Cast Ace Vergel, Kristine Garcia, Myrna Velasco, Dick Israel, Rez Cortez, Lito Anzures, Eddie Arenas, Billy Arevalo, Joe Balagtas, Boy Briones, Tony Carreon, Jo Jo Castro, Nory Cenco, Ernie David, Lito de Guzman, Buddy de Leon, Paquito Diaz, Carmen Enriquez, Jun Escueta, Bella Flores, Buboy Francisco, Eric Francisco, Bobby Henzon, Jolly Jugueta, Japs Luna, Tony Martinez, Mitoy Mijares, Myra Monterz, Lito Navarro, Remy Nocum, Jun Ocampo, Bobby Orio, Ricardo 'Bebong' Osario, Mando Pangilinan, Fred Param, Tony Pascua, Danny Riel, “Chi Chi Salvador”/Ross Rival, Rudy Rivera, Renato Robles, Tan Ronald, Rey Sagum, Paquito Salcedo, Boy Salvador, Anthony San Juan, Roger Santos, Vic Santos, Larry Silva, Dennis Simbol, Charito Solis, Rey Solo, Lucita Soriano, Boy Sta. Maria, Danny Sta. Monica, “Bobby”/ Robert Talabis, Boy Ibanez
Review from the Internet Movie Database:
Young Amber lives with his mother, a back alley prostitute somewhere in the Philippines. He's subjected to daily abuse at the hands of the local kids and his teacher because he doesn't have a 'real' father, but one day, a kindly police officer adopts Amber and his mother and the new 'family' enjoys a modicum of domestic bliss. Alas, their happiness is only temporary, and after an unfortunate misunderstanding, Amber's new dad ends up dead. Flash forward ten years, and Amber is now a mustachioed small time hood--played by an actor who looks nothing like the child actor from the first reel--and his mother, crazed with grief, has been institutionalised. Amber is eager to make it big, and he accepts an assignment to assassinate a wheelchair bound gangland competitor. Having proved his worth by manfully killing a cripple, Amber moves on to bigger things and must confront Martinez, a man who controls a heavily armed army of black clad ninjas.
Ostensibly a Hong Kong production, the credited cast and crew of this low budget action feature is entirely Filipino. OceanShores video bears a 1989 copyright date and judging from the clothing and hairstyles, the film (titled The Killer vs. the Ninja on the tape) was almost certainly shot sometime in the Big 80s. There's an anachronistic disco scene to muddy the waters, however, so it's hard to pin down an exact production date. The confusing pre-credits sequence is a highlight reel of what follows, so unless you have a particular interest in the ups and downs of Amber's life, you'll have seen most of the good stuff in the first five minutes.
Director George Rowe Writer Carl Kuntze Producer Alexander O. David Cinematography Justo Paulino Music Lamberto H. Avellana Jr Musical Director Lutgardo Labad Editor Rudy O. Montecajon Sound Engineers Willie de Santos, Gaudencio Barredo Sound Effects Antonio Gozalves Special Effects Ben Otico Opticals Boy Quilatan Production Manager Gerry Gerena Unit Manager Joel Rebonquin Assistant Director Rudy O. Montecajon Continuity David Delina, Edith Masangkay Negative Editor Elsa Avellana Stills Nor Torres Artwork/Titles Lito de la Cruz Makeup Artist Tony Artieda Choreography Amelia Apolinario Assistant Editors Greg Torres, Ben Samson, Greg Gonzales
Cast John Ashley (Dr Paul Morgan), Marlene Clark (Witch), Pilar Pilapil (Elena), Eddie Garcia (Fred), Rosemarie Gil (Barbara), Stevie Maniquez (Michael), Laurice Guillen (Nurse), Andres Centenera (Exorcist), Alfonso Carvajal (Storekeeper), “Antonio Carrion”/Tony Carreon (Parish Priest), Willie Nepomuceno (Ghoul), “Angel”/Angelo Ventura (Police Officer), Subas Herrero (Pathologist), Dick “Adaire”/Adair (Resident Doctor), Mary Walter (Old Woman), “Jimmy”/Jaime Fabregas (Librarian), [uncredited] Vivian Velez
This weird, little-seen Philippines-lensed horror film opens in a fog-shrouded graveyard, where we see a hunchback ghoul break into a crypt and cart off a body after stealing an unusual gold ring off the corpse's finger. As he is dragging the body through the graveyard, he is startled by the sudden appearance of a witch (Marlene Clark) dressed in black and he runs away. The ring ends up in a jewelry store and we see the witch purchase it. While in church, Elena (Pilar Pilapil) notices the ring on the witch's finger and has words with her outside. The ring belonged to Elena's dead husband and he was buried with it, so she wants to know why the witch is wearing it now. The witch turns and walks away and, in flashbacks, we learn that the witch was having an affair with Elena's husband a short time before he died. Elena and her young son Michael (Steve Maniquiz) now live with her sister Barbara (Rosemary Gil) and her husband Fred (Filipino stalwart Eddie Garcia). Fred wants a child of his own, but Barbara is incapable of having any (He tells Elena, "She's as barren as the Sahara!"), so he looks at Michael as his own son. The strain it is having on Fred and Barbara's marriage is highly evident. When the hunchback is found dead in the graveyard (the witch frightens him to death by putting a vision in his head that the body he is stealing has come back to life), the police ask kindly town doctor Paul Morgan (John Ashley) to perform an autopsy to find the cause of death. Paul is also treating the jewelry store shopkeeper (Alfonso Cavajal), who is having visions of the Grim Reaper (complete with scythe), since the witch put a spell on him for buying the ring from the hunchback. The witch makes a wax effigy of the shopkeeper and gives him a heart attack, killing him. Paul and Elena are having a picnic on the beach and a black bird steals Elena's handkerchief. The witch uses the hankerchief in one of her rituals (also including a wax doll) to give Elena severe headaches, forcing Elena to pass out at a bus stop. The witch weasels herself into Paul's life, but when the shopkeeper is finally found dead in his home nine days late, a thief is killed after jumping through the jewelry store window and Elena is seriously hurt and ends up in the hospital, Paul has to put aside his "logical explanations" and learn to fight the unknown with magic. When little Michael gets caught in the middle of this mess, good will have to fight evil (including using a medicine man , who tries to whip the evil out of Elena) in the ultimate battle of power.
