Skip to content

Category: action-adventure

Published on

Plot: backpacking tourists encounter mercenaries in the jungles of Thailand.

There’s something to be said about the tenets and profound effects of globalization when a contemporary Mainland Chinese jungle action-adventure in the 2010s plays out by the exact same beats and character ur-archetypes as the Thai jungle actioners of Chalong Pakdeevijit in the 90s, the late 80s Italian jungle adventures of the 80s, and Filipino exploitation of the 70s. Angel Warriors (or 鐵血嬌娃 back at home) is conclusive proof that regardless of the decade and/or the geographic location it was made in certain cinematic tropes and conventions remain universal and unchanging. While it never plunges to the depths of Extra Service (2017) its dour reputation is entirely and richly deserved and not without reason. No amount of hardbodied Sino babes will be able to save a feature with this much of a trainwreck of a script. Mainland China usually is better at military action than this. Angel Warriors will make you wish it was directed by Lu Yun-Fei. Sadly, he was not in the director’s chair for this one.

It truly makes no difference whether this was produced in Hong Kong, Bangkok, or Manila. The project was originally conceived in 2011 as Five-Star General - an alleged mix of Tomb Raider (2001) and the military jingoism of Avatar (2009) that pitted a group of female mercenaries or Amazon warriors against an enemy faction in the Thai jungles - and later the more Charlie’s Angels (2000) informed The Five.As a Thai co-production the Royal Thai Air Force was kind enough to supply helicopters. At some point the military aspect was toned down and the title was changed to Angel Warriors. Whether the screenplay by Huayang Fu and Shalang Xu was altered to accomodate these changes remains unclear. While Angel Warriors pushes an admirable environmental – and animal welfare agenda the screenplay is unbelievably slavish to convention, needlessly convoluted through non-functional flashbacks and rife with bad one-liners and even worse phonetic English. That it was directed by Fu Hua-Yang from the comedy hit Kung Fu Hip Hop (2008) probably didn’t help either.

Five backpacking tourist girls from Mainland China - Bai Xue (Yu Nan), CEO of a big company, passionate motorcyclist and leader of the pack; Yanyan (Frieda Hu Meng-Yuan), a professional dancer and practitioner of martial arts; Ah Ta (Mavis Pan Shuang-Shuang, as Mavis Pan), an wildlife protectionist; Dingdang (Wang Qiu-Zi), cousin of Bai Xue and internet entrepreneur in outdoor and extreme sports clothing and Tongtong (Wu Jing-Yi), archeologist, polyglot and the resident geek – embark on a trek through the Kana jungle in Thailand in search of the famed Tiger Tribe that has lived undisturbed and in isolation for hundreds of years. As girls are wont to do in they immediately head to the beach and break out their tiny bikinis. It is here that they meet local Dennis (Andy On Chi-Kit) and reformed mercenary Wang Laoying (Collin Chou Siu-Lung as Ngai Sing), a brother-in-arms and friend of Bai Xue’s late younger brother Bai Yun, and occupy themselves with swimming, diving and sailing. Along the way they pick up native guide and noble savage Sen (Xing Yu), betrothed of the princess of the Tiger Tribe. That night the girls go out clubbing and drinking in Pattaya beach and the obligatory bar brawl breaks out. Dennis introduces himself as a National Geographic documentary maker and soon the expedition is headed for Kana.

As the expedition heads deeper and deeper into the jungle the girls notice that the armed militia escorting Dennis is not what it seems. The expedition and the para-military units run into the Tiger Tribe and a fierce fight breaks loose. The natives are able to ward off the Chinese intruders but the girls are captured and imprisoned. The Tiger Tribe warrior princess Ha Er (Wang Danyi Li) and chieftain Aliao (Shi Fanxi, as Lawrence Shi) decree that the girls will be sacrificed to their god. Tongtong deduces what language the tribe speaks and is able to negiotiate the girls’ release. Dennis is revealed to be working with his Triad boss stepfather (Fu Hua-Yang) who are after the precious stones and other natural resources that the Kana jungle houses. The Triad boss sends Black Dragon (Kohata Ryu) and a female assassin (Renata Tan Li-Na) to neutralize both the backpacking girls as well as the native Tiger Tribe. By this point the girls have been accepted by the tribe and are being inducted into their ranks. Will the girls be strong enough to defeat the mercenaries that threaten the lush Kana jungle?

