Instant Rage (1983)

Instant Rage (1983)
aka: Thunder Score
Original Footage: พญายมพนมรุ้ง (Phaya Yom Phanom Rung - Thailand, 1983)

                                     

Starring: Elton Gibbs, Max Hill, Jack Fox, Ruby Clay, Jerry Jones, Norman Luddy, Derrick Bishop, Sorapong Chatree, Chiang Tao, Paul Gould, Janet Palin, Sun Chien
Director: Godfrey Ho (as Philip Fraser)
Action Director: Jackie Ma

 

Okay, here we have another Thai action film that Tomas Tang took and spliced scenes of Caucasian people talking and turning into ninjas into, but the end result is a lot more coherent and ultimately less goofy (and fun) than Ninja in the Killing Field. The ninja scenes are sparse (there are only two, excluding the ninja scene that the Thai film itself already had). So sparse, in fact, that you almost wonder why they were included in the first place. 

Thai film synopsis: So, there's a family consisting of a man; his wife; their daughter, Carol; his brother Peter; and his daughter. The man and Peter own a company, that is being eyed for a merger with Gary and Robert's companies. The problem is that Gary and Robert are mobsters and the wife has close ties to them, so she's pushing for the merger while the men of the family are trying to resist. When the man threatens to expose his wife's mob ties, she has Robert's thugs attack and beat him. He is rescued by Brian, a martial artist who has superhuman jumping skills and who can hear the disembodied voice of his master, Obi Wan style. Brian teams up with Carol and the police captain to protect Peter from Robert and Gary's assassins. More people die and Robert is fingered as the culprit and arrested. The wife then kills Gary and starts killing everyone in her family so that everything will belong to her. When the wife tries to kill Carol, Brian and the captain strike back for a final shootout.

Inserted scenes: Most of the events of this movie are being watched from afar by two parties of ninja. The first one is the good white ninja, Wilbur. Now let's stop here for a moment. Asian people, especially Chinese people, are notorious for choosing Anglican names that have gone out of style in the West, or just sound odd, like Pompson, Dickson, Mavis, Bosco, etc. But Wilbur? That just takes the cake. Who in Buddha's name is going to take a ninja with the Christian name of Wilbur seriously? Anyway, Wilbur is targeted by the black ninja, led by a white guy named Steve. According to the dubbed dialog, Steve was hired by Robert to do away with Wilbur, who's in league with the Thai police, as evidenced by a scene that would make the editors of the Radioactive Man movie proud, in which Tang and company splice scenes of the police captain talking with someone with scenes of Wilbur talking to nobody together to make it look like they're having a conversation, the difference in scenery not withstanding. Yeah. Two of the ninja in Steve's platoon are played by Kong Do and Sun Chien, but they never actually fight. Screw you, Tomas Tang!!!

The rest of the action is basher style stuff, some of it undercranked to the point that Donnie Yen's 90s films look restrained in comparison. In one scene, the Thai guy Brian (who looks like Norman Tsui Siu Keung with a tan) is performing a kung fu form, which I thought was interesting. No muay thai here. I guess that the Thai, like the South Koreans, were trying to imitate Chinese chopsockey movies at the time. Nobody stands out, actionwise, though. There is a memorable scene when a Thai ninja shoots a girl in the eye with a blowgun, but that's about it.

So yeah, pretty forgettable Filmark fluff that wastes the talents of Sun Chien.