Since this film never got a legitimate release in the United States until recently, it's not as well known as some other Filipino horror films made around the same time, like NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN (1972, also starring Marlene Clark in a role similar to the one she plays here) or the many horror and action films the late John Ashley made there, including the BLOOD ISLAND trilogy and SAVAGE SISTERS (1974). Director George Rowe (FINAL MISSION - 1989) keeps the bloodshed and carnage to a minimum, relying on the supernatural elements, like voodoo ceremonies, visions and graveyard fog to convey a mood of dread. There is one gruesome scene where a coroner performs an autopsy on the shopkeeper's body, where he removes and cuts into the heart and extracts the brain using a bonesaw (after peeling back the scalp), but this sequence seems to have been inserted strictly for shock value (some say it's real autopsy footage) as it's out-of-place with the rest of the film. The screenplay (by Carl Kuntze) tries to find a parallel between modern medicine and ancient beliefs in witchcraft and how they both can be accepted as legitimate science. While there is no nudity in this film, a snake does crawl between Elena's legs and enters her snatch and, if I'm not mistaken, Old Scratch makes an appearance during a ritual involving dancing girls dressed in red (It is his favorite color after all!). There is also an exorcism (THE EXORCIST was new and novel at the time) and, if you ever wanted to see John Ashley deliver a baby, pick it up with one hand and slap it on the ass, then this is the film for you. Some may find this too dull andsoap opera-like to sustain interest. It's rarity makes it worth at least one look in my book. Also starring Willie Nepomuceno (as the hunchback), Laurice Guillen, Antonio Carrion and Andres Centenera. Is it just me or does John Ashley seem to sleepwalk through his role here? The print I viewed looks like a dub taken from a worn, soft-looking 16mm print with some noisy and scratchy sound problems. It's watchable, though. Now available on DVD as part of the BLOOD-O-RAMA 4 movie compilation from Image Entertainment. The print on the DVD is not much better than the print I viewed and it has new, video-generated titles. Not Rated.
UPDATE: Screenwriter Carl Kuntze emailed CritCon with this juicy bit of behind-the-scenes information: "The making of BLACK MAMBA was more interesting than how the movie turned out. The autopsy was supposed to be conducted by a certified pathologist, who hadn't shown up as promised. A Filipino morgue attendant volunteered. "I will be the one. I know how." He didn't even have proper instruments. When the doctor showed up five hours after the filming was over, he was shocked at the condition of the body. It was completely mangled. It had to be buried in a sealed coffin. The relatives of the corpse, who was convicted of capital crimes, had consented to the autopsy for the money to bury him. Had they seen the body, they might have committed some mangling themselves. John Ashley and most of the production crew were puking their guts out. I reshot the autopsy using a pig's brain and entrails. The skull was reconstructed from ceramics by an artist. A reviewer complimented the protocol. The producer himself used a surgical saw. I intended to rewrite it according to the original premise: Santeria (Palo Mayombe). I didn't have a devil worship scene, and my doctor was not in The Peace Corps. He was an incompetent hiding his failings in a small town. John Ashley did his best acting in this movie. He should have taken it more seriously."
Michael Weldon's review in Psychotronic Magazine #32 (2000) p.72
Marlene Clark (the black American beauty also in Night Of The Cobra Woman) is a witch who uses voodoo to curse the widow Elana (Pilar Pilapil). Elana and her cute little boy are staying with her sister (Rosemarie Gil) and her wealthy husband. A cat that becomes a death figure with a scythe, a snake that becomes an evil nurse and a crippled, scarred hunchbacked grave robber help the witch. Ashley plays the selfless nice guy doctor who makes house calls and eventually confronts the witch. An old priest brutally whips Elana as part of an exorcism ritual. In my favorite scene, the witch travels to a huge cave where she and many females, all in short red dresses, dance by a fire in front of the devil himself (!). Eddie Garcia is a police officer. With flashbacks and nightmares.Ashley said it was shot at the same time as Savage Sisters, but was never released in America. He also said that a real corpse was used in an autopsy scene, which may have been true for close-ups, but before the cutting starts, the man can be seen moving.
