human drama that reflects both the harsh realities of life, and more significantly how far someone is willing to go to provide for their family. Macapagal, along with his characters wife and daughter, played by Althea Vega and Erin Panlilio respectively, have fantastic chemistry together, and are almost too believable as a family unit that suffer misfortune after misfortune. There’s a heart wrenching sequence mid-way through, which has a scene of Macapagal obliged to join Arcilla and his colleagues for a night of drinking in a local bar, juxtaposed with a scene of Vega miserably working in a go-go bar and being harassed by the foreign clientele. It represents a pivotal moment of reaching rock bottom, and the decisions taken when you have nothing left to lose.

Arcilla’s performance is a standout, and even though not he’s not a part of the family unit of which the plot keeps its focus on, he’s a pivotal character in the events that shape Metro Manila into the movie that it is. There’s an underlying tension to his loud and almost over-friendly bravado with Macapagal that’s difficult to put your finger on, and the more he begins to show his ambitions, the more he begins to come across as a tightly wound coil that Macapagal is directly in the crossfire of. It’s darkly enthralling to watch, as Ellis keeps his cards close to his chest for the longest time, allowing seemingly random and meaningless events to unfold onscreen in a slice-of-life type manner, until the moment comes when everything falls into place, and true intentions are revealed.

However even then, that’s not to say that Arcilla is the villain of the piece. Ellis may have framed his tale in a way that would have audiences assume there is a bad guy behind everything, but once Metro Manila gets under your skin, you realise that it’s not about good guys or bad guys. Rather, it’s about the harshness of a city where many of its residents have to get by on less than $10 a day, and the inevitable follies of human nature once presented with a way to get out of it. There are no epiphanies to be found here, were a character suddenly realises that they could get rich if they were to go down a certain path, but instead we see the fleeting moments of opportunity seized out of desperation more than anything else, and the consequences that follow.

Perhaps the most significant character in Metro Manila though, is the bustling metropolis that is Manila itself. Ellis captures it with an unflinching eye, from the slums of Tondo, with its barren huts nailed together from whatever sheets of plywood can be found, to the contemporary apartments of uptown, with their modern amenities and 24 hour security. The division between the rich and the poor is observed through the eyes of Macapagal and Arcilla, on the road in their armoured truck, and is never inherently commented upon, Ellis seemingly happy to allow the images to simply speak for themselves. Could the story have been transposed to any other city in the world with a similar economy? Probably, but it definitely wouldn’t be the same movie that we have here.

One notable criticism that has been levelled at Metro Manila by some Filipino viewers, is that there are pieces of dialogue that don’t sound natural being spoken in Tagalog. This is most certainly due to the actors themselves translating the English lines into Tagalog, and was an issue that both Macapagal and Arcilla have openly stated was sometimes a challenge. However much like many Mandarin speakers heavily criticised Daniel Wu’s line delivery in One Night in Mongkok, and many picked on Shu Qi’s Cantonese in her early Hong Kong movies, for a non-native speaking audience, this is largely a non-issue. For Metro Manila in particular, the subtitles simply follow the English script, however it is a relevant criticism for those that can watch it in its native language of Tagalog.

As a social drama that gradually develops into a slow burning thriller, there aren’t many other movies out there, at least in Asia, which can be easily compared to Metro Manila. In the local Philippines film industry itself, there’s sadly nothing that comes close. It’s a unique movie, and even allowed for the UK to provide an entry into the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 86^th Academy Awards, probably the first and last time such an entry will be possible. While Ellis wisely chooses to not go the route of providing a blatantly happy ending, there is closure in the finale moments of Metro Manila, that allow for hope to subtly shine through. At one point Vega solemnly states to Macapagal, “It was a big mistake to come to Manila.” It’s a difficult line to disagree with, but for those who have yet to see Metro Manila, I guarantee you certainly won’t consider it a mistake to check it out.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 8.5/10

The post Metro Manila (2013) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“The Search for Weng Weng” Promotional Poster

Director: Andrew Leavold
Cast: Edgardo ‘Boy’ Vinarao, Don Gordon Bell, Rez Cortez, Imelda Marcos, Bobby A. Suarez, Marrie Lee, Imee Marco, Dolphy, Maria Isabel Lopez, Teddy Co
Running Time: 92 min. 

By Paul Bramhall

I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me, my first exposure to the 007 styled Filipino midget action star, Weng Weng, was when home video label Mondo Macabro released his 1981 action movie For Your Height Only, packaged with the Bruce Le flick Challenge of the Tiger, on DVD back in 2005. It’s one of those movies that really defies being able to do justice to with words. The bizarreness of watching a 2’ 9” primordial dwarf decked out in a sharp white suite, seducing ladies, jumping off the top of buildings, and getting into kung fu fights with the bad guys, amounts to 90 minutes that are difficult to look away from, even if you’re not really sure why.

However even at the time of the DVD’s release, information on exactly who Weng Weng was, and what became of him, was based purely on hearsay and rumours. Some sources said he’d declared himself the living incarnation of God and was leading a cult in the Philippines, others said he’d become a real life secret agent for the Philippines government, and others claimed he’d become a stand-up comedian that married an adult movie star. It was all urban legend, and the truth was, nobody actually had any idea who this mysterious Filipino midget was, other than a curiosity that starred in a handful of action movies and then disappeared as quickly as he’d arrived.

As it turned out, there was one person in the world who got so curious about discovering the truth of who Weng Weng really was, that he decided to do something about it. That man was an Australian gentleman by the name of Andrew Leavold, known down under as the guy behind Australia’s largest cult video rental store – Trash Video. Leavold’s store opened its doors in 1995, before finally closing shop in 2010, and in its 15 years of operation housed a selection of world cinema weirdness from every imaginable corner of the globe. Out of all of the titles stored under Trash Video’s roof though, it was Weng Weng that piqued Leavold’s curiosity the most, and in 2005 his odyssey began, booking a trip to the Philippines armed with nothing more than a Mini-DV camera and his enthusiasm.

For full disclosure, I contributed to the Kickstarter campaign that was set up to complete post-production on The Search for Weng Weng in 2013, however in no way profit from its release. My photo is in the end credits though – for approximately a fraction of a second. I was lucky enough to watch one of the first rough cut screenings of The Search for Weng Weng, which Leavold hosted on the Sunshine Coast in Australia during May 2013, playfully titled the Rough as Weng’s Guts version. Appropriately, it was shown in the basement of an old vintage store, which housed the remnants of Trash Video’s VHS collection. The sound mix had yet to be completed, so Leavold narrated the documentary in person armed with a microphone, and the runtime was still a little flabby around the edges. However it was clear to see that his journey had unearthed plenty of Filipino action cinema gold. The final version was released a little over a year later, and came in as a much leaner (and audio friendly) experience than those initial early screenings.

The Search for Weng Weng kicks off at the beginning of Leavold’s first trip to Manila, spanning what would become a 7 year journey of attempting to get to the bottom of what became of the Philippines greatest midget action star. In many ways, the time it took to complete Weng Weng’s story results in a finished product that feels just as much about Leavold’s mission to discover the truth, as it does the truth itself. This really works in The Search for Weng Weng’s favour, as it allows the audience to share Leavold’s joy as he manages to glean each new slither of information on Weng Weng’s life, none of which is ever just handed to him on a plate. From the opening scene, which sees one of his very first engagements in Manila addressing an audience of film industry folk in a cinema, his enthused requests to meet up with anyone that may have information on Weng Weng are met with a blanket of blank and bemused expressions.

It’s only after the engagement when Leavold is dejectedly strolling through the parking lot, that an unassuming gentleman asks him what he’s doing there with a camera. The gentleman happens to be Edgardo ‘Boy’ Vinarao, who casually mentions that he was the editor on most of Weng Weng’s movies, and just like that, the real journey begins. Like most things in life, Leavold’s chance encounter with Vinarao proves that the combination of luck and good timing is everything, and we’re soon following the director down into the rabbit hole of long forgotten Filipino action cinema. From sitting in on monthly gatherings of old-school stuntmen in shopping mall coffee shops, to hanging out with Imelda Marcos in her mansion to celebrate her 83rd birthday, Leavold’s delight and bewilderment at where his journey takes him is one that’s shared as the audience.

