3 Capsule Reviews - Non cut-and-splice IFD films

Raiders of the Doomed Kingdom (1983)
aka: Cobra Man (or แหกนรกเวียดนาม)
Director: Toranong Srichua

A more-or-less straight-forward Vietnam War action-adventure made in Thailand, but later picked up by IFD films for international distribution. And although the usual practice of inserting the familiar names (Godfrey Ho, etc.) into the opening credits, the actual film more or less remained untouched.

Popular Thai actor Sorapong Chatri plays Cobra, a Thai soldier working for the American forces in Vietnam. The film opens as the South Vietnamese--those that supported the Viet Cong--are about to storm the American embassy during the Fall of Saigon. Cobra is given the opportunity to flee along with the American diplomats, but he stays behind because he has been given a mission: rescue a South Vietnamese general, Chu (Peter Ramwa), and smuggle him (or his body) into Thailand. He gets together his commando group to rescue Chu, who has already been captured, and move him. The commando team eventually finds themselves on an island serving as a Leper's Colony, where they have to make a stand against the Viet Cong.

The film starts off as a pretty standard wartime action movie. There is a gun battle at the prison camp. Another gun battle on a bridge--where our heroes ruthlessly mow down female Viet Cong members, although one of them happens to be the General's daughter (Suriwan Suriyong) in disguise. One member of the team stays behind to keep the Viet Cong busy while the others escape alongside thousands of Boat People (whom are fired upon by the Viet Cong). Once they reach the Leper's Island, the commandos start succumbing to battle fatigue while the some of the refugees they picked up start thinking about turning in Cobra and his men in exchange for their lives. Things get graphic is the last half hour, as the Viet Cong murders and butchers the lepers and individual members of the commando squad.

I didn't think the film was bad, it was decent overall. Nonetheless, a remastered version would probably make it easier to enjoy. The film is notable for a random, lengthy, and graphic scene of cunnilingus that pops up out of nowhere while Cobra is wandering the streets of a fallen Saigon. As the version uploaded to Youtube is taken from a Japanese VHS, the full frontal shots (of which there are many) are all pixelated. A second, Thai-language version is uploaded to Youtube if you search for the Thai title. That version just cuts out the sequence entirely.


Commando Fury (Taiwan, 1983)
aka: Training Camp; Women Prison 1991

An IFD release of a Taiwanese WiP (Women in Prison) film that is surprisingly brutal, but without the rampant nudity and lesbianism that defines its European counterparts. The film is set in...I don't know...in the year...I don't know. I mean, one of the guards walks around in a U.S. Air Force outfit, so I'm guessing they did the typical Taiwanese thing of using whatever costumes they could cobble together. As for the location...I guess it's set in generic Asia-land.

The film is about a bunch of women who are in a prison and are routinely brutalized by the guards and the vicious warden (Richard Cui, billed as "Bernard Tsui"). The first 50 minutes revolve around the women being tortured, whipped, murdered, burned at the stake (!), stabbed, shot, worked to death, etc. In one scene, two women are forced into small cages and have iron bars stuck in said cages to force them into a compromising position and stay there for 24 hours. After that, the same women are loosed and made to fight for their food. Eventually, an inmate named Terry Yu (Juliet Chen) and the prison Queen Bee (Chiang Ching-Yen) team up to lead a breakout. Several of the girls go with them, including a political prisoner named Donna (Nancy Wen) who is supposedly in possession of some McGuffin microfilm. They flee into the jungle and are hunted by the guards, including a sadistic female guard named Helen (Liu Chia-Fen).

The entire film is just one long parade of violence against women and general brutality. And until we get to the scenes leading up the breakout, we never really know who the main character is. It turns out to be Terry Yu, who was hired by some mercenary to free Donna from the warden's custody. The last 25 minutes has some hand-to-hand combat and gunplay, ending with a huge betrayal and some major character sacrifices. Whether or not it is cathartic enough to make up for the other hour of general unpleasantness is up to you.


Pink Force Warriors (1985)
aka Women Warriors of Kinmen
Director: Karen Yang

Taiwanese army propaganda film about a contingent of female soldiers being trained in a fishing community off the coast of Taiwan--the English dub (courtesy of IFD Films) makes it clear that they are not on the island of Taiwan. The film focuses on four characters: Mary (Lu Hsiao-Fen, of Black Rose: The Hong Kong Tigress), the serious one whose fisherman father disapproves of her relationship with a frogman (Don Wong Tao, of Secret Rivals); Susan (Shirley Lui, of Devil Fetus), who wants to date the captain of the male platoon, but is stopped by her asshole, overprotective brother; Angela (Ying Hsiao, of Girl with a Gun), the goof-off who is hit on by a daddy's boy rich kid soldier named Peter (Wong Fook-Sat); and Captain Joy (Teresa Tsui, of Pink Force Commando), the hard-as-nails squad leader.