BLACK MAMBO (directed by George Rowe), a Philippines-made horror effort starring the late, great John Ashley in one of the many exploitation films he starred in over there, and probably the rarest. A young widow named Elena (Pilar Pilapil) is shocked to discover the ring of her recently deceased husband on the finger of African American woman (Marlene Clark, who had also had the lead in another Philippines thriller, THE NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN) who happens to be devil-worshipping, voodoo practicing witch. Elena makes the mistake of confronting the witch outside a church, and she in turn puts all sorts of spells and curses on the single mother, who lives with her caring sister (Rosemarie Gil, DEVIL WOMAN) and her brother-in-law (Eddie Garcia, star of countless Philippines movies, including a memorable turn as “Dr. Lorca” in BEAST OF BLOOD). The concerned Dr. Paul Morgan (Ashley) steps up to help, but it takes a lot before he believes in all the mumbo jumbo behind Elena’s dilemma. BLACK MAMBA is never as delirious, imaginative or exploitive as other Philippines horrors of the period and the story tends to be confusing. There are some nice moments tossed into the mix (a storekeeper who keeps hallucinating a Grim Reaper, Clark making love to a very ethnic-looking horned Lucifer, a snake crawling up a woman’s leg, etc.), but most red-blooded male viewers will naturally wish that the very lovely actresses (Pilapil, Gil, Clark) had shed some skin, especially since this is 1974 we're talking about. Still, this is a must-see for Philippines horror/exploitation completists. The full screen transfer is very below par, looking extremely dupey and soft, with pale bleeding colors, but almost watchable knowing the rareness of the title. The mono audio is not bad but tends to screech during some of the louder moments.
With a title like Black Mamba, you might have figured this was a movie about— oh, I don’t know— maybe a killer snake? Yeah, well you might have figured Snake People was about snake people, too. Actually, Black Mamba is a lot like Snake People, for not only do both movies promise us snakes which they have little intention of delivering, they both give us instead some pretty crazy tropical black magic. The key difference (apart, I mean, from this movie hailing from the Philippines, while the other is of Mexican origin) is that Black Mamba is really a pretty decent little voodoo flick.
It’s hard to go wrong by starting with a grave robbery. Black Mamba’s opening-scene tomb-breaker is a bestial hunchback (Willie Nepomuceno) who seeks not the bodies of the dead, but the valuables that were buried with them. In particular, we see him make off with a golden ring worked into the likeness of a hooded face. The bauble in question turns up the next day in the local general store, where the shopkeeper (Alfonso Carvajal, from The Mad Doctor of Blood Island and Black Mama, White Mama) sells it to a woman (Marlene Clark, of The Beast Must Die and Beware! The Blob) dressed in what looks to be mourning attire. That ring gets the woman into trouble an unspecified amount of time later, for it happens to catch the eye of Elena (Pilar Pilapil), its original owner and the widow of the man from whose grave it was pilfered, while she and the ring-wearer are attending services in the same church. Elena has angry words with the other woman after the mass concludes, and though we don’t get to hear the argument (in a surprising touch of artiness, the confrontation scene plays silent apart from the insistent pealing of the church bells), one gets the distinct impression that they have met somewhere before. And indeed they have; shortly thereafter, the woman who bought the ring has a flashback revealing that she had been the dead man’s girlfriend before Elena came along, putting a very different spin on everything that has happened since she saw the ring in the store’s front window. And as if the flashback itself hadn’t served as sufficient cause for reappraisal, the furnishings of the room in which it transpires demonstrate pretty conclusively that Elena’s rival is a witch.
As for Elena, her husband’s death left her with apparently few resources for supporting her son, Michael (Steve Maniquez), and she is relying, at least for the time being, on the charity of her sister, Barbara Gomez (Rosemarie Gil, of Naked Vengeance and Devil Woman). Barbara’s husband, Fred (Eddie Garcia, from Blood of the Vampires and Beast of Blood), is evidently an extremely successful businessman of some kind, although we’ll never learn precisely what he does for a living. The important thing is that the Gomezes live in easily the biggest and poshest house in their little town, and Fred’s income is such that he professes no hardship in supporting Elena and her son indefinitely. Elena’s present living arrangements entail a certain amount of friction, however, for Fred is disconcertingly open about believing that he picked the wrong sister. This is because all evidence indicates that Barbara is infertile, and there’s nothing Fred wants more than to be a father. He may be able to scratch his parental itch to some extent by playing surrogate dad to Michael, but that outlet will exist only so long as Elena remains in the house. Needless to say, Fred is in no hurry to see his sister-in-law make good her intention of moving to Manila.
