Director: Oscar Williams
Year: 1976
Rating: 3.0
My mouth is still agape at just how bad this is. The Geneva Convention should apply to films like this. Torture is too generous a word. It was needles under my fingernails bad. But it takes place in Thailand and as I have said previously, I will watch anything located in that country. It was filmed up north in Chiang Mai and in rural areas outside of it. Almost fifty years ago, Chiang Mai has certainly changed from a small quiet town to a tourist and ex-pat hub. I wonder if anyone still remembers this film being made. What makes it so surprisingly bad is that it was the follow-up to Black Belt Jones with Jim Kelly. That film has a respectable reputation and was directed by Robert Clouse who was coming off of Enter the Dragon. It also starred along with Kelly, Gloria Hendry and Scatman Crothers putting it squarely into the Blaxploitation genre at the time.
The director Oscar Williams had scripted Black Belt Jones and Truck Turner, but outside of the gritty cities, he seems lost. He turns this into a goofy comedy that hasn't a laugh. Painfully so. An American Ambassador's daughter is kidnapped and is being held by the villain. The US sends in Jones along with his two friends. In Thailand they meet up with a Thai female cop - a nice surprise - played by Irene Tsu who years later was to appear in Comrades, A Love Story. She is a kung fu cop. But besides the terrible comedy, the main weakness of the film is the action choreography. It was devised by Kelly, but it mainly consists of poor Thai extras standing there and getting beat up - then Kelly preening for the camera.
There is a ton of action - more ridiculous with each set-piece as the villain sends henchmen after them - all dressed absurdly. Thais should have sued for making them look so bad. I wish I could. Damn, I was a looking forward to this. Just a good fight or two would have been nice. There is though a Songkran festival that starts off the film with Kelly gently being splashed on by people in the crowd. It shows how much Songkran has changed since then, now with buckets of water and powerful water
guns.
Year: 1976
Rating: 3.0
My mouth is still agape at just how bad this is. The Geneva Convention should apply to films like this. Torture is too generous a word. It was needles under my fingernails bad. But it takes place in Thailand and as I have said previously, I will watch anything located in that country. It was filmed up north in Chiang Mai and in rural areas outside of it. Almost fifty years ago, Chiang Mai has certainly changed from a small quiet town to a tourist and ex-pat hub. I wonder if anyone still remembers this film being made. What makes it so surprisingly bad is that it was the follow-up to Black Belt Jones with Jim Kelly. That film has a respectable reputation and was directed by Robert Clouse who was coming off of Enter the Dragon. It also starred along with Kelly, Gloria Hendry and Scatman Crothers putting it squarely into the Blaxploitation genre at the time.
The director Oscar Williams had scripted Black Belt Jones and Truck Turner, but outside of the gritty cities, he seems lost. He turns this into a goofy comedy that hasn't a laugh. Painfully so. An American Ambassador's daughter is kidnapped and is being held by the villain. The US sends in Jones along with his two friends. In Thailand they meet up with a Thai female cop - a nice surprise - played by Irene Tsu who years later was to appear in Comrades, A Love Story. She is a kung fu cop. But besides the terrible comedy, the main weakness of the film is the action choreography. It was devised by Kelly, but it mainly consists of poor Thai extras standing there and getting beat up - then Kelly preening for the camera.
There is a ton of action - more ridiculous with each set-piece as the villain sends henchmen after them - all dressed absurdly. Thais should have sued for making them look so bad. I wish I could. Damn, I was a looking forward to this. Just a good fight or two would have been nice. There is though a Songkran festival that starts off the film with Kelly gently being splashed on by people in the crowd. It shows how much Songkran has changed since then, now with buckets of water and powerful water
guns.