Most of the movie is soap opera revolving around the girls' relationships. Early in the second half, Mary's father is murdered by Chinese spies, causing her to go crazy about finding and killing "Communists." She eventually confronts a pair of Mainland frogman spies and fights them. At the end, there are some war games and Susan and Angela finally take their jobs seriously. The fighting is limited to a couple of friendly scuffles between Lu Hsiao-Fen and Wong Tao, who teaches her how to knife fight. Then she gets to fight the frogmen, ending in a tragic sacrifice. The action is a mixture of Judo and knife-fighting, but nothing special here. Everything else is annoying soap opera and melodrama, plus some mock battles in the last 15 minutes.

2 Capsule Reviews - Cut-and-Paste Ninja Films

Cobra Against Ninja (1987)
Aka: Cobra vs. Ninja
Original Footage: I Came From Nakhon City (ข้ามาจากเมืองนคร)
D: Joseph Lai. Richard Harrison, Stuart Smith, Alan Friss, Paul Branney, Gary Carter, Alfred Pears, Jimmy Bosco, Krung Srivilai, Debra Patan, Alban Raman.

Ugh. Cobra Against Ninja has nothing to do with the Snake Style of martial arts, or even the Sylvester Stallone movie Cobra from the same period. The source material is a 1978 Thai movie called I Came from Nakhon City, starring Thai star Krung Srivilai. I wasn’t able to really ascertain what the source material was supposed to be about based on the footage we see here and the dub it has been given.

There are four Thai soldiers who have been serving at the border (of which country, we never learn). When their time is up, they all go their separate ways. One of them, Kirk, goes to work for a crime gang led by Ringo and his younger brother, Raymond. There is a third boss named Russell. Although they do petty extortion and loan sharking, their main bread-and-butter is sports betting, especially (according to the dub) on ninja duels.

These days, the big name in the ninja duel business is the Gordon, the Red Champion (Robert Harrison). A rival ninja, Cobra (Stuart Smith), wants to defeat Gordon, but has been betting on him against other ninjas in order to up the stakes. Why? So that when he himself challenges Gordon, the odds will be such that if he bets on himself, he’ll be impossibly rich if he wins.

Anyway, another one of the soldiers, Chester (Krung Srivilai), is accused by the gang of stealing a briefcase with important information. Raymond sends some hired goons to fetch the briefcase, but they end up killing Chester’s mother and kidnapping his sister. And another one of the soldiers, David, is working as a cop and gets captured and imprisoned after trying to seduce one of Ringo’s two girlfriends—watch the spectacle of a Thai girl dubbed to sound like she’s from New Jersey. Eventually, the four soldier friends team up to blow up the bad guys while Gordon and Cobra duel in the background.

The success of a Cut-and-Paste film like this can be measured by:

1.      How good are the fights from the original film?
2.      Is the plot of the finished product coherent?
3.      Can you figure out the plot of the original film based on the dub?
4.      Are the ninja scenes delightfully goofy?

The answer to the first three questions is a resounding “No.” I had a very hard time trying to figure out what the story was (both the original film and the finished product), who was who, and just trying to make sense of what was happening in front of me. The entire film is completely nonsensical and the fight scenes are uncoordinated brawls. The added ninja scenes are funny in that they generally involve traditional Chinese weapons—spear, nine-ringed broadsword, hook swords, rattan shields—plus Timothy Alberto’s man-perm is hilarious. I also like how the dubbing refers to Richard Harrison’s opponents as Green Serpent, White Dolphin, and Purple Hawk, but they’re all clad in black. So, there is nothing to recommend Cobra Against Ninja.

Silver Dragon Ninja (1987)
Original Footage: Trap (aka: Cop Killer)
D: Chiang Tao (credited as Don Kong). Paulo Tocha, Pedro Ernyes, Eric Neff, Suen Kwok-Ming, Lau Hok-Nin, Pai Ying, Kenneth Tsang Kong.

In the case of Silver Dragon Ninja, the source material hails from a lesser-known Hong Kong crime thriller titled Trap (later retitled Cop Killer), starring Dragon Inn and A Touch of Zen alumni Pai Ying. The film involves a team of cops, initially led by Alex (Pai Ying), who are trying to bring down a crime boss, Mark Moh (Kenneth Tsang). Mark is initially involved in passport falsification, although he plans on adding arms dealing into his portfolio. When some of his men are busted by the police, he sends his enforcer, Turkey (Lau Hok-Nin), to kill them before they can testify. This leads to a brutal campaign by Alex against Mark, which ultimately leads to him turning in his badge after getting chewed out too much by his superior. The case is handed over to one of Alex’s academy buddies (Wong Yuen-San), who sends a female cop, Jane, to go undercover as Mark’s girlfriend.

Meanwhile, Mark’s goons continue to harass Alex, even though he’s off the force. This leads to an escalation into violence between Alex and Mark’s men, which quickly gets out of hand once the bad guys start targeting Alex’s family, too. This leads Alex to lead a one-man vigilante campaign against the gang While Jane is in Manila discovering just who else in involved in Mark’s dealings. 

