No "Games of Death" after all!

Terrible news, my friends. Heartbreaking in fact. It seems fans of Filipino cinema won't have anything to look forward to for this year's Christmas. It's gonna be a cold, cold Christmas without... GAMES OF DEATH! Boo-hoo.

Over on Kung Fu Cinema Forum one of the members suggested to Global that he could buy the Ramon Zamora film GAMES OF DEATH (aka Dragon's Mission) (plus two other rare HK kung fu films) off Global and sell them on DVD-R. He received the three films and here's what he posted the other day:

[...] I received the movies all 3
2 widescreen and 1 fullscreen ...

The [problem] is that what he send to me the material lacks scenes it's as if you would go and buy yourself a book and when opening the book there are torn (chapters) pages missing ...
That's the case with these 3 movies ...

For ex Martial Mates 59 min of the movie and the last 16-17 min are added to after THE END.
Taken from the middle somewhere so it's a total mess ... My guess is that he misses 35mm material either it's lost or it's damaged.

This is the case with all 3 movies so I told him that I would not go along with this and have incomplete movies sold. I don't want to have a bunch of angry [kung fu] fans on my neck ... It's not my cup of tea ...
He said ok no matter... Whatever ...

He has found another guy now whom he has known for some time and he will get into this and have them sold after Dec month ...

I asked him will you enhance re-edit the movies with full material? He said I don't have any more material what's there is there!!!!!
Well, then I told him good luck with the selling ... And that's about it.

So apparently the RAMON ZAMORA film is not complete!!! :-(
What a bummer. Boo-hoo.

Games of Death is finally here. Uh... well... the cover is here anyway!

If you've followed this blog a while you'll know that I've tried to get Global in South Africa to send me their (his) DVD release of the ultra rare Filipino movie GAMES OF DEATH (aka Dragon's Mission). However, it's taken a looong while because of various reasons;

First he had to wait to see if anybody wanted the film, then he had to wait to have it printed, then he had to wait to get more copies printed (while the first batch for some reason wasn't being sent out), then he had to wait for what ever unknown reason, and now it seems he's not gonna send them out to the people who ordered them anyway!!!

The initial price was $15 per disc (he was going to release two more film, old kung fu films) plus postage. Well, apparently, someone on Kung Fu Cinema forum has been in contact with Global and if this someone can secure 60 (!!) people to buy all three films at a price of 60 (!!!) then... we can have them. Huh? I mean, just... H-U-H???

It's including postage to Europe ($70 to the US/Canada) but still!! There's a long way from being able to just buy one at 15 bucks to having to buy all three at $60!!! I have no interest in the two other films! And on top of this he's been selling copies on auctions on eBay with a start price of $20. This is just very, very weird. To quote someone from KFC forum: "fishy".

If it wasn't because this guy owns the only print (a 35mm print apparently) in the world, including bootleggers, I would just walk away from it. But he is the only one. I just don't understand why it has to be so fucken complicated. Global, send me you PayPal address, then I pay you. Easy. Not difficult!!!
Grrr.


Info from his eBay page:

DRAGON'S MISSION AKA "GAMES OF DEATH"

STARRING RAMON ZAMORA

IN THE TRADITION OF "ENTER THE DRAGON"

FIRST TIME AVAILABLE WITH ENG DUB

FULL SCREEN VERSION

FACTORY PRESSED DISC NOT A BOOTLEG OR DVD R

REGION 2 PAL ,PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR MACHINE IS COMPATIBLE AS NO REFUND WILL BE GIVEN FOR INCOMPATIBILITY



TRANSFERRED FROM 35MM .SOME ROPE LINES ARE VISIBLE

IMPORTANT MESSAGE: PLEASE ALLOW MIN 21 DAYS FROM THE DATE OF SHIPPING

ADDITIONAL COST FOR REGISTERED MAIL

SHIPPING IS NOT FREE AS STATED

THIS IS A LIMTED EDITION DVD

THE GAME OF DEATH (Philippines, 1974) on ultra limited DVD

aka GAMES OF DEATH (South Africa)



Jun Gallardo's RARE Filipino kung fu film THE GAME OF DEATH from 1974 (starring Ramon Zamora, "Philippines' Bruce Lee") has never been released to home-cinema before so it's pretty exciting that Global in South Africa are putting it out on DVD soon! And if you're into Filipino films I suggest you order a copy right away, the print run is ridiculously low. 82 copies to be exact!!! And yes, among Global's received orders are orders from people with such names as J. Jensen and A. Leavold. LOL.



At the same time as releasing THE GAME OF DEATH Global are also going to release MARTIAL MATES and SUPERGIRL OF KUNG FU. However, in contraction to THE GAME OF DEATH those two sound terrible dubbing wise (if you ask me anyway) as they're dubbed into typical old-skool kung fu film English (the global guy has posted clips on YouTube from those two as well). I'm not sure if GAME was actually shot in English but it certainly sounds much more natural.

By the way, this GAME OF DEATH is not to be confused with the Bruce Lee film of the same title, obviously. The Filipino film was actually made a full 4 yrs before the Robert Clouse film.