Anyone who is even vaguely familiar with Filipino action movies will no doubt get a kick of out of witnessing the sheer number of interviews contained within The Search for Weng Weng’s 90 minute runtime. For some, it would be their last, such as Bobby A. Suarez, the director of such B-movie classics as Cleopatra Wong and The One Armed Executioner, who sadly passed away in 2010. Cleopatra Wong herself is also interviewed, the still very much active Marrie Lee. Through the conversations Leavold has with the various members of the industry past and present, we not only get an insight into what Weng Weng was really like, but we also get a window into what it was like to work in the Filipino action movie industry back in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

The serious business of discovering the truth behind what became of the pint sized star is never forgotten though, and the more that gets uncovered, the more the initially quirky journey into the annals of Filipino movie history becomes a tale that seems destined to have a tragic ending. It would be a spoiler to reveal Weng Weng’s fate here, however Leavold does indeed follow his curiosity through to the end (for 7 years no less), eventually tracking down Weng Weng’s brother and learning the unequivocal truth behind what became of one of the Philippines smallest stars. It’s a credit to the way The Search for Weng Weng is edited that, even when the reality of Weng Weng’s short but memorable career is revealed, it never takes on a tone of self-pity or misery, instead choosing to focus on the brighter moments in his life.

One particularly amusing tale has the daughter of Imelda Marcos recalling how the first Manila Film Festival, which took place in 1982, was set to put the Philippines on the map as a country capable of making serious arthouse cinema on par with the rest of the world. However once it opened, the only movies that the many overseas distributors and buyers were interested in were those that starred Weng Weng, and most of the serious dramas that they’d intended to show off to the world were overlooked or ignored. Amusing as it is, it stands as proof that Weng Weng was indeed a bonafide star at the time his movies were being released, and was even invited to Cannes the same year as the Manila Film Festival, gracing the red carpet just as stars do today.

The time spent debunking the myths around Weng Weng is also far from time wasted. Did he really become a secret agent? Was he really considered a religious figure who people worshipped? As with so many urban myths, the claims in most cases only turn out to be half-truths, however when it comes to a 2’ 9” primordial dwarf who’s obsessed with kung fu, the remaining half is just as wild and entertaining as you’d expect. The same could be applied to The Search For Weng Weng as a whole, it’s an unknown journey into the unexpected, which is never anything less than entertaining, constantly propelled forward by Leavold’s unabashed enthusiasm to discover the truth, no matter how long it takes. When he does, the final product is one that not only serves to satisfy people’s curiosity about what became of Weng Weng, but also serves as a fitting tribute to his life.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 8/10

The post Search for Weng Weng, The (2013) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Nilalang” Theatrical Poster

AKA: Creature
Director: Pedring Lopez
Cast: Cesar Montano, Maria Ozawa, Meg Imperial, Yam Concepcion, Cholo Barretto, Dido de la Paz, Kiko Matos, Aubrey Miles, Alexandre Charlet, Sonny Sison
Running Time: 90 min. 

By Paul Bramhall

After a long absence out of the spotlight, Filipino cinema has been making a quiet but assured comeback in recent years. Movies like Erik Matti’s On the Job, Sean Ellis’s Metro Manila, and Khavn de la Cruz’s Ruined Heart have all travelled beyond local shores and garnered international acclaim on the festival circuit. While all of these productions have used the backdrop of Manila’s underworld to create depressingly dark and gritty portrayals of the less fortunate in Philippines society, upcoming director Pedring Lopez took a decidedly different approach for his sophomore feature, Nilalang.

Eschewing the realistic settings of his counterparts, Lopez draws his influences more from the many action/horror hybrids that were coming out of Hong Kong in the 1980’s. The plot is simple – in ancient Japan there is a book, called the Book of Ishi (think of it as this movies version of the Book of the Dead from The Evil Dead movies), which contains the names and spirits of all known demons. One particular demon, Zahagur, has a penchant for cutting off the faces of any females that share the bloodline of those who oppose it. Skip forward to 2015 Manila, Zahagur is back to his old tricks, and it’s up to cops Cesar Montano and Meg Imperial, to put an end to the demons reign of terror.

While both Montano and Imperial are well known as local Filipino actors, the surprise casting in Nilalang comes in the shape of former Japanese AV actress Maria Ozawa, here headlining her first full length feature. Ozawa, who has a Japanese mother and French Canadian father, is one of the most recognizable AV actresses in Asia thanks to her exotic looks, and has recently been looking to branch out into movie roles. While she’s featured in a couple of Indonesian movies previously (one of which notably drew the ire of the Islamic Defenders Front, a radicalised group notorious for violence), Nilalang can be considered her first mainstream production in which she has a substantial role.

Nilalang opens strongly, featuring an animated introduction, before segueing into a scene set in ancient Japan, as two Ronin walk through a field of bloody massacred bodies. They confront the demon in human form, who calmly sits next to a freshly sliced off face hanging neatly next to him, before squaring off in a duel of swords. It’s a nicely choreographed exchange to kick off the movie, which is given an extra layer of tension, as the other Ronin attempts to recite a page from the Book of Ishi to subdue the demon. The whole scene plays out like a mesh up between the Shaw Brothers movie Human Lanterns, meets Ryuhei Kitamura’s Aragami, and succeeds at grabbing the audience’s attention from the word go.

Once the opening credits come to a close the narrative skips to a second flashback scene, but this time only 2 years prior to present day, as we witness Montano and his team track down and kill a Japanese serial killer to an abandoned warehouse. The killer has a taste for murdering his victims using elements of bondage and S&M, so when a spate of similar killings start occurring in present day Manila, both Montano’s team and the local media begin to question if something supernatural is behind them. There’s some strange choices of logic used in Nilalang, as when the killer is tracked down, his eyes are completely white, and he has that deep growling voice that only possessed people in movies have. However as the plot moves along, it becomes apparent that Montano and his team apparently didn’t consider either of these traits as unusual, which is the equivalent of Father Merrin walking in on Regan and concluding that she’s a perfectly normal teenager.

Montano himself plays the ultimate cop, the kind that sleeps with a bottle of whisky and a gun next to his bed. Montano’s ex wants to get back with him, Ozawa asks him to sleep over in the first scene they meet, and his partner fantasizes about him while taking a nap (even just after his ex, who she recommended he should get back with, is horribly murdered!). Frankly, everyone in the movie seems to want to sleep with him, with his colleagues openly declaring that they wish they could be as good with the ladies as he is. In short, Montano may be the main character of the movie, but you’ll spend a large part of it hoping for the demon to cut his face off.

Thankfully his poker faced machoism is off-played by Ozawa’s weird and wonderful performance. While she doesn’t get the same amount of screen-time as Montano, whenever she is onscreen there’s something about her acting which pulls you in. She’s not a good actress as such, and her quirky delivery is paired with some entertainingly over the top scenes. One such example has her indulge in some Chow Yun Fat style double handgun action, as she shoots a bar to pieces, before cutely declaring that she’s ready to go and face the demon. The intense unloading of bullets has no context to it whatsoever, and adds a kind of pulpy charm to proceedings. Another scene has her armed with a samurai sword, in which she has to enter the Yakuza Temple (who said Yakuza’s need to be subtle?), to face off against a fully armoured samurai (played by the movies action choreographer, Sonny Sison), in order to gain access to the Book of Ishi. Not many movies can claim to have a Japanese AV star facing off against a samurai, but Nilalang delivers the goods with aplomb.

Indeed the whole look of Nilalang comes across as very stylised and glossy, rarely showing any signs of its limited budget. As director Lopez is also a keen fan of Anime, there are a few instances which have an animated scene inserted, usually to show a moment of extreme violence. While we’ve seen this type of animated technique used before, most recently in the likes of Prachya Pinkaew’s Tom Yum Goong and Chocolate, here the use of Japanese style animation fits in perfectly with the tone of the production itself.

The English title for Nilalang is The Entity, and it effectively captures the essence of the demon. Much like 1998’s Denzel Washington starring Fallen (or perhaps more appropriately, 1993’s Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday), the demon can move from one host to the next, ensuring no one is safe from its grasp. Throughout the runtime our trio of main characters end up being confronted by possessed versions of an overweight housemaid, a grave digger, a team of cops, and ultimately each other. While most of the action is given to Ozawa (who doesn’t want to see a katana wielding femme fatale facing off against a flesh hungry demon?), it’s apparent that screen fighting is a talent that she’s still very much developing, and as such there are moments of clunkiness whenever she’s called to action.

However arguably Sison does a commendable job with the resources that he had available, and it’s been a long time since we’ve had a movie that gives us MMA demons (the last I can think of would be 2009’s Hellbinders). With the flair for visuals that Lopez clearly has an eye for, and the action choreography of Sison, Nilalang shows plenty of potential for the future of Filipino action cinema. The pair are already reuniting for another collaboration, the Mark Dacascos starring Breach, so it’s safe to say things are only likely to get bigger and better. For now though, while Nilalang is certainly far from perfect, it does feature just enough face slicing to be considered a worthwhile way to spend an evening with the lights off.