On the night following the altercation in church, the witch, evidently hell-bent on preventing the hunchback from corroborating any story that Elena might tell the authorities regarding the stolen ring, uses her magic to eliminate him. Old Quasimodo is back in the cemetery, and as soon as he cracks open a coffin, the witch reanimates the body inside, literally scaring the grave-robber to death. This proves not to be a very smart move in the long run, though, as the dead body beside the open tomb inevitably draws attention from the local chief of police (Angelo Ventura, from Beyond Atlantis and The Twilight People), who quickly calls in Dr. Paul Morgan (John Ashley, of Frankenstein’s Daughter and Beast of the Yellow Night) to help him figure out what killed the hunchback. What makes this a potentially serious development for the witch is that Morgan has ties to practically everybody on whom she will be setting her sights in the coming days, meaning that he’ll be in as good a position as anyone to spot the pattern of mysterious misadventures as it forms. It is to Morgan that the shopkeeper turns when the witch places a curse on him, haunting him with visions of death and eventually striking him down by breaking the humanoid candle she was using as his effigy. Paul and his old mentor (Subas Herrero, from Savage Sisters and Bamboo Gods and Iron Men) wind up performing the autopsy on the shopkeeper, too, when a spectacularly failed burglary at the general store (the would-be thief is killed by one of the witch’s familiars, a Siamese cat with the power to assume the form of the Grim Reaper) leads to the discovery of the old man’s body. More importantly, Paul is also beginning (much to Fred’s consternation) a tentative romance with Elena. Morgan is therefore on the scene when the witch, in the form of a little blackbird, steals Elena’s handkerchief in order to make a voodoo doll of her. He is there to lead her treatment when the ensuing campaign of paranormal persecution begins to take its toll on Elena’s nerves. He is able to help Fred intervene when Barbara hires an exorcist (Andres Centenara, from The Big Bird Cage and Brides of Blood) to drive out the witch’s influence via a dangerous course of sympathetic magic. (The exorcist flogs Elena with a whip made from a stingray’s tail; the idea is that each blow will be felt by the witch as well.) Eventually, Morgan sees enough really weird shit that he begins to take seriously the possibility that Elena has been cursed by a witch— at least to the extent of accepting that Elena and her unknown enemy’s mutual belief in black magic is enough to make the curse as good as real for both parties. With a little help from the local librarian (Jaime Fabregas), Paul sets out to find the supposed magician, and combat her on her own terms. Of course, the witch has allies, too, having placed her second familiar (a speckled, gray snake that is the closest we’ll ever get to the titular black mamba) within the Gomez household in the guise of a nurse (Laurice Guillen).
Although it is compromised by paltry production values and a lethargic pace (to say nothing of the conspicuous absence of any black mambas), Black Mamba impressed me a good deal more than I was expecting it to. Working in the Philippines seems to have done wonders for John Ashley’s acting. Maybe he just grew up, or maybe his increasingly obvious has-been-hood gave him the perspective necessary to jettison the leftover performing tics from his previous career as a failed teen heartthrob, but by the mid-1970’s, he had most definitely mastered the trick of working within his limitations instead of ramming headlong into them the way he had in earlier years. He’s still as far from greatness as he ever was, but like Lon Chaney Jr. in his prime, the John Ashley of Black Mamba and its contemporaries has found something he can do, and has made the most of it. And if we’re comparing Ashley to the younger Chaney, then we might liken writer Carl Kuntze and director George Rowe to frequent Chaney collaborators Curt and Robert Siodmak, respectively. Both men bring an unaffected, workmanlike solidity to Black Mamba, marshalling their not-always-adequate resources (both material and creative) to occasionally striking effect. Kuntze in particular wins my respect for bringing Paul Morgan into the witch-hunting business on terms that square completely with the determinedly rationalist worldview that he displays throughout the first two thirds of the film. We may know the witch’s powers are real, but Morgan has no reason to; by making him approach witchcraft as (in the words of the librarian) “one of the oldest forms of psychological warfare,” Kuntze gives the doctor plausible license to fight fire with fire, without ever having to set up the usual “Whoa… There really is such a thing as magic!” scene. As for Rowe, his most admirable contributions are probably his success in wringing a bit of honest creepiness out of that two-bit Grim Reaper and the surprisingly un-crass way in which he deploys Black Mamba’s most notorious exploitation gambit, the use of stock autopsy footage in the scene where Morgan and the other doctor give the shopkeeper his post-mortem examination. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “tasteful” (I’m not convinced there is a tasteful way to recycle clips of real-life medical examiners chopping real-life holes in a real-life dead guy’s thoracic cavity), but Rowe does at least manage to make it seem not flagrantly disrespectful. But Black Mamba’s best feature is probably the easiest to overlook— the absolutely first-rate soundtrack by Lamberto H. Avellana Jr. Avellana seems never to have scored another movie, either before or since, and that’s a damn shame. His prickly, almost atonal music is eerie in the extreme, and gives a sizeable assist even to such overwhelmingly stupid scenes as the one that has the witch and a chorus line of crimson-clad women we’ve never seen before performing a sort of interpretive dance for the amusement of Satan and his goat-headed minions. Anybody who can so much as lead you to imagine the possibility of selling something like that deserves a great deal of respect. (**½)