The main cast looks like they were ordered straight out of a Victoria’s Secret or Sports Illustrated Swimsuit catalog. Why Yu Nan, Collin Chou Siu-Lung and Wang Danyi Li ever agreed to be part of this production is anybody’s guess. Someone must have desperately needed the paycheck or wanted a cheap vacation in Thailand. Multiple award-winning and arthouse queen Yu Nan is the obvious draw here and Western viewers might recognize her from the Wachowskis’ Speed Racer (2008) and as Maggie from The Expendables 2 (2012). The other big name is Hong Kong and Mainland China veteran Collin Chou Siu-Lung. His earliest appearance of note was in Encounter of the Spooky Kind II (1990) but he’s known to Western audiences as Seraph from The Matrix: Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix: Revolutions (2003) as well as Ryu Hayabusa from the entertaining DOA: Dead or Alive (2006). Next to that his credits include, among many others, The Forbidden Kingdom (2008), Mural (2011), and Special ID (2013). Mavis Pan Shuang-Shuang was in the Sino What Women Want (2011) as well as Jing Wong's Treasure Inn (2011) and not much else. Like Wang Qiu-Zi she too rose to prominence as a model. Wang Danyi Li was unfortunate enough to be in the universally reviled 2011 remake of Tsui Hark’s A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) only to end up here. Renata Tan Li-Na would redeem herself with the Chrissie Chau Sau-Na wuxia The Extreme Fox (2013). She would become popular as a singer/dancer just like Wu Jing-Yi. Frieda Hu Meng-Yuan (a year away from adopting her Patricia Hu alias) would go on to become the focus in the breast-centric action romp Ameera (2014). Collin Chou Siu-Lung and Andy On Chi-Kit were in better movies before and after this and they bring some semblance of respectability to this brainless waste of talent.

Where Angel Warriors falters most disastrously is in its screenplay. This is the absolute last place to look at improving the already deeply troubled Sino-Thai relations. Like its Italian forebears of the 1970s and 80s Angel Warriors is rife with imperialist - and genetic xenophobia depicting Thai people as uncultured, jungle-dwelling savages in need to saving by the enlightened white-skinned Chinese. The pre-title opening narration from Xing Yu is in Engrish and thus insulting to not only the Thai but to the English as well. The screenplay briefly toys with the idea of spirit animals and totems, but nothing is really made of it. For a bit it pushes an eco-friendly and animal welfare narrative, but both ideas are discarded almost as soon as they are introduced. Since this an ensemble cast with a few models, dancers and assorted Sino beauty queens the first thing the girls do is break out the bikinis, splash and swim in the nearest lake and before the expedition the girls party in revealing evening dresses. Mainland China might be demure and chaste but they never not took the time to extensively ogle a beautiful girl. It’s difficult to estimate whether writers Huayang Fu and Shalang Xu are just terrible at what they do or whether they were handed the wrong project. Regardless, Angel Warriors is nothing short of a modern day Green Inferno (1988) or a spiritual Sino precursor to the Filipino zombie ensemble comedy iZla (2021). On a lighter note, if you want to make a drinking game out of every time “extreme outdoor backpackers” is mentioned, you’ll be hospitalized within a good 30 minutes.

In theory the affordability of CGI should be a boon to Chinese exploitation cinema but h!story has proven it be more of a bane instead. In what seems like a regional trend it’s the rampant CGI that completely kills much of the production. There’s a time and place for CGI but in Angel Warriors it’s used indiscriminately and disproportionately especially in places where practical special effects would have sufficed. A combination of stock footage, animatronics and practical effects could’ve rendered the tiger scenes. The action scenes are as bullet-ridden and explosive as any contemporary American production. The fight choreography by Ma Yuk-Sing is up to the required standard, although high-flying wire-fu, martial arts acrobacy and interesting fighting routines weren’t in the books here. Obviously there was some budget to go around with Angel Warriors, but apparently the majority of funds was spent in the wrong place. Angel Warriors should’ve opted for the cost-efficient route and used CGI only sparingly. Somewhere along the way somebody lost the plot and the production obviously suffered direly from it. Angel Warriors is definitely not alone in its over-reliance on and over-usage of CGI, it’s a trend in Asian cinema of late. Hopefully the savage critical response will lead to a more old-fashioned special effects usage. Whenever the screen isn’t blinking director Fu Hua-Yang will remind us that all the girls are really pretty.