Note: The version I saw is the international Director’s Cut, and can be considered the complete version of the movie. The version that screened locally in the Philippines has close to 10 minutes’ worth of cuts for violence, and the version that screened at the Metro Manila Film Festival in 2015 was missing the animated sequences, as they hadn’t been completed yet.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6.5/10

The post Nilalang | aka The Entity (2015) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Techno Warriors” Korean Theatrical Poster

AKA: The Cyber Warrior
Director: Philip Ko Fei
Cast: Philip Ko Fei, Tamara Guo, Darren Shahlavi, Winston Ellis, Monsour del Rosario, James Ha Chim Si, Thorsten Nickel, Alan Chan Yiu Lun, Niño Muhlach
Running Time: 85 min.

By Paul Bramhall

The career of Philip Ko Fei is an interesting one to say the least, and one which has made me an unabashed fan of his work. If you were to ask me why, like many others, I’d probably lean on the fact that he rightfully became known as the King of Shapes. The use of the word ‘shapes’, in the context of kung fu cinema, relates to the highly intricate choreography style that reached its peak in the early 80’s. From witnessing Ko Fei’s performance in the likes of The Loot, Tiger Over Wall, and Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, his ability to perform such a complex number of moves in a single take, with speed, was mesmerising to watch.

However this was only one side of his talents. Outside of stealing the show in various kung-fu classics, Ko Fei featured in some wonderfully left of field productions. From a raw egg drinking bald assassin in Leung Kar Yan’s Profile in Anger, to a revenge seeking brother-cum-Buddhist monk in the completely out there The Boxer’s Omen. By the time Ko Fei retired from the film industry in the early 2000’s, some of the last productions in his filmography consist of self-directed titles such as Royal Sperm, Love & Sex in Sung Dynasty, and Burning with Desire. Chances are that if Eight Diagram Pole Fighter was made at the tail end of his career, it wouldn’t have been referring to a style of kung fu.

The 1990’s were definitely some of the most interesting years for Ko Fei. At the beginning of the decade he packed his bags and headed for the Philippines, were he began directing a number of decidedly low budget, but highly energetic, action movies. They often starred Yukari Oshima, with whom he was rumoured to have been in a relationship with at the time, and came to be defined by the B-grade production values, OTT wirework, and cheap and cheerful pyrotechnics. Some of these movies also seemed to reflect a sci-fi influence, as titles like Ultracop 2000 indicate, and Techno Warriors was another production which aims for a more fantastical angle.

Explaining the plot of Techno Warriors could easily be described as headache inducing, but I’ll attempt to anyway, as much to give myself disclosure on the whole thing as it is for this review. It’s the year 2020, and people have become so sufficient on their computers that they never need to leave their homes. One such person is an overweight unemployed fellow played by Niño Muhlach (more recently seen in the breakthrough Filipino crime thriller On the Job), who wears t-shirts which look two sizes too big for him, and speaks in an annoyingly winey American dubbed accent. Muhlach loves nothing more than playing on a computer game called Techno Warriors all day (which involves him wearing what looks like a virtual reality version of a gimp mask), and his dream is to one day get so good at it, that he’ll be skilled enough to rule over the Cyber World. Yes, there’s an alternate universe called the Cyber World.

In the real world anyone who can’t use a computer usually ends up in a criminal gang, and it’s up to crime unit members Tamara Guo (most recognisable as one of the two Women on the Run) and local Filipino actor Monsour Del Rosario (who’s character, it’s explained, has recently transferred from the Inter-Planetary Immigration Service), to keep the streets clean. The Black Ninja (played by a permanently masked Ko Fei), who rules over Cyber World, has cottoned on to the fact that this Filipino layabout could be a threat, so he sends various assassins (who all happen to be characters in the game also) into the real world to kidnap and make him their slave. Thankfully, cyber-police Darren Shahlavi, Lee Kwang-su, and Karin Perathoner (who are also characters in the game) plan to foil the kidnap attempt, so also make the leap into the real world in an attempt to stop the Black Ninja. Once in the real world, they team up with Guo and Rosario, which sees the best of the cyber world police and the best of the real world police join forces to take on the bad guys.

If you feel baffled, you’ll be even more confused once you actually watch it. There’s a reason why I mention all the principle players from Cyber World also being characters in the game. There are a few scenes which involve Muhlach playing the game, which follow him from selecting the characters to the fight itself. Except the in-game fight is played out by the actual actors, so we get to see Darren Shahlavi (whose character is called Twister, exactly as it is in Ip Man 2) let loose in what amounts to a couple of nice one-on-one exchanges against other opponents. The secret is to remember that this is Shahlavi the Techno Warriors game character, not Shahlavi the cyber cop, who’s busy trying to save Muhlach due to his mastery of playing him in the game. Lost? So was I.

As entertaining as these specific fights are though, unfortunately they’re completely ruined by Muhlach’s commentary which plays over them. We also have to suffer cut away shots of him attempting to perform the moves in his living room, adorned in his virtual reality gimp mask, which convert over to the characters in the game (thankfully much more convincingly than he does them). There’s nothing quite as frustrating as watching an intense HK style fight, while some guy enthusiastically yells over everything such clangers as, “Looking good! Looking cool!” and “Oh yeah, suck it up!” A high tolerance threshold comes thoroughly recommended, or the mute button.

Thankfully these scenes only make up a small portion of the action, which is plentiful, and Shahlavi remains front and center for many of them.  Techno Warriors is about as close as the British powerhouse would get to a leading role in a Hong Kong movie, all be it one shot in the Philippines, and he sells his fights with aplomb. Even more so than in Bloodmoon, made the same year, he unleashes a formidable array of kicks whenever he springs into action, as do the rest of the fighting cast. Taekwondo seems to be the martial art of choice for most of the fight scenes, so for those who like their boot work, Techno Warriors should definitely deliver some entertaining moments.

However I should warn that the action comes with a caveat that may turn some viewers off. It seems that Ko Fei was attempting to stick so closely to creating a live action computer fight game, that almost every kick, punch, or thrust of the sword is accompanied by some kind of animated projectile being attached to them. While for some this may be an annoyance, in the context of the plot I found it to add to the productions already goofy charm. The fact that the projectiles are also adequately paired with practical explosions (of varying sizes) actually made the effect quite fun, as one thrust of the sword would throw off 10 laser beams blasting off the walls and ground. I’d say one of the biggest reasons why the decision works, is that the effects are there as well as the choreography, rather than getting in the way of the latter. So it’s still possible to enjoy the fisticuffs, while watching laser beams and things explode all around the opponents going at it.

Perhaps more than any other movie I’ve seen which hopes in some way to capture the essence of a fight based video game, Techno Warriors does the job, for better or worse. The irony of course being, that it’s not directly based on any game. Characters wear face masks, capes, bright colored leggings, carry around over-sized weapons, and best of all it’s all done completely poker faced. The influence of Street Fighter 2 and Moral Kombat is blatant, with an M Bison clone being the stand out, and while it is completely derivative, it’s also a lot of fun seeing such characters on the screen, with almost zero adjustment from what you’d imagine them to look like in a game. Indeed the opening 8 minutes of the movie is basically a video game intro, as each character gets his own onscreen profile detailing their vital stats. Shahlavi is a ‘Supercop of the Game World’, Perathoner is ‘Pretty, Cool, & Precise’, and Ko Fei’s Black Ninja biography reads ‘Dangerous, Tricky, & Ulmost Cruelty’.

Ko Fei at least must have been happy with the end product of Techno Warriors, as he’d go onto recycle scenes from it in his movie Digital Warriors, made just 3 years later. Mercifully, the footage doesn’t include a late in the game (excuse the pun) appearance by some laser firing spaceships, which look like they’ve come straight out of a primitive flash video program (they probably were). But really, what other kung fu movie has opponents duking it out while fighting off spaceships? Reasons like this make me torn, as Techno Warriors looks and feels like it should be immediately written off as an embarrassing disaster. However the frantic pacing, colorful characters, boot work, and even the laser beams all somehow add up to a goofily entertaining 90 minutes. For fans of the late Darren Shahlavi, fight based video game adoptions, and Ko Fei’s Filipino action output, Techno Warriors is definitely worth a look. Would I recommend it to anyone else? Maybe, but doing so could be considered a move of ulmost cruelty.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6/10

The post Techno Warriors | aka Computer Hero (1997) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Future Hunters” VHS Cover

AKA: Spear of Destiny
Director: Cirio H. Santiago
Cast: Robert Patrick, Linda Carol, Ed Crick, Bob Schott, David Light, Paul Holmes, Peter Shilton, Ursula Marquez, Elizabeth Oropesa, Bruce Le (aka Huang Kin Long, Wong Kin Lung), Hwang Jang Lee, Richard Norton, Mike Abbott
Running Time: 96 min.