Compared to Night of the Cobra Woman, Black Mamba suffers the double whammy of being less serpent-centric and less booby-centric, making for the dullest movie I've seen featuring zombies, voodoo dolls, a hunchback, Satan, "Manimal"-like transmutations, bestiality, an exorcism, and Death itself. The film opens with a hunchback doing what hunchbacks do best: robbing graves. He messes with the wrong tomb, though, when he takes a ring from the corpse of Dante, a man who happens to have once romanced a witch (Clark). Quasimod'oh! Through hazy "Love American Style"-flashbacks, we learn that the witch still has fond memories of Dante, and that Dante resembles Julio Caesar Chavez in a leisure suit. Fashion taste aside, she still loves the guy and takes offense to Hunchy stealing a ring off his cold, dead fingers and selling it to a local pawn shop. She takes such offense that she punishes not only Hunchy but the pawn shop owner and a random burglar who just happens to beak into the store as well, literally scaring them to death with visions of zombies and the Grim Reaper. (Enter an opportunity for the filmmakers to splice in tasteless clips of a real autopsy.) Turns out, though, that Witchy isn't Dante's widow; some gal named Elena (Pilar Pilapil) is, and she's none too pleased to see Witchy strolling around town wearing her dead husband's ring (which she got from the pawn shop). Elena confronts her outside a church, and Witchy gives her a look like, "Beyaaatch!" It's so on! ...Or not. Instead, we segue into the treacly B story about Elena's sister Barbara (Rosemarie Gil from Night of the Cobra Woman) worrying that her husband Fred doesn't love her any more because she's barren. Save it for Oprah, lady; maybe you should focus on why your sister keeps getting voodoo headaches. Meanwhile, Paul (John Ashley, a Philippine horror movie veteran who for my money did his best work as the narrator in "The A-Team") is a Marlboro Mannish crime-solving doctor who's called in to solve the case. And what a tough case it is! I mean, perhaps you should question the six foot-tall black lady walking around the Philippines in a hooded robe, carrying an effigy...? "You mean the lady with the corpse ring who has a pentagram on her floor? But she's so kind to animals!" Indeed, Witchy is a regular Aquawoman, using beasts to do her bidding: a black bird, a black dog, a black mamba...Do we see a trend? Granted, a black mamba isn't technically black (and is native to Africa, not the Philippines), but who am I to dictate racial identity? Eventually, Elena goes nutty after dreaming about Satan and waking to find a snake between her legs -- and not in a good, mainstream pornographic way -- but only after Barbara gets an exorcist/wizard to beat the ills out of Elena with a whip (which doesn't work). As you can see, there's an exhausting amount of story in Black Mamba. In many ways it's actually a high-minded film dealing with superstition in modern society and giving insight into the different types of witchcraft. Unfortunately, this is a movie, not Wikipedia, so it ends up dreadfully dull and suffers from low production values, poor film quality, and let's face it, being made in the '70s. As with Night of the Cobra Woman, it's hard to buy the classy, even-tempered Clark as evil. Her worst sin might be her performance, which, judging from the seemingly dubbed-over dialogue, might not even be her fault.
1975 - The Black Panther Of Shaolin (Ophelia San Juan Productions/Lyra Ventures)
[Philippines release date 1st August 1975, original title “Mababagsik Na Anghel”; also released internationally as "Bamboo Trap"]
Director/Screenplay Ernesto Ventura Producer Ophelia San Jaun Cinematography Felipe Sacdalan, Higino J. Fallorina Music D'Amarillo
Cast Leo Fong, "Ronnie"/Ron van Clief, George Estregan, Lotis Key, Eddie Garcia, Chanda Romero, Nory Wright, Darnell Garcia, Jun Garcia, Perla Bautista, Cloyd Robinson, Rez Cortez, Abubakar Jalmaani, Joey Abad Santos, Tony Carreon [as Tony Carrion], Bien David, Juano del Gallego, Jose Garcia, Lito Hermosa, Santy Hermosa, Ruel Martinez, David de Martyn, Rene Matias, Ken Metcalfe, Larry Silva, Adoracion Soriano
1985 - Naked In The Dark (FLT Film Productions International/Rare Breed Ltd)
[Philippines release date 23rd August 1985, original title “Hubo Sa Dilim…..”; also released overseas as “Naked Rose”]
Director Tata Esteban Story/Screenplay Rei Nicandro Producer Atty. Eduardo B. Flaminiano Executive Producer Rose Loanzon Flaminiano Associate Producer Edgar Ty Cinematography Ver Dauz Music Blitz Padua Theme Song “Hubo” performed by Zaphire, sung by Cindy Jaramiel Editor Pat Ramos Sound Supervision Tony Faustino Production Design Steve Paolo Optical Visual Effects Gerry A. Garcia Choreographer Karlo Assistant Director Ruben Fernandez Art Director Willy Vengua 1st Assistant Director Grace Hill Serrano Post Production Supervisors Steve Paolo, Ruben Fernandez Assistant Cameraman Molly Delino Fog Effects Fabian Pilvton Special Effects Gonio Tible Makeup Artist Ricky Adolfo-Rey Stillsman Felix Cadorna Schedule Master Nelson Loanson Production Manager Boy Loanson Sound Engineers Tony Faustino, Willy Islao Assistant Editors Nelson Ramos, Ricardo Crisostomo, Orland Brien Production Secretary Connie Agulto Sound Effects Rodel Capule Production Catering Rudy Loanson, Angel Belarmino Utility Men Manuel Codilla, Allan Ycoy, Romano Loanson Petty Cash In Charge Rosario Loanson Promotion Publicity Chit Ramos, Fundi Soriano Field Soundman Louie Guimpayan Chief Electrician Johnny Mendoza Generator Operator Jose Cortez
Cast Chanda Romero (Mrs Cristina Romero), Michael de Mesa (Dinkee Romero), Maria Isabel Lopez (Cristina), Liza Lorena, Tony Carrion (Don Miguel Romero III), Lito Gruet (Andrew), Jaime Fabregas (Uncle Ramon), Isadora (Isadora), Peter Chong Jr (Young Dinkee) Call Boys Sonny Navarro, Jimmy Villalon, Jerry Loanzon
Completely obscure 80's Phillipine erotic violence/sleaze flick, about a mentally disturbed man in a lady psychiatrist's office telling of his sexual perversions and weaknesses due to his mother being a whore when he was a child, and him accidentally walking in on her having group sex with men and with his father, etc. He meets the beautiful Chanda Romero, who reminds him of his mother and he obsesses about her while taking photos, etc. His sexual obsessions finally lead to madness and murder, when he kills one girl with a sword by sticking the blade into her vagina in a graphically bloody scene! Plenty of softcore sex, some bloody violence and very disturbing, taboo-breaking footage make this a must for fans of Asian obscurities! Uncut print, dubbed in ITALIAN w/NO subts., good qual. RECOMMENDED!!
