1981 - Cewek Jagoan Beraksi Kembali (P.T. Parkit Films)
[Sequel to Five Deadly Angels, international title “Deadly Angels Strike Back”; released in
Director Danu Umbara Writers Deddy Armand, Danu Umbara Producer Dhamoo Punjabi Cinematography H. Asmawi Music Gatot Sudarto
1986 - Menumpas Teroris/“Menumpas Terrorists” (Kanda Indah Film PT)
[International title “The Terrorists”; released in
Director Imam Tantowi Cinematography Berti R. Mottoh Music Embie C. Noer Miniature Effects El Badrun
Cast Deddy Mizwar, Barry Prima, El Manik, Advent Bangun, Elizabeth Yvonne, Belqiez Rahman, Anton Indracahya, Anneke Putri, Yoseano Waas, El Badrun, Tizar Purbaya, Torro Margens, Grace Suwandi, Yoseano Waas
Fred Anderson’s review from his Ninja Dixon blog:
The Terrorists is hardly the glory of Indonesian filmmaking, but it's still a nice trashy mix of not more than three different genres!
First it starts as a lowbudget version of a big budget Hollywood-film. Terrorist attacks plagues the world (which means a lot of cheap miniatures getting blown up) and a local gang of bad guys uses this fear to create their own attacks and steal some money (or whatever) at the same time... which means a little bit martial arts and a car-chase...
... that ends inside a hospital! And here the movie continue like a pre-Die Hard, pre-Hard-Boiled, action movie where the terrorists takes hostages in the hospital. But of course there's two men who can stop them, one of them is Barry Prima! So he goes in, shoots a lot and one of the bombs goes of...
... and suddenly we have a cheap version of Towering Inferno! People trapped in the fire, on the roof, people falling to their death and the firemen tries hard to rescue everybody! And at the same time the last terrorist goes around like Al Pacino, screaming and wawing with a gun! Until he get's shot down and the movie is over.
Barry Prima has more of a cameo, and the movie barely hangs together. The stars are more the bad guys actually! It's a cheap knock-off on big budget action with cartoonish backprojections and an idiot storyline. But it works quite fine anyway, and is never boring - except during the end where some of the fire-stuff goes on way to long.
Classic obscure trash for a trash-generation! Long Live Barry Prima!
Fred Adelman’s review from his Critical Condition Online website:
Here's an Indonesian action film that will have you howling with laughter at the terrible miniature effects and the blatantly obvious rear-screen projection process that's littered throughout. During the mid-80's, a time when terrorist groups are hijacking planes and blowing up buildings around the world, a group of crooks pretend to be terrorists to pull off a bank robbery. Little do the crooks know that a world-renown terrorist named Gozal (El Manik; HELL RAIDERS - 1985) was hired to head the robbery team by a crooked hospital executive named Mr. Santos, who needs the money to save his floundering hospital. Gozal recruits professional crook John (Advent Bangun; THE BLIND WARRIOR - 1987) to help him pull off the robbery and he agrees to do it as long as politics aren't involved, but as he will soon find out, politics is the least of his problems. When the crooks try to enter the bank and the newly installed bomb detector goes off, it leads to a lengthy (and hilariously inept) car chase, where the crooks destroy their car, steal a truck and crash it into the front of a hospital. Guess which hospital it is? Yep, it's Mr. Santos' hospital and soon Gozal uses the time bombs in his possession to hold the hospital and it's occupants' hostage as the police surround the hospital and SWAT helicopters hover overhead. The first thing Gozal does is kill Mr. Santos to keep him from talking and he then plants the bombs around the hospital, setting them to go off at 7:00 PM. The police call in a SWAT team Captain (Barry Prima; THE WARRIOR - 1981) to kill the "terrorists" and he does just that, killing every one of them (including John) except Gozal, who escapes through the stairwell after setting off a bomb, engulfing the hospital in flames (you gotta see it to believe it) and trapping many innocent people, including infirmed patients, inside. Gozal, who has now gone completely bonkers, roams the hospital's smoke-filled corridors firing his weapons aimlessly and shouting "You're all gonna die!" while the fire department and police try to rescue people in the hospital. Gozal grabs a newborn baby, goes to the hospital's roof and demands a helicopter picks him up or he will kill the baby. Instead, the police helicopter-in Gozal's wife and young son to the roof in a rope net (!) to distract Gozal long enough so that the SWAT Captain can shoot him (and an innocent doctor!) dead in front of his family. Un-fucking-believable!