By Paul Bramhall

There are some movies which simple defy normal comprehension, and even before reading any sort of synopsis, just by looking at the cast you can tell Future Hunters is going to be one of them. Brought to the screen by the same team that would make Mission Terminate a year later, Future Hunters is helmed by Cirio H. Santiago, a somewhat legendary figure in the Filipino film industry. The son of Dr. Ciriaco Santiago, who founded the Premiere Productions studio in Manila way back in 1946, Cirio would go on to become one of the most recognized names in the world of B-movies, making everything from Blaxploitation, to low budget Vietnam war flicks, to kung fu movies.

Future Hunters somehow seems to escape fitting into any single genre, instead coming across as some kind of half baked version of The Terminator meets Mad Max meets Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I normally try to stay away from going into in-depth plot descriptions when I review, but in this case it’s the nature of the plot which essentially defines my opinion of the movie, so bear with me and we’ll see how things turn out.

Proceedings open in a barren desert landscape with one of the greatest voiceovers I’ve ever heard, which explains that the year is 2025 and the holocaust has wiped out all of mankind, leaving only the few to scavenge for what they can. However amongst the despair and desperation, there is one man who can put mankind back on track, that man’s name is – Matthew. For reasons never explained, the only way to get mankind back on track is to find the spear that pierced the body of Christ, which will allow whoever finds it to go back in time and stop the holocaust from ever happening.

Matthew, as it turns out, is played by everyone’s favorite Australian, Richard Norton. Yes long before he was in A-list Hong Kong productions facing off against the likes of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Cynthia Rothrock, Norton was making movies like this one. He bursts onto the screen looking like a bearded version of Mad Max, even driving an almost identical car, as a high speed car chase in the desert unfolds which eventually leads to Norton left with nothing more than his leather waistcoat and pants, oh, and his studded belt. Nothing says post-apocalyptic landscape like a studded belt.

Pursued by a small army of foot soldiers, a few tanks, and a fleet of cars, without saying a word Norton wipes out virtually a whole town full of bad guys using his fists, feet, and a machine gun, before thankfully stumbling across the spearhead in question, just before the whole building that he’s sheltering in is blown to smithereens. This whole sequence is the first 10 minutes, and the titles haven’t even rolled yet. Yes these types of movies are undeniably of the B variety, but you have to give them credit for fitting more action into the first 10 minutes than you find in a whole finale of an Expendables movie!

After the titles do roll, things go all Terminator-ish and Norton wakes up to find he’s in 1986, all be it in the exact same spot we last saw him. Displaying no signs of confusion whatsoever, he’s soon rescuing a young couple from a trio of rowdy bikers, with the couple in question being played by Linda Carol, you know, the actress from Carnal Crimes, and her boyfriend is none other than Robert Patrick. Yes, that Robert Patrick, as in the guy who 5 years into the future from this movie, would play the T-1000 in Terminator 2. Something strange is going on here. Back to Norton though, he’s no sooner appeared that he’s shot and mortally wounded, leaving him to deliver a completely incomprehensible speech thanks to his rather broad Aussie accent, but which we can assume is something along the lines of “Use the spear to stop the holocaust that wipes out mankind mate!”

Through some inconsequential exposition, the actress from Carnal Crimes and the T-1000 hightail it to Hong Kong, where they believe a professor resides who knows the secret to the spear. In this section of the movie things get really strange. The couple are picked up from the airport by a taxi driver, a taxi driver played by Bruce Le! Le explains to them some nonsense about how he may know someone that can help them called the Silver Fox who guards a temple. Wait, isn’t that the name of Hwang Jang Lee’s character in classic kung fu movies like The Secret Rivals? It is, but don’t worry about that as nothing much makes sense here anyway. Le also seems to have been dubbed by two different people, so half the conversation he sounds like the constipated Filipino that dubbed him in Mission Terminate, and the other half he sounds like a British gentleman with a stiff upper lip. It’s all a little disconcerting.

Soon they arrive at the temple, but when I say they, I just mean the T-1000 and Bruce Le, as the actress from Carnal Crimes has disappeared with no explanation. They meet the Silver Fox, and bizarrely, it is Hwang Jang Lee! He’s not so willing to give out information though, which leads to one of the most WTF moments in cinema history, as we’re treated to a 2-on-1 fight of the T-1000 paired up with a Bruce Lee imitator taking on the greatest kicker to have ever graced the kung fu movie world. Thankfully the fight is treated with a degree of reality, and the T-1000 is knocked out cold early on, leaving Hwang Jang Lee to unleash his kicks on Le, who, just like in reality, turns out to have a pair of nunchucks tucked away in one of his boots. Surprisingly, the fight is pretty good, Hwang unleashes his trademark triple flying kick, and there’s even a section which pits staff against nunchucks. It’s a definite highlight.

Somewhere in-between, it’s revealed that the person they’re after isn’t in Hong Kong at all, and that they need to seek out a place called the Venus Valley, which contains a race of “Amazonian female like warriors”, where they’ll find the staff which the spearhead belongs to. So after a brief car chase and an exploding car, it suddenly cuts to Manila Airport. It should also be mentioned that from this point Bruce Le and Hwang Jang Lee are never heard of again. Combined with Richard Norton, the movie just lost all of its genuine fighting talent at not even half way in! What we do get though, is an evil group of Nazis (is there any other type of Nazi?) who want to wipe out humanity and create a genetically engineered race of perfect humans.

Soon the Nazis are pursuing are heroes again (the actress from Carnal Crimes has now reappeared). After trying to trick them into meeting for a pleasant evening meal, the T-1000 senses something is wrong, and a foot chase gives way to a night time car chase. About a minute later, we can only assume they’ve been chasing each other for around 8 hours, as it’s inexplicably become daylight. A little later, a night time gun fight also suddenly becomes broad daylight, for no logical reason whatsoever. By the end of the movie it’s safe to assume that most of the characters haven’t slept for 48 hours straight.

By the final half hour, things have descended into Twilight Zone territory.  Captured by the Nazis, our fearless couple are held at their camp in the jungle, only to be attacked by a group of what look like post-apocalyptic Filipino bandits on horseback. The attack goes on for about 10 minutes, and at no point do we have any clue who the group that are attacking them are. It’s only when, after they escape, events end up in a cave which is home to a significant population of brown robe wearing dwarves. This kicks off a completely unnecessary sub-plot involving the dwarves. The T-1000 explains that in a private meeting with the head dwarf (that not even we got to witness), the dwarf told him they’re always getting attacked by the post-apocalyptic Filipino bandits, but they also know the location of Venus Valley. So, help them get rid of the bandits, they’ll reveal the location of the valley.

What this means is that, what was minutes earlier a movie with Bruce Le and Hwang Jang Lee, suddenly becomes about an army of hatchet wielding dwarves in brown robes, disguising themselves as walking cardboard boxes.  The boxes then proceed to attack the bandits, who’ve already just been involved in a lengthy action scene minutes before, with the only difference being that we now know who they are.  Worst of all, when they do attack, the actress from Carnal Crimes and the T-1000 hardly help at all!  They’re so useless that at one point one of the dwarves actually saves them from being attacked. The little guys should have just told them the location of Venus Valley to begin with and be done with it. But then we wouldn’t have a dwarf action scene.

Eventually the dwarves prevail, and they give them directions to the Venus Valley, which finally gives us a glimpse of those “Amazonian female like warriors”! What this translates to onscreen of course, is a large group of young well endowed Filipino females (I won’t say actresses) decked out in fur bikinis and bottoms. But the action isn’t over! The Queen Amazonian wants the T-1000 for her own lustful needs, so the actress from Carnal Crimes finally has her chance to shine when she has to fight above a crocodile pit with the tribe’s strongest fighter (strongest i.e. most well endowed). Needless to say, the scene ended with me being quite envious of those crocodiles.

Will they find the missing piece of the spear that pierced the body of Christ and save humanity, or will those pesky Nazis catch up and ruin everything? If it wasn’t clear already, Future Hunters is a truly bizarre slice of Filipino action cinema, one which isn’t afraid of using the likes of Bruce Le and Hwang Jang Lee in little more than extended cameos. However, if you’re a fan of the post-apocalyptic jungle warfare kung fu dwarf action Jesus related genre, then Future Hunters may just be the movie for you. Of course, it would be a real spoiler to give away the actual finale, so I’ll leave it at that.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6.5/10

The post Future Hunters | aka Deadly Quest (1986) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Mission Terminate” Dutch VHS Cover

AKA: Revenge of the Kickfighter
Director: Anthony Maharaj
Writer: Joe Mari Avellana
Cast: Richard Norton, Bruce Le (Huang Kin Long), Rex Cutter, Judy Greene, George E. Mahlberg, Nick Nicholson, Henry Strzalkowski, Dick Wei, Franco Guerrero
Running Time: 90 min.

