The Expendables box set from VideoAsia

Unfortunately, I still haven't seen the new THE EXPENDABLES but here's some spiffy info that might interest you: To cash in on the new film the crappy bootleg company VideoAsia are releasing a box they've appropriately entitled "The Expendables 2" with the added sub title "Zero Heroes" (haha)!

Needless to say none of the films in the set is a sequel to Sly's new film, in fact they are actually all old films but... hey... we thrive on old trashy war flicks here so let's have a look at this set shall we? Well, as much of a look as you can have when you HAVEN'T actually got the box, LOL. In fact I didn't even know about the set till this afternoon when Karlos, one of the faithful readers of this blog, mentioned to me in a comment that it's going to be released (and thanks heaps for that, mate!).

I have all my info from what's mentioned on various webstores' pages so obviously details might change. The set is being released by VideoAsia in the US and contains these four films:

THE EXPENDABLES (Cirio H. Santiago, Philippines, 1988)

WILD TEAM aka I Cinque del Condor (Umberto Lenzi, Italy, 1985)
[retitled "The Expendables 2: Wild Team" for this release]

COBRA MISSION (Fabrizio De Angelis, Italy/Philippines, 1986)

COBRA MISSION 2 (Camillo Teti, Italy/Philippines, 1989)

Not bad, not bad. If I were you I'd avoid reading about the three latter films on IMDb. I'm not gonna bother to check but from memory I seem to recall they were all ridiculed by the IMDb "experts", LMAO. Yeah, well, you know how it is. Many of the films on my blog are great fun but they're probably never going to get any positive criticism by ordinary reviewers (or IMDb users). But that's alright, we have fun with these films and they don't. It's a question of which crowd you'd rather be in, the ones who just sneer at good fun or the ones who just have fun, LOL.

Anyway, from a personal perspective I'm definitely looking forward to this set because it contains COBRA MISSION 2. I've got the other ones (you can check entries for all four films in the bar on the right). I've only seen the Japanese VHS for COBRA MISSION 2 one single time on eBay and unfortunately I was so careless as to think no one was gonna make a bid for it so I only placed a small amount of dollar coins on it and, well, I "paid" for my carelessness. :-(

I did win the first film, COBRA MISSION, at the same auction and a few other trashy Vietnam flicks so that's alright. But you know how it is, it's always the one you DON'T get that you remember. "Everywhere is better than where we are" as the Russians say.

Now, VideoAsia. o_O
I mentioned that this "company" (and I use the term losely) is a bootleg label and they sure are! I'm not at all sure how they can keep selling their stuff on Amazon because as far as I'm aware Amazon has a strict policy against bootlegs. And trust me, these DVDs are bootlegs! I have a box set called "Tales of Voodoo" and I believe all 10 films in that set are sourced from old video tapes. There might even be one film which is copied from a bloody VCD!

If you look at the cover of VideoAsia's new box set in the above and compare it to the cover on my Japanese video release of WILD TEAM (below) it's easy to see they are identical! Well, it is a mighty cool cover so I guess that's all right. xD



And if they ARE going to use a print from a video tape then I would certainly hope they are using the Japanese VHS as it presents WILD TEAM in a nice letterboxed format. By the way, WILD TEAM is directed by ol'e Mr Cannibal hisself, Umberto Lenzi (Cannibal Holucaust). I'm not gonna mention what movies Bobby A. Suarez has made because you all know him anyway. Fabrizio De Angelis (Cobra Mission) also directed the three THUNDER (aka Thunder Warrior) films and the first KILLER CROCODILE flick. Camillo Teti (Cobra Mission 2) also did KILLER CROCODILE 2 and BYE BYE VIETNAM.

According to various sellers (e.g. Cduniverse and one seller on eBay) the box is set for release in a couple of days on August the 31st. However, Amazon.com has it listed for release in November. I sincerely hope Amazon is wrong about this but anyway Karlos has ordered the box and promises to let us know about it all when he receives it. The price on Amazon and eBay is around $10 + postage, and slightly cheaper from Cduniverse where it's listed at a mere 7 bucks (and with $7 for postage this is probably the cheapest place to order from if you're in Europe).