Bootleg Boom-Booms
Bootleg Boom-Booms
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco [Video Troll]
Published in: The Manila Times, January 11, 1988
FOR all the perverse joy one derives from seeing bootlegged titles before they’re screened downtown, naughtiness has its drawbacks. In general, pirated tapes are poor in audio-visual quality, being reproduced from preview copies on the sly or taped from the last row in the orchestra with a handheld videocam. Then too, bootlegged titles are recorded over and over again on low-cost videocassettes — owing to the rapid turnover in the underground trade and the probability of eventual confiscation — which can be murder on your machine and shorten its life by years. There’s also the law to think about, a local movie industry ready to keel over, and the loss of millions of pesos in potential taxes. If that’s not enough to dissuade you, here’s two you might enjoy:
HANGMEN — Talk about bloodbaths in January, this one oozes crimson-magenta and then some. A virtual fashion preview of hi-tech assault weaponry bandied like cult objects on parade, the murderous storyline makes the killing in Cambodia look like a small-time massacre. Danny Green is a typical college sophomore whose father is a super hit-man for the CIA. When a shady rival faction of renegade agents goes hunting for his dad’s head, Danny gets sucked into the melee by birthright. His mom is pounded into chopped liver within earshot, and his girlfriend is taken hostage with the use of tranquilizer darts. When Danny links up with his dad’s old Vietnam buddies, the battle escalates into a nuclear war. Director, producer and scriptwriter J. Christian Invordsen manages a fairly tight film despite the lean plot, banking on the credible ferocity of Rick Washburn, Jake La Motta, Dog Thomas and Cosmo Vinyl. Bedwetters beware!
RAGING THUNDER — Artistry is seldom a factor for serious consideration in a true-blue action film, and karate movies have never been repositories of intellectual plunder. Strangely enough, the worst of them are destined for cult-status on a decade of drive-in reruns. This wildly-mundane, war-mongering contemporary melodrama has found its way to the underground box-office charts with a constipated flurry of prosthetic gore, flying kicks and crackerjack ribbing, that could make a cheap Hongkong movie shine like a rare gem. A cocky, apparently-retarded Taekwondo expert from the land of milk and honey comes to Thailand, primarily to show off his prowess and to re-live old times with both a hometown buddy and an old school flame. There is much eating of mice and stewed snakes, and all the while the script could make a corpse squirm. How bad is bad enough?
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “Bootleg Boom-Booms” (page 1 of 1), The Manila Times, January 11, 1988