Tomas Tang and director Chiang Tao—who worked with both Filmark and IFD after his tenure at the Shaw Brothers—insert new scenes involving ninjas in a manner similar to the films above. In this case, a pair of Interpol agents—Silver Dragon (Paulo Tocha) and Fred (Nigerian martial artist Eric Neff)—are also white ninjas who are bent on stopping the Black Ninja Empire from taking over the world. The Black Ninjas are led by Roger Kimsky (Pedro Ernyes), who also presides over Mark Moh’s gang (as per the dubbing). So, his ninja are always in the background, “observing” the events of the other movie. Eventually, the two white ninjas have to face off with the black ninjas after they “kill” an important character from the other movie. 

Silver Dragon Ninja has the same median quality as [most of these movies]. There are no real differences, aesthetically or stylistically, between this and the IFD films, except maybe that the ninjas here are less “colorful” than their IFD counterparts. The ninja choreography is of the same standard, considering that Chiang Tao lent his services to both studios. The source film appears to be a decent, if unremarkable police thriller, with some shocking and brutal moments in the second half. It does feel like two different movies—three if you count the ninja footage—as it jumps back and forth between Alex’s scuffles with the gang and Jane’s undercover work as the bad guy’s main squeeze. And I’m still trying to make sense of the kangaroo court scene at the end…

The Master Strikes Back (1985)

The Master Strikes Back (1985) 
Chinese Title: 教頭發威
Translation: Instructor's Power

Starring: Ti Lung, Michael Chan Wai-Man, Sibelle Hu, Wong Yu, Fan Siu-Wong, Ku Feng, Phillip Ko Fei, Tony Lou Chun-Ku, Leung Lam-Ling, Lau Siu-Kwan, Lung Tien-Hsiang, Tien Mi, Wong Tin-Lam
Director: Sun Chung
Action Director: Yuen Tak, Tsui Fat, Cheng Ka-Sang

One of the last five Shaw Brothers kung fu/wuxia films, all of which were released in 1985. This one is a sequel to The Kung Fu Instructor is a rather dark film. Actually, the entire exercise goes beyond "dark" and is outright "sadistic" and "unpleasant" for practically its entire running time.

The film is set military outpost city called Phoenix Town, located in Guangxi, presumably on the border with Vietnam (today, that province is considered an autonomous region). Phoenix Town's main economy consists of brothels, which are supported by the soldiers stationed there (the money coming in from outside being their salaries). This has also led to a class of children known as the "Bastards," whose fathers are unknown and whose mothers have long since trying to keep up with whose child is who's. Anyway, their hasn't been a border conflict with Vietnam in some time, so the soldiers spend most of their time carting supplies from one place to another and spending their earnings at the brothels every night.

This is the context in which Tong Tie-Zheng (Ti Lung, of Vengeance! and Inheritor of Kung Fu) is called in from the neighboring Guangdong province to whip the unmotivated soldiers into shape. He arrives accompanied by his son, Xiao Feng (a young Fan Siu-Wong, later of Ip Man and The Death Games), and immediate locks horns with the town's corrupt constable, Captain Jin (Michael Chan Wai-Man, of Broken Oath and Spirits of Bruce Lee). Jin has a stake in the brothels' earnings, so when Instructor Tong cuts off his men's whorehouse privileges, Jin has even more reason to dislike the upright man.

It starts with one of the kids (the son of the magistrate) blaming Xiao Feng for theft, escalates to Jin's men picking a fight with Tie-Zheng at the brothel and blaming him for being a bully, and ultimate climaxes with Captain Jin convincing a visiting eunuch (Tony Lou) that Xiao Feng would make a good candidate for the Eunuch Training Program. It is that last one that ultimately makes Tong Tie-Zheng completely snap.

Michael Chan makes a wonderfully slimy villain, the sort of guy who does not content himself with one act of mischief in order to establish "Who's the boss." Instead, he just keeps on escalating things--as does the script--so that the atrocities and misfortunes get worse and worse until you want to see him die a horrible, bloody death. Captain Jin doesn't quite get that, but his final fate is fitting considering his crimes.

That also makes the film rather hard to watch, because there is almost no respite from all the awful goings-on throughout the running. A young Sibelle Hu, who plays the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold, gets raped; another prostitute is forced to abort her own baby with a wooden stick and dies from blood loss; and we the viewer are not spared from watching a kid get castrated.

It might have been bearable if the film had had more action, but there are only three fight scenes, two of which are in the last ten minutes. The fights were staged by Yuen Tak (Dragon from Russia; The Lady Assassin), Tsui Fat (Crystal Hunt), and Cheng Ka-Sang (Johnnie To's The Mission) and are pretty good, it's just that there are so few of them. I liked the fight between Ti Lung and the constables in the prostitute's bedchamber, which had some nice wing chun and kicks from Ti Lung. We the viewer needed more of Tie-Zheng going ballistic on the Eunuch and the entire police force, but we don't get that. Several officers are killed offscreen. He beats a few of them with his pole--I wanted to see him go to town on the smug second-in-command. And then we get the pole-versus-sabre fight with Michael Chan, which isn't very long. By the time the credits roll, I felt like I had not gotten the catharsis I'd needed after 80 minutes of non-stop dourness.