War City: Die to Win - trailer

Awesome! I want this! It's out on uncut DVD outta South Africa. :D

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.

Three new ones from Global

As you'll surely remember unless you have the memory of a dingbat last week I casually mentioned some upcoming kung fu DVD releases from Global in South Africa. And a couple of days ago titles and dates for the first three releases were announced by the label:

SUPERGIRL OF KUNG FU
MARTIAL MATES
GAMES OF DEATH (from the Philippines, starring Ramon Zamora)

The three films are going to hit the streets on May the 30th and they'll be printed in huge print runs of 50,000... I mean... 50 copies each!!! @_@

I have no idea as to why the low print runs but maybe they don't reckon they're gonna sell very well. Incidentally, almost all copies have already been sold out (and yes I have secured the Filipino flick!).

Upcoming kung fu movies from Global

If you've read some of my old posts recently you know I've been talking quite a bit about the rare and unreleased (to homecinema anyway) Hong Kong/Thailand Lo Lieh film BIG BOSS PART 2 which Naushad Mohamed from Global Video had a print of until very recently.

A while ago a forum member that I know from Uncut.dk forum wrote to him and asked about the film and was told that he sold off the print to a cinema in Zambia. On the Kung Fu Cinema forum he has stated that he's kept a copy of the film (in one format or another, I'm not sure if it's a mere DVD-R or what) and I was hoping he'd be willing to sell either DVD-R copies of the film or even put it out as a proper DVD. Well, no such luck. He mentioned today on KFC that if he puts it out it won't be for several years.

MARTIAL MATES aka Black Dragon River

However, I asked Naushad which movies he is planning to put out in the near future and here's a list of upcoming titles. They're all taken from his 35mm prints.


Titles to be released soon:
MARTIAL MATES aka Black Dragon River
SUPERGIRL OF KUNG FU
GAME OF DEATH (Ramon Zamora)
FEMALE CHIVALRY
SPIRIT OF THE DRAGON (Ramon Zamora)
KUNG FU MONK

And later in the year/possibly next year:
KARATE STORY
ROTARY KICKS

And these English dubbed SB films:
DUEL OF FISTS
FLYING GUILOTINE 2
MY YOUNG AUNTIE


GLOBAL VIDEO
Global Video is located in South Africa and is run by Naushad Mohamed. From what I'm told Naushad Mohamed inherited a lot of films from his father-in-law who owned one of the biggest cinemas in S.A. and it's from this huge collection that he gets his rare prints.

Global Video is quite well known among fans of Italian spaghetti westerns as Naushad has put out many of these titles on DVD. Titles that are rare and/or haven't even been released to homecinema anywhere else. Global has also put out a number of other films but in posts on various forums Mohamed has kept stating that he prefers to put out spaghetti westerns as they're much more profitable than for instance Filipino films. He's always made it clear he's in this as a businessman, not as a film fan.

Actually, at some stage he was going to go put out a whole line of very rare Filipino films (one was Bobby A. Suarez' COSA NOSTRA ASIA, starring Chris Mitchum, which has never been released anywhere in English) but he cancelled the line after only three films (BIONIC BOY, DYNAMITE JOHNSON: BIONIC BOY 2, and THEY CALL HER CLEOPATRA WONG) because they didn't sell very well (he stated at one point they only sold 300 copies each). There's been speculation (and debate) among fans on message boards as to whether his DVDs (real factory printed DVDs, not DVDR) are bootlegs or not but Mohamed maintains they are legal releases as he has bought the rights for them in South Africa.

I bought the two BIONIC BOY films and CLEO WONG from him and they're pretty cool to have, not least since they haven't been released anywhere else on DVD. The picture quality isn't all that great; I don't know if he has a machine to copy from 35mm himself or he pays someone else to do it but the DVDs look like they've been transferred in the most crude way possible. When you watch the DVDs it's exactly like watching a film print with all its flaws that come from having been played quite a bit in cinemas. I guess somehow it has a certain charm.

The DVD covers are pretty basic and there's absolutely no extras on the discs. Global have no website as, according to Naushad Mohamed, nobody uses that in South Africa! So it's actually a little difficult to figure out how many titles are available or not.

The Bionic Boy + Cleopatra Wong DVDs (Starlite Video)

I re-watched Bobby A. Suarez's Filipino movie DYNAMITE JOHNSON: Bionic Boy part 2 on DVD last night. The film is out from from Starlite Video (aka Global Video) in South Africa which also put out the first BIONIC BOY film and the related THEY CALL HER CLEOPATRA WONG.

All three films are quite enjoyable and all are unfortunately quite difficult to get hold of. CLEOPATRA WONG plus yet another Suarez film, ONE-ARMED EXECUTIONER, are going to get a reg. 1 release (probably) at the end of the year so that's pretty good. Brilliant actually. But it still leaves the two BIONIC BOY films hanging somewhere in the void, unfortunately.

Anyway, what I really wanted to address is some complete nonsense which is mentioned in regards to all three films on the German film data base OFDb, where it says:

Bemerkungen:
Hier diente wohl ein VHS als Vorlage, dementsprechend dürftig sind Bild und Ton.

What they're basically saying is that all three DVDs were sourced from video tapes and that the picture and sound is crap! Well, it appears that whoever wrote the comments (someone calling himself "Zeiram") obviously couldn't distinguish between a less than perfect transfer from film print to DVD, and a worn video tape!! And that's exactly what this is; The three DVDs are so not sourced from VHS but from real film elements! I have no idea of whether they're from 35mm or from 16mm but all three films are presented in the fullscreen format which could indicate they're from 16mm (but don't run with that as solid proof as I really have no idea!!).

The reason the picture is less than perfect in parts (only in parts! Most of the films look fine!!) is that these DVDs weren't released by some big-ass company who had enough money for proper transfers and restoration. Starlite Video is actually just one guy who's sitting on a bunch of rare film prints which he inherited years ago from a family member who owned an old cinema.


In my opinion the prints are alright. No, they're not perfect and if you need everything to be HD then I'd advise you stay clear of these DVDs. But if you're into worldweird films and excitement found outside of Blockbuster then I would suggest you pick up these releases when you find them. Or rather... "would have picked them up" as they're actually out of print and are already rare. According to the guy behind Starlite/Global they only sold around 300 copies each so there won't be a any reprints and the handful of other Filipino films he has in his possession and which were planned for release won't be released now. Boo-hoo. One of them was even COSA NOSTRA ASIA which has never been released anywhere to the home cinema market in English! :o(