One of the remnants of this being an Charlie’s Angels (2000) derivative the five girls all wear sexy outfits corresponding with their main interest or defining character trait. Only Bai Xue and Tongtong wear anything remotely semi-practical. Yanyan, Ah Ta and Dingdang all wear some Tomb Raider imitation outfit and midriff baring tops lest we forget that they are played by Frieda Hu Meng-Yuan, Mavis Pan Shuang-Shuang and Wang Qiu-Zi. Not that any no extreme outdoor backpacker would ever wear what the Angel Warriors are seen in here. Suspension of belief is one thing but Angel Warriors goes completely overboard in reminding everybody how attractive the main cast is. Only Frieda Hu Meng-Yuan (who apparently had the greatest potential of becoming a star of her own) was able to move on from Angel Warriors although the following year’s Ameera (2014) all but killed her career. It would be interesting to see Yu Nan, Frieda Hu Meng-Yuan, Wu Jing-Yi, and Mavis Pan Shuang-Shuang (either seperately or together) in a full-blown Girls With Guns - or period costume wuxia production. It’s not so much that these women can’t act but that they are victims of a poor screenplay. There’s always hope that either Jing Wong or Tsui Hark will pick up them in the future.

Published on

Plot: Waldemar Daninsky fights bandits, witches, cannibals, vampires, and a Yeti too!

La Maldición de la Bestia (or The Curse of the Beast, released in Europe under the more descriptive title The Werewolf and the Yeti and in North America as Night Of the Howling Beast) is the eighth chapter in the epic El Hombre Lobo saga and according to director Miguel Iglesias it did better on the international market than at home. The final of the classic era at long last explores that burning question first raised in The Fury Of the Wolfman (1970) some five years before. What horrible fate exactly befell noted anthropologist Waldemar Daninsky on that ill-fated journey into the Himalayas? The Werewolf and the Yeti was Paul Naschy’s ultimate pièce de résistance and saw his cursed Polish nobleman face off against Nepalese bandits, witches, cannibals, and his ancient arch-nemesis, the ravenna strigoi mortii Wandesa – and a Yeti, too. The Werewolf and the Yeti is probably the best El Hombre Lobo this side of The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman (1971) and the ambitious The Return Of Walpurgis (1973).

This time Waldemar Daninsky has quite the gallery of rogues to withstand. His first order of business are a bunch of Himalayan cave-dwelling cannibal vampires Second, and more importantly, he has to defeat a band of Nepalese bandits led by Temugin and face the even greater threat of warlord Sekkar Khan. To top things off, Khan is but a plaything for the mighty Wandesa Dárvula de Nadasdy, the ancient and nefarious sorceress he had faced two times before in The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman (1971) and The Mark of the Wolfman (1968). Finally, and probably more of an afterthought than a real adversary, a Yeti is on the loose and killing people. It’s up to Waldemar Daninsky to stop all of them from wreaking havoc upon the innocent. One way of describing The Werewolf and the Yeti is like a greatest hits of sorts. What better way to start exploring the crazy El Hombre Lobo saga than with an episode that has a bit of everything (and plenty of craziness of its own) that came before? For one, it’s probably the single-most breakneck paced and veritably insane of the series.

