KAMPUCHEA EXPRESS (Thailand/Italy, 1982)

 aka Angkor: Cambodia Express (original title according to IMDb)

Poster (Denmark)

Ad-mat (Denmark)

Trailers: 

 

English dubbed fullscreen trailer, clear bright
picture. Missing a bit of footage at the end

 

Letterboxed version of the same English

dubbed  trailer. Complete, but very dark

I don't have this film but there are two pretty good and informative reviews on IMDb

KAMPUCHEA THE UNTOLD STORY (Thailand, 1975) - German trailer

 

IMDb page

Odd move from Bo

I just noticed that one of the YouTube uploaded versions of BROTHERS IN BLOOD has now been taken down. Instead of the video you now see this interesting disclaimer: 

Fair enough if Bo Svenson doesn't want his film uploaded to YouTube. However, I find it odd that he would ask YouTube to remove the shorter edit of the film but not the long uncut version. That kinda does not make sense. Or could it be that Bo doesn't actually mind his film being on YouTube, but he just doesn't want the short edit as it's not the right version as seen from an artistic viewpoint? o_O 

All very odd. I should of course make a disclaimer of my own: I have nothing to do with any of these uploads. I just link to the film on YouTube. 

The old post is here and you can still watch the Italian version and the trailer. If you like the film I also highly recommend the German blu-ray edition. Uncut and in English. Info here. I see the Austrian shop in my link has a few copies left. 

"TIGER JOE" ON BLURAY (ENGLISH FRIENDLY)

aka Fuga dall'arcipelago maledetto
Antonio Margheriti, Italy/Philippines 1982

For years I've been hoping that some label would release TIGER JOE on English friendly dvd or bluray, and finally (actually last year) a German label put it out on bluray - including the film's English audio!

 
I got the blu a couple of weeks back and it looks great. I haven't seen too much (any!) online talk about this. Maybe fans don't even know about this English friendly release AS THE COVER DOESN'T STATE IT CARRIES THE ENGLISH DUB. The cover says German and Italian audio! It doesn't actually have Italian audio but English.

 
TIGER JOE is a sequel (kinda) to THE LAST HUNTER. No, it's not quite as good, but I still like it a lot. It's got David Warbeck in the lead!

 
The extras:
Audio commentary by Troy Howarth
16 page booklet (all in the Kaiser's German)
interview with Margheriti's son about these films (in Italian, subbed in English)
German & English audio. No subs for the film.

The version that I bought has a bluray and a dvd. Somebody mentioned there's also another German dvd release in English, but the cover for this bluray clearly states this is the first fully uncut German release, so be careful if you're looking to get another dvd release.

 
I got mine from D&T Mailorder in Austria. There are various different versions (different covers, same contents) but I think stock is getting low so be quick if you want one.

TIGER JOE (Italy/Philippines, 1982) - trailer

AKA Fuga dall'arcipelago maledetto (original Italian title)

AKA Tiger Joe - Jungledræberen (Denmark) 

Directed by: Antonio margheriti

Trailer from Danish VHS tape (thanks to Diabolik) 

PHILIPPINE SOLDIERS: The Action Films of Teddy Page (with Andrew Leavold)

 

Alright, things are moving at a snail's pace here but at least I've got something GOOD for ya this time 'round: Simon Miller over at EXPLOSIVE ACTION blog and YouTube channel (with help from Andrew Leavold) has put together an awesome documentary video about Teddy Page's Vietnam War flicks. The doc runs just under an hour and you should check it out right away. The film actually had a (very) limited DVD-R release but needless to say it sold out right away. 

- Jack

----------

Description from Explosive Action: 

"TEDDY PAGE (real name Teddy Chiu) is one of my favourite trash film directors. Throughout the 1980s he made some of the most entertaining, low-budget, explosive action jungle films you will ever see. 

With the help of certified Weng Wengologist and Filipino film expert ANDREW LEAVOLD ("The Search For Weng Weng"), I explore the English language action films that Teddy churned out between 1983-1995.

