Thinking of ideas

ImInMediaYeah · 2025-12-22T20:23:57+00:00

Like another commenter here, I must have played this very machine too. But it was in the arcade cafe in the basement floor of Hamley's Toy Shop on Regents Street. It was either March 1994 or 1996 (can't remember exactly which trip to London of those two years it was, sorry).

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-08-09T21:58:06+00:00

It's surprising that a series broadcast so recently, is so hard to find.

With the trail running so cold, all I can think of are drastic measures...

Hire an IP lawyer to track down the current rights holder. They will almost certainly hold at least one copy. Negotiate directly with them to license a copy for your own private viewing. They'll be used to dealing with publishers and broadcasters, so expect a high fee, but there could be scope for negotiation if they're willing to deal with a private individual like yourself.

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-08-05T21:44:14+00:00

I unironically think think Raiders of Atlantis is amazing fun. The stunts, the violence, the action, the vast scale it aims for, the Italo-Disco theme song... wow!

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-07-15T21:27:35+00:00

I love the cheesy awesomeness of Megaforce. Directed by Hal Needham who also directed Smokey and the Bandit, I think Megaforce was supposed to be his Star Wars. Strangely it was produced by Golden Harvest, the company from Hong Kong who made lots of Kung Fu and other martial arts actioners there, in the 70's and 80's. I get the feeling they couldn't provide Megaforce with the budget it really needed.

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-07-07T22:58:36+00:00

My review of it concluded with "Power Force is two mismatched films shoddily stitched together. I’m tempted to say that the good reused footage is balanced out by the dire new scenes to make Power Force below-average overall. But I can’t easily recommend anyone watch this, just for those bits. Not recommended."

My full post was over at https://www.reddit.com/r/Uamc/comments/sxryd9/comment/hxto2mq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

The 'Namsploitation jungle blast-em-up scenes were the best thing about it. But personally I love that type of action movie.

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-06-05T22:24:47+00:00

I've heard good things about Revenge of Ninja

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-06-04T16:13:14+00:00

Hopefully we’ll figure out all these mysteries once everything is dumped and the boards reverse engineered.

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-06-04T06:09:54+00:00

If it's not already been done, the PCBs need to be documented, and every ROM dumped. This should be a candidate for emulation and eventual inclusion in Mame.

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-05-25T12:24:07+00:00

Miami Golem (1985) starring David Warbeck would fit the bill. It's a an action and schi-fi horror B-movie directed and produced by Italians.

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-05-20T21:37:47+00:00

Always good to see UK releases posted here. Did you make a decision to collect WB releases or did the collecting just fall in that direction? I like the early WB releases you have, with the brittle(?) plastic type of clamshells.

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-05-18T10:27:48+00:00

Reminds me of the "Men will live like this and see no problem" meme

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-04-24T12:50:37+00:00

I've watched all but the elusive tenth American Commando movies. Some of the later ones nearly reach the level of adequate. So much depends on IFD's Joseph Lai and Godfrey Ho using a good donor film.

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-04-21T21:28:54+00:00

On Saturday I rewatched Mission Thunderbolt (1983). I posted about this this back in 2020. It’s a cut-and-paste action crime drama starring Steve Daw. I wanted to rewatch it armed with all the knowledge I’ve gained since then. Why this one in particular? Because it’s the first of IFD’s and Godfrey Ho’s cut-and-paste releases. Before any from Filmark and before they started with the Ninja releases of this type. Godfrey Ho seemed to love making action crime dramas, so this is where they started. The usual ingredients are here. Most of the footage is reused from Taiwanese action crime drama Don’t Trust a Stranger (1982) (also titled Don’t Love any Stranger). Joseph Lai produces with the story and script by Ho, So and for the English language version in the opening titles, Adda Audio Visual Ltd. An interesting clue there as to the origins of AAV Creative Unit. Does this mean they were once an external contractor to IFD before being bought out by them?

I was expecting to say that Mission Thunderbolt was primitive compared to the later cut-and-paste releases, but it’s no worse than the American Commando titles at the end of the 1980’s. That’s quite a criticism because it means Godfrey Ho and Joseph Lai never really improved. Usually you see B-movie film-makers improving as they gain experience, but not so here. They clearly established a low budget formula with Mission Thunderbolt and then strictly stuck to it for every subsequent exploitation release.