By Paul Bramhall

My journey that found me watching Mission Terminate was somewhat of an interesting one. Back in 2008, I’d stumbled across an old Tai Seng DVD of a movie called Ninja vs. Bruce Lee. The movie starred one of the many Bruce Lee clones which the studios churned out after Bruce Lee’s death in an attempt to make a quick buck, renaming any actor who had even the faintest likeness of Lee to sound like they could pass for the real deal. This particular movie starred Bruce Le (see what they did there?), however it was the cover of the DVD which had my attention, as it featured a shirtless Le brandishing a ridiculously big machine gun and sporting an expression which meant business (click here to view the DVD cover).

It looked like B-movie gold, a Bruce Lee clone made out to be a kind of Asian Rambo, what could go wrong!? Much to my disdain, the scene off the cover of the DVD appeared nowhere in the movie, so I angrily set about making enquires to find out exactly what it was that I should be looking for. Thankfully some very knowledgeable people confirmed the image was from Mission Terminate, and proceeded to wish me luck at attempting to track it down. After a couple of initial enquiries which turned out to be fruitless, thanks to a combination of such factors like, well, having a life, I gave up my search. Skip forward 6 years later, and thanks to some kind soul having a much better memory than me, I finally found myself in possession of Mission Terminate, under the retitle of Return of the Kickfighter, and prepared myself for the unknown.

Thankfully Mission Terminate is indeed B-movie gold. Directed by Anthony Maharaj, whose filmography contains such other gems as Innocent Adultery, it is in fact filmed entirely in the Philippines, passing for Vietnam, and is everything you’d expect from a mid-80’s Filipino B-movie production. The Philippines had a whole host of American B-movie directors making action and exploitation cheapies there during the 80’s, thanks to the low cost crews and filming locations, so much so that the Filipino action B-movie almost became a genre unto itself.

Mission Terminate does the genre proud, announcing its intentions from the very first piece of dialogue, which takes place between two soldiers and goes as follows: Lieutenant – “I knew we’d get those motherf*ckers!” Marine – “Yeah, bet those suckers never figured we’d trail them back to their mothers wombs!” If only every movie had opening lines like this.

The plot concerns a unit of US marines operating in the Vietnam war during 1970, with the movie opening on a raid in a village. After massacring the villagers, the marines steal the villages gold, much to the objection of their Vietnamese translator and guide, played by Le. Skip forward past the credits sequence; it’s now 15 years later, and members of the unit are getting murdered one by one. This leads to the former head of the group, now a high ranking military officer, announcing that the only person who is up to the job of finding out the identity of the killer is an Aussie, Major Brad Cooper, played by Richard Norton.

Norton is the real deal when it comes to martial arts, and has gone one on one with the best of them, including Jackie Chan in the finale of City Hunter, and Sammo Hung in Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars. Here he’s given a rare lead role as the good guy, and most probably due to him not being able to do an American accent; the colonel explains to some disgruntled marines that “he was only raised in Australia, he’s American, ALL AMERICAN!” Sadly much more than his accent, it’s the fact that Norton sports a rat tail haircut which gives him away as an Australian, an epidemic that still seems to be an acceptable form of antipodean style even in the 21st century.

As mentioned Norton is the main character of the movie, with Bruce Le playing a significant supporting role. Another stalwart from Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung’s movies comes in the form of legendary kicker Dick Wei, who plays Bruce Le’s murderous sworn brother, and is the guy who’s killing off the marines in revenge for their slaughter of the village. It’s Wei’s appearance which indicates that perhaps the plot was just kind of made up on the fly. I mean, his killings of the marines are justified considering what they did, and the colonel is trying to manipulate Norton to find Wei and kill him only because he doesn’t want the stolen gold to be discovered. However it then suddenly turns out that Wei really is a bad guy, and that he’s working as a trainer at a hidden terrorist camp of ski-mask wearing ninjas hidden in a nearby mountain.

It turns out his revenge mission is just a sideline to his full time job as terrorist trainer. The camp seems to be being run by a Middle Eastern terrorist group, indicated only by a guided tour the head of the camp gives to some headscarf wearing gentlemen. Yes the movie contains a whole scene dedicated to a guided tour of the terrorists in training, one of the highlights being that they’re so evil that during combat training they have to use real ammo. If you get shot, it’s because you’re not evil enough and deserve to die, that’s their reasoning, not mine.

Overall Mission Terminate is a lot of fun, mainly because it’s a parody of action movies without being a parody. It displays a level of incompetence which is somehow forgivable thanks mainly to the constant onslaught of hilariously bad lines, and their delivery, and frequent shootouts which never seem to be more than a few minutes away. Le has clearly had his lines dubbed into English by a local Filipino, and as a result everything he says makes him sound like a constipated Mexican. This is particularly hilarious in his exchanges with the Aussie accented Norton.

By the time the finale rolls around, it’s Norton and Le, backed up by some good guy marines led by Franco Guerrero, himself a Filipino B-movie legend (check out One Armed Executioner!), against Wei and his camp of ninja terrorists. Amusingly before the showdown starts, the head of the camp pulls all the ninjas into a room and tells them that finally he can reveal their purpose, which is to hold a nuclear power plant to ransom. You can’t help but feel that what actually happened is behind the scenes the following conversation took place: Producer – “Ok we’re going to film the finale next… does the audience actually know what the terrorists are training for yet?” Director – “Hmmm. Did we overlook that detail!? (Flicks through script) It appears we did. Damn.”

Once the impromptu terrorist team meeting is over though, the bullets and explosions come thick and fast, with of course some obligatory fists and feet thrown in as well just for good measure. Le and Norton both face off again Wei in a couple of very brief scuffles, but the fun is mainly in watching the endlessly regenerating ninjas get mowed down in hails of bullets. In truth it’s probably the same five guys playing the whole army of ninjas, and it becomes quite fun to see if you can identify if you’re watching the same guy from the previous scene – there’s the guy who always dies by falling down in what can only be described as real time slow motion; the guy who always dies by waving his arms around frantically, even if he’s already laying on the ground; and the guy who always yells at the top of his voice whenever he’s been shot.

If you’re a fan of action B-movies, Mission Terminate does the job, made in an era when the macho action movie was still played 100% straight with no winks to the audience, it’s all the more entertaining for it. Now if only Sylvester Stallone would realize the same thing.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7/10

The post Mission Terminate | aka Return of the Kickfighter (1987) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“On the Job” Theatrical Poster

Director: Erik Matti
Cast: Piolo Pascual, Gerald Anderson, Joel Torre, Joey Marquez, Michael de Mesa, Leo Martinez, Angel Aquino, Vivian Velez, Niño Muhlach
Running Time: 121 min.

By Jeff Bona

When I think of Filipino films, two things come to mind: goofy comedies and melodramas with overacting. My opinion comes from what I’ve seen on TV while vacationing in the Philippines and what I’ve witnessed while at my Aunt’s house (back in the day, she used to rent Tagalog films on a regular basis).

In case you haven’t already guessed, I’m Filipino myself. With that said, I’ve never seen a Filipino movie – or TV show – that was anywhere near having some kind of artistic merit or solid entertainment value. That is, until now…

I’m not going to beat around the bush. On The Job is one hell of a movie. The acclaimed reviews are accurate. My expectations were met. Seriously, how often does that happen? To put it even more simple: director Erik Matti (Tiktik: The Aswang Chronicles) hit the nail right on its head with this one.

The plot is interesting, fresh and unfortunately, based on actual events. In a nut shell, the film centers on prison inmates who work secretly as hired assassins for corrupt politicians. It’s a story of a killer and his pupil, a good cop versus the system, and the blood that flows when all parties collide.

Don’t be fooled into thinking On The Job is an action movie filmed with a bunch of Hong Kong-style firefights. It does have a nice chunk of energetic action pieces (accompanied by some great, heart-racing music), but let’s just say that it’s more Ringo Lam (Full Alert) than it is John Woo (The Killer). If you know your Asian cinema, then you’re aware of the compliment I just made.

Even though the actors are obviously unknown to American audiences, On The Job features a strong, well-known Filipino cast that includes Piolo Pascual (Don’t Give Up on Us), Gerald Anderson (24/7 in Love), Joel Torre (Kabisera), Joey Marquez (Tiktik: The Aswang Chronicles) and Michael de Mesa (10,000 Hours).

Despite knocking Filipino films, I’m sure there are more titles out there that are decent. Nevertheless, I’ll be damned if there was another that’s as all-round solid and refreshing as On The Job. Maybe my best bet is to check out some of Matti’s prior films…

Until then, if there’s one Filipino film that is guaranteed to be worth your time, it’s On The Job.