My interest in Teddy Page's films started with Phantom Soldiers on Japanese VHS in 2010, and the obsession has only increased over the years, encouraged by the writings, documentaries, blogs and conversations with people such as:

Andrew Leavold: Bamboo Gods and Bionic Boys + The Search for Weng Weng

Paul Cooke (RIP): Ballistic Blood Bullets

David Zuelo: Tomb it May Concern

Jack Jensen: When the Vietnam War Raged... in the Philippines

This film was a passion project and labour of love over five months, and is my most detailed and intricate video yet with a lot of editing and sourcing of footage."

- Simon Miller

Thanks for the mention, Simon! 

And here's Andrew Leavold's description from his web-shop

"Filipino action fans rejoice! Our good friend in Sydney, Simon Miller (Explosive Action) has made this awesome mini-documentary on Filipino Z-grade action director Teddy Page (real name Teddy Chiu, aka Irvin Johnson etc)… and he invited me to participate! Almost an hour of blood, guts and exploding huts, with Simon’s commentary on each film (Blood Debts, Hunters Crossing etc), and me filling in the historical back-story of Teddy and Kimmy Lim’s no-budget action film factory Kinavesa/Silver Star. Simon has made ten hand-numbered copies on DVD – and Trash Video Archives has our exclusive mitts on numbers 6 to 10. So grab one now, as once they sell, they’re gone forever…"

- Andrew Leavold

Like I mentioned in the above they're already sold out!

TOUGH TO KILL (Joe D'Amato) - full film

 

20 minutes ago I was checking the web to see if any labels had been so kind as to release a blu-ray of Joe D'Amato's highly entertaining TOUGH TO KILL (aka DURI A MORIRE, Italy 1978 - or 1979 depending on which website you check) but nope, nothing, zilch, nada! 

I can't belive it's been 10 (ten!!!) years since I posted about a crappy American dvd release of the film!!! (link to the old post here). Fred Andersson - Ninja Dixon, Simon - Explosive Action, Paul Cooke all commented on that post. And we STILL haven't got a proper release!!! 

Anyhoo, instead of finding a blu-ray I discovered that the crappy "widescreen" print from the dvd is now on YouTube and so I might as well post it here. Quotation marks cos I'm pretty sure they've made it to look like letterbox by covering up some "foreign" subtitles. Maybe they used one of the Scandinavian video releases for their dvd, or the Japanese tape. My own vhs is from Greece but from memory I seem to remember it's fullscreen. 

I looked up the film and apparently it had a cinema run in Denmark in late 1979 as Selvmordspatruljen [Suicide Squad].  Check the old post for the Danish trailer.  I found an ad-mat for the film in the Ekstra Bladet newspaper from November 12, 1979.

"This is entertaining enough on a rainy Sunday afternoon but..."

Ian Jane has reviewed the new blu-ray release of P.O.W. THE ESCAPE (Gideon Amir, 1986) from Scorpion Releasing in detail over on Rock! Shock! Pop! (and he isn't happy). I haven't seen the film. What do you think?

Go here for Ian Jane's review (and useful info about the release + link to order the blu-ray).

BEHIND ENEMY LINES (aka P.O.W. The Escape) - soon on blu-ray

Check this out! BEHIND ENEMY LINES (Gideon Amir, 1986) (retitled P.O.W. THE ESCAPE and also aka ATTACK FORCE 'NAM) is coming out on bluray from Scorpion Releasing.

No release date yet nor any info about the release.

David Carradine is in it and so are a bunch of stalwart Filipino ex-pat actors: Ken Metcalfe, Jim Gaines, Eric Hahn, Henry Strzalkowski are in it. xD

PS: Not to be confused by the film KILLER INSTINCT that Cirio H. Santiago also made in the Philippines around the same time (1987). Roger Corman retitled it BEHIND ENEMY LINES for its US release. 


Trailer (widescreen + 1080p!)

JUNGLE HEAT aka LAST BREATH - trailer for rare Thai version

LAST BREATH (Lee Ho/Jobic Wong, Taiwan, 1985) aka JUNGLE HEAT

There are four different edits of LAST BREATH: 

1. The original Taiwan version (also released in HK - released on HK VHS and US Chinatown VHS)
2. The international version entitled JUNGLE HEAT (alternative footage - released on various uncut VHS tapes, the best one being the Japanese VHS: uncut + letterboxed. The German and UK dvd's are cut!!!)
3. A censored version for Mainland China (cut for violence but includes some alternative footage - released on VCD)
4. A version made for Thailand - which has extra footage with Thai actor Sorapong Chatree (I'm going by the trailer and the Thai film poster here as the film itself hasn't been released to home video afaik).

