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:
Fantastic! I didn't realize their was an MGM release of this until I commented here asking about the vhs and laserdisc.
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not this film wasn't really obscure when it came out. Everywhere had it for rent and it was in heavy rotation on superchannel here in Canada when it came out(which was one of the only premium cable channels showing new releases in the 80s).
I can't wait to get the DVD as I've only ever seen this on my US tape from Fries international. What do you mean by DVD-R? It's an MGM DVD that isn't a pro-repro?
Thanks for turning me onto so many cool movies with your blog, glad I could turn you onto something cool. Really seems like the Alamo remade in Vietnam. The body count in this thing is obscene.
Hey VWNT!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your kind words. And thanks for the info on the film. I never realised it had been such an "ordinary" release back in the day. I was all into HK heroic bloodshed og horror films when SIEGE would have been on rental vhs. I don't even know if it ran in cinemas here.
Yes, the film is on DVD-R but it's not a blank disc with the title scribbled on it by someone at MGM, lol. It's professionally made and the quality is good. There are no extras AT ALL on the disc. I think it was Warner Brothers that started releasing films on DVD-R in their Archive series. You can read more about it on Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Archive_Collection
/Jack