Jeff Bona‘s Rating: 8/10

The post On the Job (2013) Review first appeared on cityonfire.com.

“Bruce and the Shaolin Bronzemen” Finnish VHS Cover

AKA: King Boxer 2
Director: Joseph Kong
Producer: Robert Jeffrey
Cast: Bruce Le (aka Huang Kin Long, Wong Kin Lung), Chan Sing, Lita Vasquez, Chang Lee, Ruby Anna, Cloyd Robinson, Nona Herrera, Vivian Velasco, Ernie Ortega, Tsing Tong Tsai, Angel Confiado, Ruben Ramos, Jimmy Cruz, Romeo Blanco, Joe Canlas, Ely Rufuerzo, Ed Ramos, Nanding De La Cruz, Bill Feijoo
Running Time: 78 min.

By Joseph Kuby

One film critic put it best when he said…

“With all the realism and reason in most today’s movies, this was briskly anarchistic in terms of boring rules of movie making.”

The credits verify this. We have a Perry Boy, Peedoy, D’vultures, Paeng Giant and SOS Daredevils (Filipino’s elite stunt team). There’s an actor called Chang Lee whose name is separated, giving the impression of two one-name actors.

King Boxer 2 seems to be a family affair. We have a trio of Velascos (Joseph, Vivian and Leonardo) and a quintet of Ramos’ (Ruben, Ed, Ever, Segundo and Amber). The disjointed nature of the production may as well have been due to a case of family feud or nepotism that may have occurred on set or off.

The plot is best described as a comedic version of The Gold Connection with everyone getting their necks deep into some priceless treasure all the while a mysterious hit man keeps a watchful eye. The stark contrast in those films is akin to comparing Jackie Chan’s distinctive (to the point of conflictive) 1993 efforts, City Hunter and Crime Story.

However, Bruce Le (a less talented Chinese Jeff Bridges) is no match for James Ho (or Dragon Lee for that matter) and for a Filipino actioner it could have done with Inosanto’s presence to seal the deal on the martial arts stakes. Given today’s climate when it comes to action cinema, I think the whole world could benefit from seeing an authentic Filipino action hero who reveled in the beauty of Escrima and the likes.

I admire Dan for helping Escrima and Jeet Kune Do gain more exposure in the West but his mastery of the martial arts, along with his knowledge of action directing, could have made him an ideal stunt coordinator for the Filipino film industry. His creative input could have easily bolstered the quality and boosted their place in world cinema and right now we would have decent quality films from the Philippines that would rival Ong Bak in their artistry. Daniel Inosanto could have done for the Filipino film industry what Bruce Lee did for the Chinese one.

That may seem like a bold comment to make but bearing in mind that Danny’s experience on Hollywood and Hong Kong features gave him a truly dual-world perspective, an advantage that not many people had back in 1982. As such, Filipino action cinema has been stunted in its growth as a powerhouse in action film-making. Filipino cinema, as a result, has been impeded with the cheap-as-hell tag.

As you can tell from what can be read above, this is a somewhat disappointing film which had the potential to genuinely put Filipino action movies on the market but alas this film is ruined with a loosely connected plot whose unfocused narrative makes the confusing mess of Enter the Game of Death look startlingly linear.

Both movies were made by Joseph Velasco (a.k.a. Joseph Kong Hung) but unlike the latter (which was the film he made prior to this), this one lacks any real sense of coherence despite the protagonist seeming to have more drive and purpose in his actions than in the previous outing. To say there’s plot holes would be a vicious understatement. You’d think bad decisions with the editing, rather than the script, are what caused these gaps.

Unlike their previous collaboration, there are no celebrity look-alikes. For instance, in Enter the Game of Death there’s a Caucasian man with dark hair and facial hair who looks like British comic Jimmy Carr and one of the black martial artists looks like Michael Winslow from Police Academy (I saw this film lately at a house party and one of my friends swears it’s him). Don’t let that put you off King Boxer 2. The film isn’t too far from the term “so bad it’s good.”

The director is the same dude responsible for Bruce’s Deadly Fingers (which boasted having Lieh, Nora and Bolo), Bruce and Dragon Fist, My Name Called Bruce (written by a Zackey Chan), Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu, Enter Three Dragons (a.k.a. The Dragon on Fire which had Philip Ko, Bolo, Lee Hoi San and Bruce Lei or Dragon Lee) and Eye of the Dragon (a.k.a. The Ninja Strikes Back with Hwang Jang Lee, Casanova Wong, Bolo, Oddjob and Chick Norris).

He also helmed Return of Bruce (a.k.a. Boxing Brothers which also had Lo*) and Cobra (not with Sly Stallone but with Bruce Lei).

…and I’ve not even hinted at the two “special” Leesploitation chop-sockies he did. Hahahahaha!

As with a lot of martial arts movies, what you can always rely on to salvage a film with a weak plot are stellar action sequences but that depends on how good the action director is. Despite there being plentiful chances for culturally diverse slugfests, the film’s bouts of martial combat range from average to slightly above average barring one truly good duel that happens later on in the film. This happens during the course of the third act (in the beginning of said act) and not surprisingly it’s with another Chinese fighter but I’ll talk about that later.

On the plus side, if you want something that’s unusual to the point of being bizarre (if nonsensical) then you will enjoy watching the eccentricities that are inherent (if not wildly abundant) in this film. The best way to describe this movie is imagine watching a film that was a combination between Godfrey Ho (minus the ninjas) and Ken Russell.

There’s a surrealist tone to this film which makes the film wacky to the point of being incoherent. Not quite in league with Chu Yen Ping’s Fantasy Mission Force or Chan Mei-Kei’s The Eternal Evil of Asia but almost vying for the same level of attention. Honestly, after watching this movie, I’ve come to see Wong Jing as David Lynch.

Let’s see, this film has a bunch of henchmen who are dwarfs (one of whom fires a pistol as if it was a shotgun), a homosexual rapist, a tribe of sickle-armed dwarfs, a very hot snake fist-styled Filipino lady, a group of similarly clad dagger-wielding femme fatales, a murderous obese masseuse, a transvestite who’s accosted by Bruce Le and a team of Shaolin Bronzemen. After all, this was made by the same team who brought us Clones of Bruce Lee. However, the film is misleading with its alternate title of Bruce and the Shaolin Bronzemen as they’re only featured in one scene.

Equally dubious is the title King Boxer 2 as this has nothing in common with Lo Lieh’s breakthrough film. Actually, given the nature of Lo Lieh’s appearance in Big Boss 2**, it would have arguably been more fitting if these two films switched titles. These films would probably have benefited more in reception, especially in the case of Le’s flick since if people can confuse Chinese with Japanese then they can confuse Filipinos with Thais.

With that said, there are a few scenes which seem similar to The Big Boss with one of the antagonists taking pleasure in watching their hired men spar with each other as well as joining in for a martial arts demonstration. Even some dialogue at the end recalls something Lee uttered in the finale of said film.

Notwithstanding possibly intended allusions to Bruce’s first action film, it’s a shame that there weren’t that many Bruceploitation films that capitalized on The Big Boss. The grisly nature of the film’s violence coupled with the prostitute angle was enough for exploitation movie moguls everywhere to expound upon. There was never a Bruceploitation film that truly quenched the thirst of porn pundits and fed the hunger of bloodhounds. Had there been so, exploitation cinema junkies would have sought highly after these films regardless whether they liked martial arts or not.

Opportunities were also missed on directly cashing in on Enter the Dragon. Given the plot elements of escorts and captives, filmmakers could have remade Enter as a “women in prison”*** movie with tons of sexploitation and lots of multi-ethnic diversity to entice global audiences. If Wong Jing was a director in the ‘70s, he would have explored such a concept. Jingie is an exploitive genius who would have given us enough sex, violence, juicy foul language and ‘70s cultural tidbits to satisfy the most ardent of grindhouse fans.

Back to this movie, which should not be confused with Treasure of Bruce Le (directed by Joseph Kuo****), it is a fairly middling affair with slightly meandering direction in light of both characterization and action. If there had to be one film that is required to be watched with friends and consumed substances, in order to be fully enjoyable and not utterly pointless, then this is the one. Whilst the film occasionally shines with inspired moments, it just plods along aimlessly in search of meaningful direction.

Looking back in retrospect, the main deficiency here is the dubbing. No one is a native English speaker so it’s hard to fully immerse ourselves with the interaction that exists between the characters. The dubbing is notable for having artists whose native language is obviously not English. Everyone sounds Mexican. Bruce Le sounds as if he’s dubbed by a Spaniard who sounds like Antonio Banderas. The guy who does the voice-over for Bruce pronounces uncle as “ancel.”