Esteemed Polish anthropologist and psychologist Waldemar Daninsky (Jacinto Molina Álvarez, as Paul Naschy) is summoned to London, England at behest of his old friend and archeologist professor Lacombe (José Castillo Escalona, as Castillo Escalona). Lacombe has come into possession of irrefutable proof that the mythical Yeti does exist. Tragically, it was the last sign of life from the doomed Sylas Newman expedition into Dathokari, Kathmandu. Lacombe is mounting an expedition into Tibet with his daughter Sylvia (Mercedes Molina, as Grace Mills) and his team – Lacombe’s assistant Ralph (Ventura Ollé), Melody (Verónica Miriel), as well as strongmen Norman (Juan Velilla), and Larry Talbot (Gil Vidal) - with Daninsky acting as their guide. In Tibet native liaison Tiger (Gaspar "Indio" González) and his sherpas will guide the expedition deep into the land. The way Daninsky sees it the best place to start is where the Newman trail went cold. That place is the mountain range of Karakoram on the borders of Pakistan, India, and China.

Bad weather conditions force the expedition to seek an alternative route to the Rombuc barrier and the pass that the Newman expedition mentioned in their communiquées. Tiger is none too happy with the prospect and issues a dire warning that local folklore and superstition claim the "Pass of the Demons of the Red Moon" is cursed and thus to be avoided. Not wanting to endanger the life of his men Tiger helps the group find someone willing to venture into the cursed land. That man is cross-eyed, semi-alcoholic, and half-mad adventurer Joel (Víctor Israel). Waldemar volunteers to follow Joel into the pass but when he disappears under mysterious circumstances Daninsky soon finds himself lost in the endless snows. Exhausted and injured from his ordeal Waldemar seeks refuge in a nearby cave and finds that it’s inhabited by two attractive women (Carmen Cervera and Pepa Ferrer). The semi-feral women nurse him back to health – and just when he is strong enough to journey back he discovers both of them are cannibal vampires. In the throes of passion he’s bitten and cursed with lycanthropy but manages to escape.

Around the same time the remainder of the expedition is taken hostage by Temugin (José Luis Chinchilla) who takes them to the stronghold of Sekkhar Khan (Luis Induni). Khan is a vicious warlord who has plans to expand his dominion and his armed troops have thrown the region into chaos and destroyed any and all existing opposition. Khan has annexed it for his own and enslaved local ruler princess Ulka (Ana María Mauri). Before rejoining the expedition Waldemar is entrusted with a cure for his full moon sickness by monk Lama (Fernando Ulloa). While Sekkhar Khan obviously poses enough of a threat by his lonesome, the black force behind him, the immortal witch Wandesa (Silvia Solar) - whom Daninsky faced twice before in lives once lived - does not take kind of Waldemar’s interference, wolfen or otherwise, and has Sekkhar Khan dole out severe punishment for his transgressions. With the professor, Sylvia, and Melody imprisoned by Khan’s bandit forces and princess Ulka rendered powerless Waldemar has but one option: to risk life and limb to rescue his friends from the claws of the warlord and his diabolical mistress. To make matters worse Daninsky also has to keep them out of the hungry maw of that pesky Yeti that is still at large…

After the gothic horror and mad science of the prior six episodes The Werewolf and the Yeti ramps up the action-adventure aspect. At times it sort of feels like a budget-deprived antecedent to Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) - except that that was a tribute to 1930s adventure serials, and Naschy’s feels like a 1950s adventure with a copious amount of blood, sex, and just about every monster that was popular in 70s horror. Actually, Naschy was never given the due credit for the inclusion of cannibalism here. Sure, it was more of the hokey The Night of the Sorcerers (1974) variety – but even by that standard he was early to the races. Man from Deep River (1972) is probably the earliest Italian example of the genre, and Argentina got there even earlier with the Libertad Leblanc jungle adventure Captive Of the Jungle (1969). Vampires and witches had been sweeping over Mediterranean Europe for a good five years by 1975, and they always had a been a staple of the Naschy oeuvre. In keeping with the times The Werewolf and the Yeti is easily the bloodiest and sleaziest of the classic El Hombre Lobo canon. With Mercedes Molina, Verónica Miriel, and Silvia Solar there’s plenty to look at and neither shy from taking their tops off when and where it matters. Naschy, of course, never hid why he casted all these Eurobabes in the first place either. Solar might not have the same prestige as Helga Liné, Adriana Ambesi, Diana Lorys, Mirta Miller, or Perla Cristal – but for an elder stateswoman she’s hardly the worst choice. If it wasn't for this Solar would never have done the possibly even more insane Eurociné gothic horror The Wicked Caresses of Satan (1976).