Maria Isabel Lopez:"The worst movie I’ve done is Hubo sa Dilim with Tata Esteban… it capitalized too much on my skin…"
The bad bold movie, makes extensive use of recycled dressing or more appropriately, undressing in Hubo (FLT Film Productions International And Rare Breed Ltd., 1985). This much touted, so called adult movie might have initially tickled our hopes for some semblance of maturity in the way our filmmakers explore the realm of sexuality but unfortunately, it could only manage to just as quickly dash off all remaining hopes for Philippine cinema's much awaited rebirth. Hubo is bold, naked and empty, a triple disappointment for diehard optimists. An ostensibly low budget, one and a half hour incursion into the domain of psychological trauma, Hubo offers meager psychology and no thrills, a terrible fate for its makers. The director, Tata Esteban might have had the best intentions in coming up with an honest to goodness adult film, as he once did with his feature film debut 1984's Metro Manila Film Festival entry Alapaap which not withstanding its shortcomings, succeeded in many counts, particularly in exploring the horrors of a ghost consumed by revenge. Hubo is beset with many pitfalls. The material itself is old hat, though not necessarily itself a shortcoming if it had been retold with a good measure of insight, novelty or ingenuity, qualities that are sadly lacking in the finished product. Michael de Mesa plays Dinkie, a young man obsessed with Carmina (Maria Isabel Lopez), a call girl introduced by his cousin Andrew (Lito Gruet). Dinkie's absurdist temper presents the almost psychotic lengths he went through as a child growing up with his adulterous mother Christina (Chanda Romero), arguing that domestic violence breeds dementia.
Hubo, while making a bid for the viewer's attention via the bold genre, rehashes a tried and tired plot that has been used countless times before. I have no idea why a material as threadbare as this qualified to serve the filmmakers' purposes. The film miserably fails to probe into the lives of its characters, much less their motivations for their actions. Thus, in the case of Dinkie, we only get an idea of his slow descent into insanity through the scene which shows him having flashbacks of his traumatic childhood. The most overexposed yet most underdeveloped character in the film is Carmina, who after being beaten to a pulp still turns to Dinkie for sexual release. Hubo in the final analysis, merely capitalized on sex as a come on. Here it is shown in bits and pieces of nudity, simulated intercourse and coitus interuptus, and the blame goes to the director and screenwriter for having exploited such a cheap device for a psychodrama. This is nothing by way of insight, observation or exploration that this film offers nothing but the hollowness of its intentions. Hubo's semiotics borders on the inane and the vulgar. Characters are utterly uninteresting, throughly boring and therefore, not deseving of a single penny's worth of compassion. There's also no worthwhile conflict that unfolds. Come to think of it, Hubo is completely bereft of dramatic potential. The performances are not even impressive although Michael de Mesa admittedly has some good moments as in that scene which shows him brooding in bed. Maria Isabel Lopez' character is mostly a caricature, calculated to lure the male moviegoers. Her performance rests on a shaky notion, and like the rest of the movie, naked and empty.
[Philippines release date 17th March 1979; released internationally via Liliw Films International as "Sabotage", in France as "Chantage a l'Apocalypse" and in Germany as "Geheimcode Death-Force"]
Director Efren C. Piñon Story/Screenplay Efren C. Piñon, Greg Macabenta, Jerry O. Tirazona Producer [uncredited] Tony Ferrer Music Ernani Cuenco Cinematography “Juanito “Jun” Pereira Editor Edgardo “Boy” Vinarao Cameramen [1st Unit] Ricardo Herrera [2nd Unit] Amado “Botong” de Guzman [3rd Unit] Zosimo Corpuz [4th Unit] Eduardo Cabrales [5th Unit] Oscar Querijero [6th Unit] Rey Lapid
Cast Tony Ferrer (Agent Falcon, Agent X44), Azenith Briones (Cristy Mendoza), Andy Poe (Montalban), Max Alvarado (Michael), Olivia O’Hara (Marlo Andrado), Nick Romano (Manolo del Castillo), Ruby Anna (Ruby), Manny Luna (Greg Africa), Romy Diaz (Douglas), Val Iglesia (Aris Atlonxa), Conrad Poe (Jojo Martinez), Perry Baltazar (Johnny Fernandez), J. Antonio Carreon (Don Franco Madriaga), Mike Cohen (Dr Ivan Skovsky), Manolo Noble (Colonel Nemesio Camus), Protacio Dee (Takeo Kurosaka), Henry Salcedo (Atty. Gene Marquez), James Gaines [Jr] (Jonas Grey) , Rey Sagum (Dr Skovsky’s Aide), Ben Dato (Dr Skovsky’s Aide), George Webber, Richard Olney, Carol Meyerdierks, Rick Fuller, Lourie Ann Churchill, Truman Festos, Barbara Churchill, Adolf James, Elaine Blacher, Tsing Tong Tsai [rumoured to be in the cast, but may be in Last Target instead: Bill James, Kate Atkins, Cathy Young]
The road that lead me to Tony Falcon, Agent X-44: Sabotage was, as is often the case with these things, a somewhat long and circuitous one. It began when I was watching the third Christopher Lee Fu Manchu movie, the Shaw Brothers co-produced The Vengeance of Fu Manchu, on TV, and found my attention drawn to the actor Tony Ferrer, who was playing the fairly substantial supporting role of Shanghai Police Inspector Ramos. Ferrer was certainly charismatic, and handled himself admirably in his action scenes. But what really struck me was that here was a Filipino actor playing a character whom the filmmakers had gone out of their way to identify as Filipino (why, after all, name a Shanghai policeman “Ramos”?). Given that this was a film in which a pasty-faced Englishman with putty on his eyelids was being sold as Chinese, made at a time when few in the movie business were losing sleep over whether their Asian casting was race or nationality appropriate, this seemed to me like an unusual consideration. Furthermore, while a character such as his would normally have had a pretty limited lifespan in a movie of this type, Ferrer survived to the end of the movie, playing a decidedly heroic role in the climax. These factors combined gave me a strong hunch that, while Tony Ferrer may have been a nobody to a large portion of The Vengeance of Fu Manchu’s international audience, somewhere he was a big, big star.