Another issue with the dubbing is that there’s moments when someone is speaking but nothing is heard, something that becomes quite apparent during the fight scenes where the usually present war cries are fairly absent (this happens with other kinds of sound effects during some of the scenes). This makes for an emotionally detached experience, though (save for a few okay actors) the sub-par acting on offer belittles any substantial levels of engagement the filmmakers were aiming to derive from the audience.

Then again, the dubbing could have thwarted some decent voice acting since I’ve always believed that if an actor is limited facially, they can deliver vocally (take for instance John Hurt in The Elephant Man). Maybe someone felt having foreign dubbing made it realistic but that is a jarring thought to consider since the problems of comprehending the dialogue diminish any well intentions of the sort.

The post-production team could have at least attempted in getting an actor like James Hong (who had lent his talent to several characters for the Li feature Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger). Gone are voice artists who sound like celebrities (like the Sean Connery soundalike for the villain in Interpol). No longer do we have dubbers who sound like John DeMita (Li’s role in New Game of Death) or Jonathan Frakes (Lung Fei’s villain role in New Game of Death).

George Lucas once said that film is 50% sound and I think this film displays a stark contrast between quality of dubbing and scoring. King Boxer 2 is testament to how much a decent quality soundtrack can enhance the experience of a film. What the film may lack in its visual components, it certainly does not lag with its audio composites. There are some rousing moments of orchestration which help make the film more achieved than it deserves (the accomplished fight scene with the Chinese hit-man being the highlight).

We’re treated to some classic funkadelic beats (‘70s bass lovers will get a kick outta this flick) and one rip-roaring fight scene with a Filipino gang near the beginning is a notable example. Of course, like a lot of the Hong Kong films during the period, this film contrives some cues from other movies (The Sand Pebbles must have been a huge hit in Hong Kong because its music was ripped off majorly for Jackie Chan’s Dragon Fist).

On the surface, the film seems to have the ingredients of a classic Bruceploitation film but it never really gels those ingredients together in a truly cohesive whole. It starts off like a traditional Kung Fu movie with some guy showing off his repertoire of movements. The only thing here being remotely different is the aspect of lighting with Bruce Le being illustrated fairly vibrantly in a red coat of light in front of a pitch black background (you gotta dig the contrast) then we get taken to some scenic agricultural setting where Bruce is training (with some of the most over the top sound effects ever heard).

Next we see Le trying to survive in the wilderness by hunting for fish and using darts to snatch melons from trees. We then come across his martial arts master in ancient garb and we get the impression this is some period tale but then afterwards we get taken to a scenario with thugs in contemporary attire. In any other movie, this would have been seen as defying audience expectation (since it is common for Chinese people to wear ancient robes in a modern setting e.g. the Waise Lee movie The Cat*****). In this movie, it’s just an example of the filmmakers deciding to make up things as they went along.

Le’s character is questionable morally as when the thugs attempt to rape a woman, he doesn’t do anything until they accidentally kick his pot of cooked fish. There’s nothing wrong with having protagonists whose agendas are with shades of gray (like Eastwood’s in the Dollars trilogy) but there doesn’t seem to be many plot points which allow for these filmmakers to explore the possibility of having a morally ambiguous “hero” (either that or they decided to drop the act after failing to come up with more angles on this). Once more, the would-be rape victim tries to kill Le moments later!

After foiling an ambush attempt by some random goons, Le encounters a mysterious martial arts expert played by Cheung Lik (who played the nunchaku exponent in Enter the Game of Death). Cheung was the fight choreographer for both this and Enter the Game of Death. The problem with this film is that during the group conflicts, it’s more obvious than ever that the stuntmen are just waiting to get hit than to be giving the impression that they’re that involved in the fight.

Throughout a lot of these fights, they come off as referees overlooking the action before anticipating in the combat. The filmmakers of this could have learned a lot from Last Fist of Fury from the composition of similar-themed fights. Despite this, both movies share scenes involving one of the protagonists being entangled in rope during a melee.

Some of the humour in the feudage helps to give the film an endearing touch even if some of it is quite hokey (if not ho-hum), namely when one of the gang leaders punishes a fellow hooligan by pulling out some of his facial hair.

Bruce Le’s vest, in some scenes, reads Saplot which is also the name of a feature-length presentation sex drama. Which reminds me, King Boxer 2 could have done with some nudity and porn. Given the randomness of the movie, the producers really missed out on going full-tilt with the exploit-everything angle. Nothing beats a good ol’ fuck and fight flick.

The actress who plays the villainess is Lita Vasquez who was thought of as the Philippines’ answer to Angela Mao. Lita can be seen in the Filipino cult classic Darna and the Planet Women.

The scene with the miniscule tribemen was, no doubt, inspired by the popularity of Weng Weng whose major claim to fame was the Bond spoof For Y’ur Height Only******. Weng had fought Lita in The Impossible Kid which was released one year after For Y’ur Height Only.

Yukari Oshima would be the next big female action superstar for Filipino audiences, although her status is surpassed by actress Vilma Santos who is seen as the Filipino Meryl Streep (conversely yet curiously, Cynthia Rothrock’s popularity in Jakarta was such that she was, oddly enough, viewed as a martial arts Meryl Streep).

No Bruceploitation movie could be complete without the requisite humour, even if a lot of it is unintentional (save for a Filipino equivalent to the type of Waylon Smithers-esque role usually reserved for Lee movie expat Wei Ping Ao). A sign on the door of a sauna (for men) reads ‘keep smiling’ (eerily unsettling given the nudity on display). One of the female protagonists informs Le that one of the crooks is as big as an elephant and when Le is at an amusement park, the director attempts to make the statues of creatures look scary but this would only work in a film like Jurassic Park. Here, it comes off as tawdry.

Rape scenes are never intended to be funny (unless you’re Wong Jing) but in this movie some Filipino thugs try to steal this fat guy’s big bowl of white cream (innuendo unintended) and one of them tries to undress him, causing the chubby guy to moan like a puppy dog as he yearns for his food. If Wong Jing was behind the camera (and left to his devices) this would be on par with his scripted James Ho movie, The Lama Avenger (o.k.a.******* The Three Avengers) which, believe it or not, isn’t as tacky as one may think.

A “poignant” scene takes place nine tenths into the film but rather than being tear-jerking, we’re succumbed to laughter as we see Bruce Le became Bruce Banner. Heheheheheheheheheh!

The brawls presented are literally a case of hit and miss but one fight that’s likely to excite viewers is what should have been the true denouement given the limited skills of Lita and the element of suspense that the film was trying to generate with the mysterious Chinese fighter.

The martial joust illustrates what we’re missing in the other fights: a sense of urgency and a feeling of danger. Mr. Lucas once said that a film is only as good as its villain and throughout the majority of this movie we never get the impression that Le is closer to the threshold of death. This is only hinted at with the premise of each fight rather than explored to devastating effect.

Le is engaged in a fast-paced battle of wits involving having to constantly change his style to jinx the concentration of the hired killer. Le and Lik constantly utilize different styles of Kung Fu, back and forth, in a way that makes other Kung Fu films look stilted and formal in their progression of styles. Le uses an assortment of leopard, dragon’s tail, snake, crane and tiger techniques to combat whatever Lik throws at him. There are parts where they even have to engage in the more conventional fisted combat just to gain an advantage. Lee would be impressed.

Describing the structure on a basic chronological format is fairly daunting, let alone describing the way they employ their techniques. Simply put, the duel serves as a master class seminar in how to counteract the other duelist’s style. It would have been the icing on the cake to have had some mantis and eagle (thumb, index and middle fingers) stylings going on. Having some monkey and panther-fist (middle knuckle raised) shenanigans would have been the cherry on top.

The unconventional conclusion of this bout may have motivated the development for the one between Jackie Chan and Don Cheadle in Rush Hour 2. The music even sounds similar but then that’s probably just me.

The finale is pretty exciting for what it is in theme although it’s kinda uneven in that the very final fight scene doesn’t live up to what preceded it: a series of progressively enthralling fight sequences. We have Karatekas with blades, Karatekas with poles and some Escrima exponents thrown in for good measure. To be honest, Le fought so many people that I think I may have left out something.

Now, if we had Dan Inosanto leading a pack of Escrima-styled cronies against Le then this could have rivaled James Ho’s Chinese Stuntman or even Bruce Lee’s Game of Death for that matter. As is the case here, the premise for the third act never really delivers in a way it should, making the likes of Enter the Game of Death look like Tower of Death. Which is all the more insulting to all concerned when you consider that Enter the Game made New Game of Death look like the original Game of Death.