In a series that always prided itself in having some the most beloved and delectable Eurobabes, The Werewolf and the Yeti probably features the least known. Where it previously had former Bond girls (Karin Dor), local superstars (Aurora de Alba, Yelena Samarina, Perla Cristal, and Mirta Miller), hot-to-trot starlets (Dyanik Zurakowska, Rosanna Yanni, Fabiola Falcón, and Maritza Olivares), imported talent (Gaby Fuchs, Barbara Capell, Patty Shepard, and Shirley Corrigan), and reliable domestic second-stringers (Betsabé Ruiz, María Silva, María Luisa Tovar, Victoria Hernández, and Marisol Delgado) the only real star of note here is Silvia Solar. Compared to any and all of their illustrious predecessors Mercedes Molina, Verónica Miriel, and Ana María Mauri are nobodies, relative or otherwise. Why did we never see any French belles (Dominique Delpierre, Edwige Fenech, Françoise Pascal, Jeanne Goupil, or Muriel Catalá), Swedish sex goddesses (Leena Skoog, Solveig Andersson, Christina Lindberg, Marie Forså), Italo babes (Claudia Gravy, Erika Blanc, Gloria Guida, Rita Calderoni, Barbara Magnolfi, Paola Tedesco, Laura Antonelli or Femi Benussi) or exotic delights (Laura Gemser, Zeudi Araya, and Me Me Lai) alongside Naschy?

The appearance of Shirley Corrigan never led to an influx of UK babes (Barbara Steele, Candace Glendenning, Valerie Leon, Yutte Stensgaard, Kirsten Lindholm, Pippa Steele, or Judy Matheson). Why did no German sex comedy starlets (Christina von Blanc, Ursula Buchfellner, Olivia Pascal, Edwige Pierre, Christine Zierl) or Lederhosenporn regulars (Ingrid Steeger, Ulrike Butz, Judith Fritsch, Alena Penz, Flavia Keyt, or Gisela Schwartz), Cine-S superstars (Eva Lyberten, Andrea Albani, Sara Mora), or famous foreign imports (Lynn Lowry, Danielle Ouimet, Anulka Dziubinska) and Latin American horror royalty (Amalia Fuentes, Tina Romero, Susana Beltrán, Gloria Prat, or Maribel Guardia) ever turn up over the course of the latter El Hombre Lobo episodes? It’s unbelievable enough that famous locals as Maribel Martín, Carmen Yazalde, Silvia Tortosa or Tina Sáinz never were part of the series – or Naschy’s other work for that matter.

The Werewolf and the Yeti marked the end of an era. Four more sequels would materialize sporadically over the next two decades, but the halcyon days of Waldemar Daninsky were now well and truly behind him. During the eighties - a decade that saw a great decline in Italian and Spanish horror and exploitation - only two episodes were produced with Return of the Wolfman (1980) and the Japanese co-production The Beast and the Magic Sword (1983). After that Daninsky would only resurface with Lycantropus: The Moonlight Murders (1997) that was cut to shreds by director Francisco Rodríguez Gordillo. Closing chapter Tomb of the Werewolf (2004) fared possibly even worse being written and directed by American low budget impresario Fred Olen Ray and late cinematographer Gary Graver. Naschy and fellow veteran John Henry Richardson found themselves surrounded by a bevy of American screamqueens (Michelle Bauer, Danielle Petty, Beverly Lynne, Monique Alexander) in a production that bore little semblance to what Jacinto Molina had spent 40 years cultivating. It’s a sorry end for one of Naschy’s greatest and most enduring cinematic creations. Alas, time had not been kind to Naschy and somehow he had become a relic of a bygone age. Although reappraised in his native Spain in his old age and duly recognized and awarded internationally for his cinematic contributions, Paul Naschy would pass away, age 75, in Madrid in 2009. Naschy might be dead, but El Hombre Lobo is forever.