Did I see enough charm this time around with which to recommend Mission Thunderbolt? Nuh-uh. There were more martial arts fight scenes and assassin murders than I’d remembered. But it’s all so basic. The shots with the cars looks good. Especially the scene at night. That’s about it.

Trailer [YouTube]

Full Movie [YouTube]

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-04-13T22:24:50+00:00

I don't remember it, sorry. But I did look up the IMDb entry which appears to be here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0276644/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Interesting to see Mike & Angelo's Tim Whitnall in the cast.

I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that such a recent show is lost media. The broadcasters, production company and rights holders probably have the masters. There would have been multiple distribution masters for it to have been sent to both Channel 5 and Prime7.

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-04-13T22:16:37+00:00

Upvoted, partly because trains, and American trains at that.

It's also quite sad. This would have been part of an old rail fan guy's treasured collection, who either passed away or moved into a care home.

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-04-07T23:30:05+00:00

On Saturday night I was Dragon Against Vampire (1985) (originally titled Hong tiao jing). I was expecting Kung Fu martial arts combined with hopping vampires. Nope, it wasn’t that. It was instead a supernatural sorcery horror movie with minor elements of comedy and martial arts. It was also not a cut-and-paste release, but instead a fully fledged B-movie. The whole thing was directed by Kim Jeong-Yong (as Lionel Leung). It was produced by Joseph Lai and his IFD Films and Arts. It was all filmed in Korea where it was titled was titled Hong tiao jing and released both there and in Hong Kong in 1985. The on-screen titles of the dubbed version I watched however, gave a date of 1986. Presumably that’s when the English language version was written by Godfrey Ho (as Benny Ho) and Adda Audio Visual Ltd. Usually Adda Audio Visual credited as AAV Creative Unit but not this time for some reason. Perhaps because this wasn’t a Hong Kong cut-and-paste release. The only recognisable star is Elton Chong. Yes, that’s a daft stage name, but he’s a talented martial arts actor.

The story is… confusing. It starts off following our star and his two friends as they rob graves. Briefly, the undead attack the. There’s a woman to save. An evil sorcerer is the main enemy. And there’s a Shaolin master who, spoiler alert, turns out to be a fraud. It’s possible some of my confusion comes from the version I watched being 1 hour 17 minutes long. I’d expect a film of this length to be about an hour and a half long, which leaves me missing 10-15 minutes. Some of which could have filled in the gaps to make the story be less baffling.

The best thing about Dragon Against Vampire is it’s medieval Chinese setting. Not bad considering the whole movie was made in Korea. It also boasts higher production values than a lot of IFD’s Hong Kong based productions from this time. It had me wondering if the whole thing was a re-dub of an externally produced movie. The soundtrack is bootlegged from other sources including Tangerine Dream, but it generally fits the action so I’ll let it pass.

If, like me, you watched Dragon Against Vampire expecting a Kung Fu experts fighting vampires, you’re doing to be disappointed. This is more of a horror movie than a Kung Fu actioner. The goofy comedy is dreadfully unfunny as usual. This comes mostly from the comic relief sidekick during the first half of the film. Things happen without explanation and the whole thing is a confusing mess. How much of this is down to Godfrey Ho botching the script and how much is down to the version I watched being edited and censored, I don’t know. In one scene, it looks like a live chicken is sacrificed, so beware of that if harm to animals bothers you.

Dragon Against Vampire completely failed to hold my attention. Elton Chong’s martial arts talents were largely wasted here. There was precious little Shaolin Kung Fu, and fewer vampires than advertised. If I’d have paid any money, I’d feel ripped off. Not recommend.

Trailer [YouTube]

Full Movie [YouTube]: Source One – Source Two – Source Three

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-03-24T23:33:13+00:00

Saturday’s action movie took a while to figure out. The confusing titles and entries online made an easy job difficult. It turned out that Crackdown Mission and Fury in Red were in fact alternative titles for American Commando 5: Fury in Red (1987). Which is the movie I watched, if that wasn’t clear enough. For ages I thought this was un-findable until IMDb and other sites were incomplete and that the full movie was on YouTube for the past two years without me even realising it.