With a geek fire of white hot intensity now raging beneath me, I set to digging, and before too long found that Tony Ferrer was indeed a big, big star in the Philippines–and that he was known as “The Filipino James Bond” thanks to his recurring role as secret agent Tony Falcon, Agent X-44.
Starting out as a contract player with his older brother Espiridion Laxa’s company Tagalong Ilang Ilang Productions (the company responsible for introducing some of the biggest action stars of Filipino cinema, including Fernando Poe Jr., aka “FPJ”), Ferrer had a fairly undistinguished early career, consisting mostly of supporting roles. This changed in 1965 when his brother developed the Agent X-44 character with him in mind, casting him in the first of a hastily churned out series of films helmed by director and cult film actor Eddie Garcia. Within a year, the Tony Falcon films had become a bona fide phenomenon in the Philippines, and the series would go on to chalk up somewhere around twenty entries, spanning from the mid-sixties to the early eighties.
With this new information turning tantalizing cartwheels in my brain, I was now, of course, dying to see these movies. Unfortunately, I had to steel myself for the probability that this simply would not be possible. Film preservation was a foreign concept to the Philippines until only very recently, and the more distant a film’s vintage, the more likely it is to have long ago returned to the dust from which it came. This is a real shame, because from what I’ve gathered, the Filipino popular film industry of the sixties was very similar to its Turkish counterpart: As prolific as it was impoverished, and with a profligate disregard for copyrights, it churned out hundreds of films a year at a combined cost that would fund one decent-sized Hollywood production, those films loaded with spies and goofy costumed heroes, including undisguised versions of Batman, Robin and Superman. (Not to mention, I imagine, Jesus showing up to make someone bleed out of their eyes or something–because the three things I’ve come to count on from Filipino genre cinema are singing, violence and, wherever you’d least expect it to pop up, jarring evidence of the particularly punitive brand of Catholicism that holds much of the country in its thrall). Despite my pessimism, however, and after a few months of rooting around, the gray market came through for me, and I eventually came into possession of an example of Agent X-44’s impressively voluminous screen output.
The 1966 film Sabotage was not the first Tony Falcon film. In fact, there were at least five other entries in the series produced that same year. But it was the first to launch the series as a true phenomenon, as well as Ferrer’s career as a superstar in his home country. The film premiered at the first Manila Film Festival–a festival dedicated to showcasing the country’s homegrown movie industry–and out-grossed all of the other films on the program. Like pretty much everywhere else in the world, the Philippines was going through a major spy craze at the time, and there would be a number of other film franchises starring super secret agents of their own–Bernard Bonnin as Agent 707, Alberto Alonzo as Agent 69 and Eddie Fernandez as Lagalag among them–but, from the time of Sabotage’s release on, Tony Falcon was the undisputed box office champ above all.
Of course, I should make clear that the particular Tony Falcon film that I had come into possession of was not, as I had hoped and expected, the original 1966 Sabotage, but rather the re-titled international release of another film from the Tony Falcon series’ waning years, 1978’s Sabotage 2. Furthermore, as is often the case with these things, the currently circulating copy of Sabotage is of a quality similar to what you might expect a broadcast signal intercepted from a very distant planet to look like–given that very distant planet is very dark and perhaps underwater. So, while I was looking forward to tasting a new flavor of 1960s secret agent cool–or, at least, a woefully underfunded and technically over-matched facsimile of same–I now had to resign myself to the fact that what I was actually going to be tasting was something quite different and probably a lot less savory.
Or perhaps not. Because Sabotage is indeed a rich slab of nada-budget cinematic cheese. Ferrer was sporting a noticeable paunch by this time, a state of affairs that Tony Falcon’s trademark white suits did little to improve upon. Still the actor is commendably game, always ready to dole out some spirited faux kung fu whenever the action requires. But what’s most impressive about Sabotage is how, by way of its by-necessity minimalism and utilitarian aesthetic, it manages to strip the spy movie down to its essential elements, leaving us with what is basically a Roadrunner cartoon featuring people in suits and bikinis.