I'm told a 16mm copy of the Thai version is stored in the Thai film archive. Hopefully, somebody will release it to blu-ray or streaming at some point.

CANNIBAL MERCENARY 2 (Thailand, 1989) - full film

Original Thai English title: EMPLOY FOR DIE 2


I posted about this sequel years ago and eventually I got hold of the film on a video-cd from Thailand. Now somebody has actually uploaded the full film to YouTube. And they have even corrected the 4:3 fullscreen format from the VCD to letterbox. The picture looks alright.

Cannibal Mercenary 2 - video-cd (Thailand)

The film is in Thai with no subtitles. The running time is approx. 78 minutes. The first CANNIBAL MERCENARY is truly a wild and gory film and it's fun to finally be able to watch the sequel.

But let me say it right away: Don't expect the same level of insane and gory craziness! You'll be mighty disappointed. The first half of the film drags. The second half is somewhat better but it never touches the first film.

As far as I'm aware this version from Thai VCD is the only official release worldwide. Somebody put the film out as a bootleg in the USA but it's directly ported over from a VCD and they didn't bother to subtitle the film so you would be no better off getting the boot than downloading this upload.

The picture quality of the upload is only 360p but maybe that actually equals the quality of the VCD.

IMDb entry. 

Thai poster for Cannibal Mercenary 2

BROTHERS IN BLOOD - now on blu-ray

Cover "A"

I mentioned this briefly in my last post; The good people of Germany have now released Tonino Valerii's BROTHERS IN BLOOD on blu-ray! Yay! Spiffy!! LOL.

I for one am certainly happy about this release. It's not a Filipino flick, and it's not gory or very extreme, but still, bloody good fun if you ask me. And I quite like Werner Pochat in these films. He was an Austrian actor and he had that perfect bad guy mug. And in this one he doesn't even play a bad guy but he still has the face of an unpleasant character! Unfortunately, in real life he passed away a long time ago. He was only 53. 

About the new release
Firstly and most importantly; Yes, the blu-ray is English friendly. According to on-line info the disk has both the English and German dubs + English and German subtitles.
Oddly enough it doesn't carry the Italian dub.

The blu-ray is released with three different covers (I've ordered Cover A) but otherwise the contents are the same:


From D&T's webstore (auto translated from German): 

* 28 pages booklet with an essay by script author Roberto Leoni in German and English
and an essay by Udo Rothenberg (blog "Green is the Heath") in German and English
as well as the Italian promotional material.
* Double sided poster with the Italian Locandia and US video cover
* EXCLUSIVE produced featurette "Basterd in Blood" with leading actor BO SVENSON
* EXCLUSIVE produced documentary " Mr. Nice Guy " about the life and work of
WERNER POCHATH with brother and film producer DIETER POCHLATKO
* International trailer
* International Picture Gallery

Cover "B" - under the alternative title of SAVAGE ATTACK

Also somewhat important to notice; As with so many of these German blu-ray releases this is a very limited release; as far as I can tell the print-run is 900 copies in total. The release date was 1. February so it's been out for about a month by now.

Here's a link to the blu-ray on D&T's site but you can also get it from German Amazon and some other web-stores in Germany and Austria.

Cover "C"

BROTHERS IN BLOOD - alternative versions

Italy (1987)
Original Italian title: La Sporca Insegna del Coraggio
aka: Savage Attack
Directed by: Tonino Valerii
Story and screenplay: Roberto Leoni, 
Cast: Bo Svenson, Carlo Mucari, Peter Hooten (Peteer Hooten in the Italian language credits), Werner Pochat, Nat Kelly Cole, Franklin Dominguez, Juan Jose' Caballos, Martin Balsam

Ex-rental VHS (Denmark)

12 MINUTES!?!?!?

Last night, I went to YouTube to try and relocated some of the trailers that had gone missing from this site. One of the trailers was for Tonino Valerii's Italian Vietnam War flick BROTHERS IN BLOOD.

