ROLF - THE LAST MERCENARY - trailer

Thanks to Cristian S from raroVHS for uploading this Argentine trailer for ROLF.

Bruce Baron dies

Sad news: Bruce Baron passed away on April 14, 2013.

The news was confirmed to Régis Autran of Nanarland by Baron's widow. Bruce Baron had cancer. According to his wife, Bruce Baron prepared his own obituary that has been posted on his facebook profile. However, it's only for friends so I'm not even able to refer to the contents as I'm on that list. Baron was in some of the Filipino films that this site deal with but also other well known cult films. He was in Tsui Hark's amazing DON'T PLAY WITH FIRE. Nanarland did a good interview with him (it's on their site in both French and English). For more info on Bruce Baron check Wiki here and the Nanarland interview here.

Here's Bruce Baron on the cover of the Danish (i.e. from Denmark) vhs for DON'T PLAY WITH FIRE (courtesy of DEVAG fb page).

Introduction to Nanarland's piece on Bruce Baron:

Bruce Baron was a riddle for us during a long time : this Caucasian actor appeared during the eighties in a great number of Asian B-movies, managing to act in some of the most utterly insane flicks ever. Lead actor of Philippines-made Ramboid actioners, mustachioed ninja in Godfrey Ho's bottom-of-the-barrel films, barbarian from beyond in Ruggero Deodato's "Atlantis interceptors", slimy drug smuggler in "Overdose" made by French schlockmeister Jean-Marie Pallardy, Bruce had the most bizarre career before disappearing from the screens in 1989. The most contradictory legends ran amok on the internet : one site described him as a British-born martial artist, another mentioned his death in Sweden from an overdose of diet products... We knew nothing about him, except that he was still alive, judging from the angry e-mails he sent to websites relaying the legend of his death.

We were of course flabbergasted and overjoyed when a French-speaking Bruce Porter Baron wrote us to fill the gaps the bio we had written about him! With biting humour, Bruce gave us some truly fascinating and unheard-of infos about his career as a Caucasian actor in Asia and the world of Oriental B-movies. And there it is, ladies and gentlemen, the ultimate Bruce Baron interview, exclusive full and uncut!

[read the rest via this link]

Rare CANNIBAL MERCENARY sequel on eBay

If you've followed this blog a while you'll know I've been on the hunt for the RARE (as in totally uber rare!!) sequel to CANNIBAL MERCENARY (aka Mercenary / Employ For Die) for a couple of years now (if not, check here). The sequel has ONLY been released on a very rare video-cd in Thailand (in Thai language without subtitles).

A while back I was so fortunate as to find the the POSTER for the film by total chance at an eBay auction from a seller in Canada. The seller didn't know which film the poster was for and had listed it without the film's title!

However, the film itself has evaded me completely so far. Well, until a few days ago when my red eBay auto search lights started blinking like crazy! A seller in the UK had the VCD up for auction. "Unfortunately", he was fully aware of the rarity of the film/disc and starting price was £30 ($46).

There weren't all that many bids in the days that followed but sadly they quickly got out of my range. I knew of another collector who was interested and sent him a PM about the auction but needless to say he already knew about it. Winning bid came to £56 ($86) and I'm happy to say it was my fellow collector friend who won this rare release. Big congrats, mate.

To see the CANNIBAL MERCENARY 2 poster go here.

You don't need to be located in a Vietnam jungle hell to be covered in yukky dead flies

Issue #2

When you live in the SOUTH there's always dead flies everywhere. Like, I've only just today received the new issue of Nigel Maskell's fanzine Aenigma! and already one of them nasty creatures has decided to go belly-up on it. So yukky. Better wipe it off onto the floor so I can git inta this new spiffy zine!! Haha.


PS: If you're interested in this wee rag you can find more info on Nigel's facebook page and order from his website. It's cheap. It's old-skool. It's fun. Tell him who sent ya!

NB: The zine covers old horror and sleaze but I should point out there's NO Filipino war flicks in them pages.

Issue #1

THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA - dvd

A little while ago someone left a message here on the blog saying I ought to get hold of a Filippino movie called THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA (Brian Trenchard-Smith, 1989) and that it was...

"It is the most insane, over the top, gory, kick ass, highest body count, sizable budget, made in the Phillipines Vietnam movie you will ever see."

The film is out on a dvd (dvd-r actually) from MGM in the US; I received my copy today and watched it right away and what can I say but HOLY FUCK!! The anon poster was definitely right! This is such an over-the-top wild, gory and insane film if I ever saw any!!! It's actually an Australian-Filipino co-production filmed in the Philippines. Big-ass American actors are in the lead but we also meet some well known faces from the regular Filipino war flicks; Nick Nicholson has a cool role as a war photographer, and Henry Strzalkowski is in there as well as a helicopter pilot. The two lead roles are played by Wings Hauser and R. Lee Ermey. The film is basically about this almost forgotten American outpost in the Viet Cong backland. They haven't got enough men and there's 2000 Viet Cong ready to run them over. This isn't a review but let me just say this: there isn't one boring moment in THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA. You should watch it!

Fan made trailer (actually better than the original trailer, imo):



The original trailer:



TV trailer:

COBRA MISSION 2 - trailer

Here's the "trailer" for Camillo Teti's COBRA MISSION 2. Quotation marks there to indicate this isn't actually a real trailer but just some scenes from the film that the video company in Denmark put together for their video tapes. LOL.


Thanks to Hans-Jørn for the upload.

CANNIBAL MERCENARY REDUX

Check this out! It's a new VHS bootleg release of a composite print of the insane Thai Vietnam flick CANNIBAL MERCENARY!! And yes, I did say V-H-S. As in video tape. How cool is that! It's a very limited release and, lo and behold, it's already sold out! I've never watched this particular composite print and I have no idea what extra is in it compared to the uncut international print; I'll let you know when I receive my copy. I'm told there's some stuff from the Tomas Tang Hong Kong version (but I believe there's no scenes of gwilos!). Oh, and check the liner notes on the back! I thought being asked to do liner notes for this particular film was pretty cool (and they're my first ever so that's cool too). ^_^

The label behind the release is KING OF THE WITCHES that are located in Brockton, Massachusetts, USA. Check their Facebook page here.