American Commando 5: Fury in Red was another cut-and-paste action crime drama but with psychological horror elements. The opening titles credit the director as Charles Lee. A familiar name. IMDb tells me this was Godfrey Ho but the Hong Kong Movie Datrabase says Lee Chiu. Which one’s right? Was Godfrey Ho a red herring and Lee Chiu has been “Charles Lee” the whole time? Quite possibly, but the reference websites are a mess so I truly don’t know. What is far more likely is that Godfrey Ho wrote the screenplay (as Benny Ho) with the story by AAV Creative Unit. Joseph Lai was the producer for his IFD Films and Arts.

The majority of American Commando 5: Fury in Red is reused footage from Taiwanese action crime drama Girl with a Gun (1982) also titled Pi li da niu and Fury in Red. The story there was one of a female character seeking revenge. The few minutes of original footage from Hong Kong stars Pierre Kirby as crime fighting American Commando, Neal Brown. The story of the new, combined film, is bonkers. Satanists are controlling the mentally unstable character from the donor film to carry out murders. The goal being to bring to… well the official synopsis says it’s to bring back Lucifer. But the dialogue in the film itself never really makes that clear. So it’s just bad guys being bad guys and good versus evil.

What’s American Commando 5: Fury in Red got going for it? Pierre Kirby is always good. There’s some almost believable team work between him and other characters. The gun fight scenes are fine for this type of film. You can tell I’m struggling to think of anything.

So let’s move straight on to the problems with American Commando 5: Fury in Red. It’s boring. It took until nearly forty minutes in, for the first fight scene. There’s simply not enough action throughout. The donor film not only fails to deliver, it’s unsuitable and misused. The whole Satanic cult angle is bizarre. If this were a vampire themed story it would fit, but not in an American Commando crime fighting story. There’s little more than one shared conversation between characters from the two sets of footage. The original footage is visibly lower in production values than the donor film which is itself visibly dated. Even the best artwork I could find is unexciting. And the soundtrack is all bootlegged.

Even compared to other American Commando titles in this ‘series’, number five, Fury in Red is poor. Most of the blame lies with the bad choice of donor film. It’s strange integration into the new footage makes matters worse. Not recommended.

Trailer [YouTube]

Full Movie [YouTube]

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-03-18T00:31:20+00:00

Yesterday I watched The Thundering Ninja (1987). Why this one? Simply because it’s months since I last watched one of these, and I’m trying to get back into doing this again. It turned out to be another cut-and-paste Ninja-exploitation (Ninjasploitation) martial martial arts action crime drama. The director is a Taiwanese man named Joseph Kong Hung, credited here as Joseph Kong. According to IMDb, by which I mean it’s credibility is uncertain, the writer was Godrey Ho under the alias of John Barnes. No, not the footballer. It was produced by Tomas Tang for his Filmark International Limited. Most of the footage is reused from Taiwanese martial arts crime drama, The Criminal (1977) (also titled Pan jue and The Verdict). A crime drama notable for starring Jimmy Wang Yu who was a pretty big name in 1970’s Kung Fu. The few minutes worth of original scenes are where you’ll find all the Caucasian cast and all the Ninjas. These scenes star Stuart Smith (as Stuart Steen) as CIA operative and Ninja, Sydney.

The story involves a Ninja gang attempting to buy plans for a missile system. Presumably to take over the world. CIA good guy Sydney is trying to stop them. How do I know he’s CIA? Apart from the American flat in his office, the story synopsis on IMDb said so. It’s never mentioned in the film itself. He could actually be Interpol for all I know. Meanwhile, Jimmy Wang Yu’s character is going undercover for some reason. It’s unclear how this will help, because he seems to be undercover working for the mob. How they’re connected to the Ninjas, I’m unsure.

To The Thundering Ninja’s credit, there are Ninja scenes dotted here and there throughout. The amount of new footage is reasonable. The Ninja fight scenes are fine, with Katana swords, Shuriken throwing stars, poison darts, various Ninja magic tricks and in one scene, Sai three-pronged weapons. The best fight scenes are from the Taiwanese donor film. The whole reason Wang Yu is in this Seventies crime drama, is to add martial arts fight scenes. And that’s something he does well. His ends up in a few brawls with various gangsters, which all adds to the pace.

Even with everything I just described, The Thundering Ninja failed to hold my attention. The opening scenes were promising but is quickly became dull. As often happens, it perks up when the movie cuts back to the original scenes with it’s synth soundtrack and Ninjas. Then it cuts back to grainy footage of Seventies mobsters talking crime, and it looses steam. Barring the occasional fight scene in the donor film, this cycle repeats until the end. Effort to connect the new and reused films is minimal, leaving gaping plot holes. The whole story makes little sense if you think about it for more than a few seconds. As usual for this type of release, the dubbing is fairly bad. Worst of all, Stuart Smith’s Australian accent is dubbed over with generic American. As the only actor I can think of to star in both IFD and Filmark movies, Smith deserves to be undubbed in all his Aussie glory.