I discovered that not only had someone uploaded the full film to YouTube as well as the trailer. But two different channels had uploaded the full film; One version was the Italian dubbed version, and the other was the English dubbed version. Usually that doesn't mean much of a difference apart from the language, obviously.  However, I noticed that the Italian version clocks in at 1:29:15 while the English dubbed version runs a mere 1:17:02. That's a difference of 12 minutes!!!

I decided to watch both versions simultaneously, side by side on my computer. No, not the best way to enjoy a wild 'n' trashy Filipino war flick but, hey, I'm a professional! (I kill me, hahaha).

As soon as I pressed "play" I discovered something else very odd: The Italian dubbed version has the on-screen intro text in English while the English dubbed version has the intro text in Italian!!!

This isn't a review so I won't talk too much about the plot but the film kicks off during the last days of the Vietnam War. A group of soldiers are trying to escape from a large group of Viet Cong soldiers and to make it to a helicopter. Most of the American soldiers make it but one guy is wounded and while he's lying on the ground crying for help the chopper takes off leaving him behind. 12 years later he's still royally pissed off about it.

The first few minutes made it obvious to me that the 12 min. difference probably wasn't just a matter of a few gory scenes that had been cut for the shorter version. No, the entire escape scene was edited differently in the two versions. Even bits and pieces of different footage is used. When the 5 minute intro is over the scene changes to Bo Svenson's present day life in New York many years later. And from then on I gave up trying to keep track of the differences between the two versions!

All throughout the film, scenes are edited slightly differently and the short version keeps cutting frames out; For instance, a man walks along a wall, in the short version he walks two metres less than in the longer version. And it takes longer for him to get around a corner. And a conversation takes longer. It's very odd. All throughout the film. I mean this isn't just a matter of a video label cutting their version because they felt the film was too long. There are different edits everywhere as well.

I pulled out my old Danish ex-rental VHS of the film and fast-forwarded the tape. It runs 89 minutes (and uses an English dubbed/English intro text version. Go figure).
Then I remembered that there's a new German blu-ray release of the film (actually I'd totally forgotten about this release so I ordered it right away, see my next post). The online info about the new blu-ray states it clocks in at the 93 minute mark.

However... I checked with IMDb and it says... 1 hour 16 min!!! Very, very odd. Why would they do two different edits of the film with different running times. As I said we're not talking missing scenes of violence or nudity (there's no nudity in either version). And it's not a matter of two versions running at different speed.

The short version has a German classification sign before the film starts so I assume it's from a German DVD (a VHS would be dubbed into German). The picture is clearly more dark than the Italian language print. Despite missing 12 minutes of bits and pieces, and frames here and there, the short version didn't feel too short or that important plot details were missing.

I'll post both version down below in case you wish to check out one of the versions (or both) + the trailer.



Italian dubbed version (approx 89 min)




English dubbed version (approx 77 min)





Trailer

Trailers gone AWOL

Maybe three quarters of the trailers on this blog were uploaded by other people over on YouTube. Needless to say, I'm aware that a trailer or two disappears from YouTube once in a while. Either when a channel gets taken down by the powers that be (due to the usual copyright infringement nonsense) or because a channel owner decides to close his account. However, last night I discovered that about 15 trailers were missing from this place. Not good!

Probably half of them were uploaded by my friend Diabolik and they went down the toilet when YouTube Gestapo decided that his trailer channel contained "pornographic" contents - despite the fact that he doesn't upload pornographic trailers.

Anyhoo, fortunately I've kept most of the trailers on my computer and I can probably find the last few missing ones over on Diabolik's old site so no biggie. It was just a pain to have to upload them all again (most of them I uploaded straight to his blog and thus don't have to worry about their being pulled from or by other channels).

Apart from TOUGH TO KILL (posted in the above) I have also reuploaded these trailers:

MISSING IN ACTION 2
LEATHERNECKS
HITMAN - Danish trailer
HITMAN - US trailer
DOG TAGS
COBRA MISSION 2
BROTHERS IN BLOOD

If you just wanna check out the trailers you can scroll down the bar on the right; Towards the bottom you'll find a trailer index.

Shopping tip

Here's a quick tip for a S-Korean VHS release of Jun Gallardo's rare RAIDERS FOR VICTORY. Or at least I think it's a page where you can buy the VHS. I don't have info on the dubbing – i.e. it may not carry the English dub.
Go here.

The only other release that I'm aware of is the Greek VHS.