The film’s action begins with a team of hired killers–a couple guys with mustaches, a hot chick, and an afro sporting, smooth talking Jim Kelly wannabe–discussing their intention to assassinate a visiting Latin American diplomat. After that we’re immediately into the first assassination attempt, and from there to the arrival on the scene of the resplendently pompadoured Tony Falcon, who chases down the assassins in his car, doles out some faux fu and shoots at them. Another assassination attempt, in which Tony saves the diplomat from an exploding horse on a polo field, follows right on the heels of the first one, and then another, all leading to more chasing and shooting–and all, interestingly, played out with very little dialog. In fact, we don’t hear Tony utter more than two isolated lines at a time until the final twenty minutes of the picture. What dialog there is, however, is all uttered in heavily accented English, rather than Tagalog as I had expected.
Once it’s determined that they’re not going to be able to assassinate the visiting Latin American diplomat with Tony Falcon showing up to chase and shoot at them all the time, the hired killers decide that they should start trying to assassinate Tony Falcon instead. What follows is a series of set pieces in which we get to see what Tony Falcon does in his free time. While most movie secret agents seem to cool their heels by lounging in swanky cocktail lounges, what Tony appears to be doing here is attending a series of wedding receptions that are complete with buffets and awkward, seemingly obligatory ballroom dancing. Then we see him waterskiing with one of his gal pals and, later, golfing. All of these activities, of course, are interrupted by the killers showing up to shoot bullets at Tony through scope rifles, after which he chases, fu’s and shoots at them. These scenes also afford us an opportunity to marvel at some of Tony’s high-tech spy gadgetry, including some X-Ray Specs that work just as advertised, rendering everyone they gaze upon naked while having no effect upon the strategically placed furniture and foliage that hides their nasties.
Finally we are introduced to Dr. Ivan Skovsky (Mike Cohen), a super villain who sits in a control room staffed by women in bikinis and men in orange jumpsuits, considerately making calls at regular intervals to an army officer named Campos to explain his motivations for doing all of the things he’s having the hired killers do. These motivations, however, don’t seem very well thought out–or, at least, Skovsky doesn’t appear to be very committed to them. At first he want to assassinate the diplomat and extort just a bit of the Philippines’ gold reserves. Then he wants to extort all of the Philippines’ gold reserves under threat of him launching all kinds of nuclear missiles at the Philippines. When asked the very reasonable question of why he’s interested in the Filipinos’ gold in particular, he answers that he’s not so much interested in the gold itself as he is in sending a message to the world that he means business. He figures that, once he has either extorted all of the Philippines’ gold or annihilated the Philippines with all of his nuclear weapons, the rest of the world will simply lay down at his feet. This plan makes Skovsky come off more like a super-bully that a super-villain. After all, if you have to make an example of a country, why pick on one as poor and already troubled as the Philippines? It just doesn’t seem very sporting.
Eventually, by means of donning a fake beard, Tony Falcon gains entry into Skovsky’s secret compound, setting Sabotage’s spectacular climax in motion. Because Sabotage is a zero-budget action film, this will involve a lot of helicopters–or, more accurately, one helicopter playing a bunch of different helicopters–because nothing says “production value” like a helicopter. This leads to one of my favorite out of all the helicopter-related, zero-budget action film scenarios, in which someone fires a handgun at an airborne helicopter and it explodes like it was made entirely of atom bombs. After that comes the paratrooper assault, which is accomplished by having exactly two guys dressed as paratroopers filmed from various angles and in different locations to give the appearance of being many. Finally, with these items ticked off the list of things you need in a spy movie, a model of the villain’s compound is blown up and we’re free to go home.
Just a couple of years after making Sabotage, Tony Ferrer would star in his final Tony Falcon feature, a team-up with Fernando Poe Jr. titled The Eagle and The Falcon. After that he would only revisit the character by way of cameo roles in other films that served as either direct references or knowing-but-vague homages, in both cases reflecting the enduring affection with which Agent X-44 was regarded by the Filipino movie-going public. The first of these was when Ferrer played the boss of Weng Weng–that leathery, pocket-sized star of both Filipino action cinema and my most disturbing nightmares–in For Y’ur Height Only, a fact which should clue people in that Weng Weng’s Agent 00, with his blinding white suits, was as much an affectionate spoof of Tony Falcon as he was of James Bond. More recently, Ferrer reprised the Tony Falcon role in a 2007 comedic update of the character appropriately titled Agent X-44, in which he passed the torch to young star Vhong Navarro (who also starred in the Spider-Man spoof, Gagamboy). All of this is evidence that Ferrer has left a deep imprint on his country’s popular culture and, while I have no doubt that his status is well deserved, it will take far more than a viewing of Sabotage alone to fully explain it.
To be honest, I would rather not have watched Sabotage. But to its credit, it didn’t completely kill my desire to see some of the earlier entries in the Agent X-44 series. While the Tony Ferrer who’s on display in this particular example doesn’t present the most suave and sophisticated of secret agents, he is thoroughly likeable, and there’s something in his manner that suggests perhaps an echo of something more fabulous. I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed and hope that some day, if the gray market gods are willing, that murky, garbled artifact that is the nth generation bootleg of the genuine Tony Falcon, Agent X-44: Sabotage will make its way into my eager hands. Hey, nothing is beyond your reach when you dare to dream.
Review from the Internet Movie Database:
Posts