I wonder how big this film would have performed at the Filipino box office had Weng and Dan appeared in it. Perhaps, Dan was offered to join but was weary of Le and Weng may not have been content at doing a cameo as a Filipino Ewok (he still could have played Agent 00 gunning down would-be gunners attempting to foil Le’s path to obtain justice).

Some gaffes can’t be ignored though. For instance, there are two topless guys who are waiting to pounce on Le in some hotel lobby but the receptionist only notices them when they start fighting (bearing in mind that one of them is standing very near her). Le hits a guy’s thigh but the guy reacts like his extended mushroom and bag of prunes (*cough* *cough* *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*) have been tremendously whalloped.

Some of the kicks don’t look effective since they obviously miss their intended target. Even if people don’t want to get hit, there are ways of obscuring these things with camera positioning but thankfully this never becomes too frequent.

When Le defends himself against the masseuse, she actually smiles after she gets hit. This is an inadvertent example of someone reverting from sadism to masochism. Add a few more techniques at the proverbial hands of Le (as well as some suggestive grimaces) and the term sadomasochism would spring to mind too. The director is prone to some bizarre moments of creativity so maybe Le should have fist-fucked her too.

The villainess of the piece tries to invite Le for a swim but even in the shallow end of the beach she struggles. Despite having reasons to distrust her, he helps her anyway only to be attacked then later on he kisses her like as if the whole thing was just a game of hard to get. When Le fights the first wave of Karatekas, they scatter away for some reason (leaving another group to get wiped out) and then they come back again. It’s like the director had suddenly found a way to extend the finale mid-production.

A good example of the lousy film-making apparent is that in one shot we can see the reflections of the film crew in Le’s shades. Thankfully, we don’t get too many shots like this otherwise this film would be plagued in its attempts to take the viewers to a world that seems to exist outside a filmic environment.

This film is so flawed that it makes Last Fist of Fury look like the work of Akira Kurosawa. Yeah, it’s that bad. Writing and directing mean nothing if the lead actor is not capable. Bruce Le, at best, is an average actor who manages to make the minimalistic Chuck Norris look like a subtle method actor. At worst, Le is a bad actor who can convince movie goers that Michael Wong can evoke the presence and mood of Anthony Wong.

Seriously, Le lacks the expressionistic texture that separates good actors from bad actors. Given the animated nature of some of the other talents Kung Fu cinema had to offer, Le can not hold one’s attention when he’s not in action. Le exhibits little of the charisma and charm Li effortlessly conveyed. He also makes Dragon Lee look like Jason Scott Lee.

Like what Michael Caine said, an actor is always thinking if not talking. Unlike James, we don’t get to see much introspection from Le. Maybe it’s the lack of opportunity to explore facets of emotion but Le is as one dimensional as they come. If Ho was in this movie, this would have been an above average feature if not an entirely good one (like the offbea Bruce Li in New Guinea – also directed by Joey Kong). As it stands, this is quite a bad film with redeeming qualities that stop it from being deemed as terrible.

In spite of this, I feel reluctant in calling this a terrible film since it would be an insult to those who’ve seen worse films. This film, whilst not being consistent, is at least unpredictable and manages to deviate from an unbearably slow pace considering its script seems to have been improvised on set. There are some nice scenic locales too.

Even if the film was without merit, watching bad movies can be good so as to help you be aware of what it means to make a good film and certainly watching terrible movies can make you more aware of the overall standards.

On the whole, this film is worth checking out if you’re looking for a film that’s out of this world. It’s not the worst Bruceploitation movie but nowhere near the best, not by a long shot.

The UK DVD, courtesy of 23rd Century, is missing a good part of the Filipino samurai segment where Le gets cut and uses the nunchaku to bring down the Karatekas. The French title for this film is Le Vainqueur which means The Winner.

Joseph Kong Hong’s filmography probably makes Lo Wei look like Chang Cheh but he’s not without his credentials. Yuen Woo Ping’s second job as stunt coordinator was for Joseph’s directorial debut Tough Guy (starring Chan Sing, Fung Hak On and Mars). Ping would go on to work with Joey on Tiger Force (starring Michael Chan Wai Man, Chan Sing and Jimmy Lee Fong). His last effort with Lo Lieh was The Furious (not to be confused with the Dragon Lee movie of the same name).

His last directorial credits were Thundering Ninja and Out of Danger. Joe’s last movie (as producer) was Black Spot, a film which would motivate the team responsible for Police Story 3: Supercop to pull ideas from it (in story and action). To speak of the devil, Jackie also reinvented the playground fight from New Game of Death for Police Story 2.

As much as Chan criticizes the Bruceploitation (or Bruce-spoof) franchise, it obviously left him an impression (intentionally or subconsciously) to the point of lifting the bus fight gag from Golden Sun (a.k.a. Bruce Lee, We Miss You) for the first Police Story. Criticize he may, Jackie can’t deny the importance these JKD rip-offs had.

Call them purid, full-length presentation, comedy sketch-shows or trash-taste crap-fests but if it weren’t for the Bruceploitation sub-genre, Hong Kong action cinema would have not maintained the popularity it did in the West. It helped bridged the gap between Lee and Chan in terms of sheer commercial momentum.

Many would like to think that these films failed in Hong Kong but if they were well and truly turds that stank up theaters, the local filmmakers wouldn’t have felt inclined to make dozens of them. Exploitation cinema doesn’t get more exploitive than capitalizing on people wanting to see their deceased hero. Critically abysmal? Yes. Commercially dismal? No.

At the end of the day, if you wanna watch a Filipino Bruceploitation actioner that delivers and doesn’t disappoint then check out Chaku Master which stars Bruce Ly (he sort of looks like a Filipino Ngai Sing/Collin Chou). One example of classic humour from that film is the uncanny usage of symbolism during an oral sex sequence. Coincidentally, both flicks offer some of the same locations such as the female villain’s Manilla villa. Heck, Le’s appearance in the Bollywood action flick Katilon Ke Katil, starring Dharmendra, is worth watching than this.

In retrospect of how his career turned out, Bruce Le should have concentrated on making either American or Hong Kong movies than working in the Philippines which is seen as the hell to Hong Kong TV’s purgatory for action movie stars.

After making this movie, Bruce Le worked on the fight scenes for a Chansploitation film called Fearless Hyena 3 starring Jacky Chen Shao Lung (which had Bolo Yeung). Bruce would then be choreographed in a film called Treasure Hunters by no other than Bill Yuen Biao (this shouldn’t be confused with the Wong Jing scripted Shaw Bros. movie which starred Al’ Fu Sheng, Wang Lung Wei, Gordon Liu, Lau Kar Wing and Wilson Tong).

With hindsight, this film seemed to inspire Sammo Hung for some of the comedies he made with Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao. If you were to watch this flick followed by Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars and Winners and Sinners, you’ll see how he incorporated certain elements into better movies. It’s a shame no one started up a Hungsploitation genre, get some Japanese fella and rename Sumo Hung. Hey, even Nora Miao had an imitator – Cora Miao. Hong Kong favourite Cheung Hok Yau was named after Jackie.

The gag of having an action sequence take place at a gambling horse den seems to have influenced Joe Cheung for the finale of Flaming Brothers (with firepower replacing fist- and feeticuffs).

You know, for a critically maligned sub-genre, Bruceploitation offerings have had a fair amount of influence. New Game of Death motivated John Woo with using freeze-frame techniques to emphasize dynamic parts of his films and Storming Attacks (Image of Bruce Lee) was given a sly nod by Wong Jing for his overlooked 1989 action comedy classic, Crocodile Hunter (starring Andy Lau). Then there is the correlation that occurs between The Dragon Lives and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story along with others.

As for Filipino cinema, it should at least be noted for making a name out of this particular Hong Kong movie star.

* How Lieh avoided the label “Lo budget Lieh” is anyone’s guess since his willingness to appear in tacky dreck (like Fist of Fury 2) almost tarnished his respectable reputation.

** Not to be confused with the Dragon Lee movie of the same title which was alternatively titled Dragon Bruce Lee 2.

*** Usually referred to as WIP.

**** Like the American cartoon, Ed, Edd and Eddy, it would have been canny to have had a production with Koo, Kuo and Kong. Joseph Koo being a film score composer as avid Bruce Lee fans would attest.

***** Which boasts one of the greatest fight scenes ever depicted on film…between a mutt and a feline, it has to be seen to be believed (the action director was Philip Kwok a.k.a. Kuo Chui who also appears in the film).

****** Otherwise known as.

******* Peculiarly, James Ho had done a film prior to Weng’s cult classic which had him up against Oddjob and a mini-me variation of him.

Joseph Kuby’s Rating: 5.5/10

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