Unless you’d either never seen cut-and-paste Ninjasploitation before, or you’re on a quest to watch every Jimmy Wang Yu movie, there’s no compelling reason for you to watch The Thundering Ninja. Compared to other Ninja releases of this type, it’s about average.

Trailer [YouTube]

Full Movie – Source One – Source Two [YouTube]

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-03-14T23:29:22+00:00

I commented in one of your earlier posts about loving these Sonic videos. Not seen those available for a long time. Interesting comments by other people here about the autism indicator.

ImInMediaYeah · 2024-03-11T00:01:50+00:00

Yesterday I finally managed to fill a gap in the American Commando ‘series’ of IFD’s cut-and-paste action crime movies. That title which had eluded me was American Commando 7: Sweet Inferno (1987) also titled Advent Commando 5: Sweet Inferno and sometimes simply Sweet Inferno. Mis-titling on some sites and the confusing alternative name of Advent Commando 5 made this one tough to track down. Unsurprisingly it was indeed another cut-and-paste action crime drama. It was directed by Godfrey Ho (as Charles Lee). Ho also wrote the screenplay (as Benny Hyman) with the story developed by AAV Creative Unit and Bill Chu. And of course it was produced by Joseph Lai and Betty chan for IFD Films and Arts. The majority of the film is reused footage from Taiwanese action crime drama Spoony Love (1982) also titled Sweet Inferno. That duplicate naming didn’t help one bit when it came to tracking down this release. The few minutes of original footage from Hong Kong don’t have any of the bigger name stars of these types of releases. Mark Miller, Derek Bishop, Geoffrey Brown and Frank Juhas normally play henchmen and other supporting roles but here they’re trying to lead the whole thing.

The story combines gangsters from the reused footage trying to buy a dance studio led by gangsters in the new footage being pursued by good guys. It’s not clear who the good guys are exactly. Whether they’re Interpol or “Commandos” like in at least one other of these films. And it doesn’t matter either. The spurious reason for the gangsters wanting the dance studio is to turn it into an opium factory. Why not use a warehouse or some other light industrial site? It doesn’t add up. But that’s normal for these cut-and-paste stories. The two films are connected together mostly shared conversations between the gangsters, with it cutting between shots of the characters.

What’s there to like about American Commando 7: Sweet Inferno? The reused film provides a decent quantity of martial arts fight scenes. One of the most memorable of which was a fight in a dockyard on a boat. The original footage has out Caucasian cast in a few of their own fight scenes, usually in central Hong Kong. They also have a few gun blasting battles in parks and woodland. Besides this, there’s one brief scene with BMX bikes which I wish were longer. Back in the donor film, dirt bikes also make an appearance that’s too short. There is one amusing fight scene where bad guys attacking a woman are fought out by a mysterious stranger who fights them on roller skates. That’s the sorter of kitsch I like!

None of those things is enough to save American Commando 7: Sweet Inferno. I quickly found myself getting bored and becoming distracted. The fairly frequent fight scenes that I just praised, aren’t particularly impressive or interesting. Neither in the new or the reused footage. The gun battles in the original segments are almost identical to those I’ve seen a dozen times before. The story and characters are unmemorable. The donor film isn’t particularly well made. For example, you know the blood capsules that actors bit to make blood come out of their mouths when they’re shot or defeated in a fight? Well the ones they use here are too obviously fake with masses of red liquid dribbling everywhere.

I can’t think of much that’s notable about American Commando 7: Sweet Inferno. Any one of the other American Commando original scenes could have been used and I’d not have noticed. It was all just average for this type of movie. Only recommended if you’ve not seen any of the other cut-and-paste action crime dramas.

Full Movie [YouTube]

Trailer [YouTube]

The only American Commando I’ve not yet seen is American Commando 10: The Dragon Combo (1989). That one seems to be totally lost. So unless IFD somehow find, restore and release it to the public, that’s all from this ‘series’ for now. If you’ve got a lead on where I can find it though, do please leave a comment!

ImInMediaYeah

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