Saturday 3 January 2009

CROSSBONE TERRITORY (Philippines, 1979)

aka OMEGA COMMANDO (Japanese video cover)

VHS / Japan / format? / English dub / Japanese subs


VHS / Greek / fullscreen / English dub / Greek subs


Thai poster
[click scan for bigger size]

UK vhs:
From the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) site: This work was cut. To obtain this category cuts of 0m 27s were required.

11 comments:

  1. There was a time that I was almost homeless. My partner of a Foreign Talent Agency, broke our rule to not let girlfriends move in. Something happened and I got blamed, long story short I was 'down and out in Metro Manila'!
    After staying with friends on their couch, then several months with some dancers from Firehouse, I received some unexpected help. Mr. Kimmy Lim of Kinavesa told me to stay in their hotel in downtown Quiapo near the office. During the next few months I was on a 'retainer' like the old studios did, but of course on a tighter budget! Bugsy Dabao, who worked a lot with him as a Line Producer, worked with me on writing Intrusion Cambodia. Bugsy taught me all about Pre-Production and together we scouted locations, broke down the budget, planned the shooting schedule, interviewed main cast and supporting cast, bought equipment and uniforms, etc. The amount spent of VC and NVA uniforms/packs/etc was very minimal in this film. (Compare this with Rescue Team)
    It was a great experience for me, and I even took off for a month of shooting with Dir. Cirio Santiago up in Baguio (think if was Stryker). Some people have nothing good to say about Mr. Lim but he did okay by me, let me do things I never had a chance to do with other productions. I had a supporting role in Intrusion Cambodia as a team member, co-wrote the screenplay with Bugsy, did pre-production. I know that it was super low budget film but I would like to think that we did the best we could and it turned out to make money.
    One major problem was Director Gallardo felt that "Action was better than Dialog" so most of the character's lines were reduced to 'face time'
    We did got Mr. Lim to spend more for quality military equipment and use expensive smokeless squib! No more Chinese firecracker 'effects' when we got shot. So many Filipino action actors stars, it was at time very difficult to get them all in a shot! Once people started dying, things really picked up 'killing' off sometimes two in a day's shoot.
    This was my first project as a co-writer and by the way, IT IS NOT THE SAME AS "Rescue Team" which was done two years later and I think much better. At least the Rescue Team had chances to develop a character and the battle scenes were staged by Romano Kristoff and I with of course the various stuntmen groups. In the Rescue Team we were able to use two companies of Philippine Marines to be

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  2. My Bad I got mixed up, must be getting old. Crossbone Territory was the first of the series I worked on with Silver Star/Kinavesa.
    I would say that Crossbone Territory '79, then Intrusion Cambodia '80, then Rescue Team '81 in that order, got progressively better. In Crossbone Territory, as above, there were TOO many people in the Team. I co-wrote with Bugsy Dabao on that one first taking a story treatment and writing the script in three weeks.
    Intrusion Cambodia had more of a story and this was the one that Bugsy and I worked on Pre-Production.

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  3. Don, thank you for your valuable info about these films and the making of them. I had already found out "Intrusion Cambodia" and " "Rescue Team" weren't the same film but it was indeed a common belief among fans for quite a while that they where the same film under different alternative titles.

    I have all three films om video and they are all entertaining! I think "Crossbone Territory" is probably the most raw of the three. In one scene you even see a pig being cut in half while still alive. I'm sure that wouldn't happen today.

    By the way, you wouldn't happen to have a complete list of all the films your were in, would you. I would certainly love to see it.

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  4. By the way; the logo picture I use here on the blog is Richard Harrison in "Rescue Team" taken from the cover of the Greek VHS. :D

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  5. Shit Don is getting old as me! Crossbone Territory was with Tessie Monteverde of JPM Productions. Bugsy Dabao, Paul Vance and I wrote the script, but we were stuck with Cinex on Firebird Conspiracy.This was back in 1983 and Don Had just finished Stryker with Cirio and was brought into the project and ended up rewriting the script (which was terrible, since we were writing at Bugsy's brother, Vic Dabao's home in Santa Ana on Hollywood Street (of all places). LOL At the time Don was sharing an apartment with Michael James in Ermita, and even had a Burger and Chili Stand in front of Walt's "Cathouse" in Makati... After those projects were done we worked together on Kings Rasom aka The Destroyers with Cirio.

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  6. Good Grief, Nick you're correct, now that you pricked by ass! Tessie Monteverde of JPM Productions. I do remember that Bugsy asked me to work on changes on the script because you were on the EPIC "FIREBIRD Conspiracy" that took FOREVER to finish. We did use REAL RATS caught from the hotel of a certain producer, I will not name...in the scene with Aussie Mike. He had the balls to let five rats lick "movie blood" Karo pancake syrup with #5 Red dye. Poor rats died from the red dye. The two girls that worked at the Burger and Chili stand took it over and did quite well, according to the Man himself. Nigel Hogge.

    Jack. I have on IMDb a resume that has most of my credits (some uncredited) claims to fame. Perhaps Nick can check them out, he might remember better...LOL.

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  7. Got the Greek tape in the mail today! Looking forward to checking this out!

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  8. Congrats, Simon! Actually I have that Greek tape too + plus the Japanese one. :D
    I quite like CROSSBONE TERRITORY (but if you're a pig lover you'll cringe! LOL).

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  9. Greetings.
    Crossbone Territory hasn't been published on VCD/DVD.
    Some UK online sellers seem to have it on VHS tape. Do
    you know if it could be watched in Thailand?
    Also, any ideas on how to 'burn' it from VHS on to CD?

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    Replies
    1. Sorry, I have no idea how you can watch it in Thailand. There's plenty online guides on how to burn vhs to dvd-r - Google is your friend.

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  10. Argentinean VHS: https://http2.mlstatic.com/eliminator-vhs-crossbone-territory-1987-michael-james-D_NQ_NP_664556-MLA28393357937_102018-F.jpg

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