Where do I begin to describe how badly entertaining this no-budget actioner really is? It's a cross between DIE HARD and HARD BOILED, but made years before anyone even heard of those two films. All the explosions are done with miniature model buildings that are so bad, they make the structures stomped on by Godzilla in the 60's look highly detailed. Clearly, 80% of the film was shot using out-of-focus rear-projected backgrounds, most of it so ineptly obvious, especially the car/truck chase, that I nearly peed my pants from laughing so hard. The entire hospital sequence is so chintzy in it's execution, it takes on an otherworldly quality. Director/co-scripter Imam Tantowi, who also directed BLAZING BATTLE (1983) and wrote the screenplays for SATAN'S SLAVE (1982) and THE DEVIL'S SWORD (1984), hasn't got a clue on how to pace a film, as THE TERRORISTS simply jumps from one mind-numbing scene to the next (including a hilarious encounter with a bomb maker who secretly poisons the entire robbery team until they pay him!), culminating in one of the most unbelievable (not to mention unlawful) endings I have ever witnessed. What law agency in their right mind would ever put a terrorist's wife and kid in a rope net and hover them over the roof of a burning hospital so they can try and talk him into giving up? Add to that constant scenes of people getting shot (lots of bloody bullet squibs), running around on fire, jumping off the hospital roof and hitting the ground (more rear projection work that elicits laughs rather than gasps) and a police force more concerned about killing bad guys than saving innocent lives (the cops end up killing more innocents than the bad guys!) and what you end up with is a deliriously illogical actioner that is must-viewing for all fans of Indonesian insanity. Search it out. Also starring Deddy Mizwar, Yos Cano, Janis Badar, Belqiez Rahman, Elyzabeth Tvonne, Yoseano Wasa, Anto Indracahya and Tizar Purbaya. El Badrun, who also has a role here, handled the shoddy miniature effects work. Never legitimately available in the
1981 – Srigala/“The Fox” (Rapi Films)
Director Sisworo Gautama Putra Cinematography F.E.S. Tarigan Music Gatot Sudarto
Cast Barry Prima,
Fred Anderson’s review from his Ninja Dixon blog:
From the director of Indonesian classic The Warrior, comes Srigala - which more or less is a copy of the first Friday the 13, but without the backstory of the mongoloid child and with a golden treasure instead! Why not? And it also has Barry Prime, which automatically makes it a cool movie even if it's not that good.
A bunch of teenagers (or something) goes to a lake to camp, swim and have fun. But they're not alone there. Three treasure hunters, one of them is the manliest of man - Barry Prima - are seeking after a golden treasure on the bottom of the lake! But someone is watching them, a person dressed in black and with an urge to kill, kill, kill! He (or she) takes them down one by one... until there's one final girl left. Will she survive? Will Barry Prime show off his muscles? I'm sure you can guess!
First of all, this is not a bad movie. Sure, it completely lacks originality, but still looks fine - especially in the night-scenes. Lots of atmosphere and beautiful jungle locations. I saw it with out subtitles, and had no problems following the story and character developments. It's not much of a horror movie from the beginning (the first victim, before the credits, it's a very silly looking man with moustach and small, small swimming trunks - but after that we have more of an ordinarly thriller for an hour or so, with a cool and stunt-filled boat-chase and a couple of nice explosions.
It's first in the last half hour that it actually becomes a 100 % copy of Friday the 13th. Scene for scene is ripped off, but I'm sad to say that most of the killings are very offscreen and not bloody at all. But this version (downloaded, ripped from a VCD) might be cut too, because the editing during the murder scenes was a bit strange. But if you can live with that, you'll see how the final girl takes shelter in a house, someone throws her boyfriend through the window, she escapes, runs into a woman that tells the backstory and then is the killer herself! Another nice cat fight here (mixed with some martial arts), our heroine kills the murdered and wakes up in a boat where someone is dragging her into the water. All this is looks good and is well made, but of course never reaches the tension like in the original movie. In a weird sequence they also seem to imitate slow-motion! Which looks completely silly, but a fun touch to the cat fight.
Another bonus is a lengthy dream sequence where the main girl is dreaming about four underwater zombies coming up from the lake to get her! Genius!
Srigala is of course crap, trash, whatever. But as many of these Indonesian movies it's also very charming and hard to dislike. Barry Prima (I can understand that he set a lot of hearts on fire, because he looks quite good here) is cool, and the rest of the cast is not bad at all. I also like the stolen Mike Oldfield-track that accompanies the last scene, not a bad choice at all.
It's not out on DVD and is probably very hard to get on VCD, but if you want something silly and fun, go for Srigala next time you want to download some entertaining Asian film that you never seen before.
Fred Adelman’s review from his Critical Condition Online website:
This slow-moving horror film, directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra (PRIMITIVES - 1978; THE WARRIOR - 1981), takes forever to get moving and when the killings finally happen, Putra pulls away instead of showing the violence, which is strange considering the graphic bloodshed shown in his other films. Kristy's death by axe is only shown as shadows on a wall, Bonno's head-crushing is viewed only in a long shot and when the Boss is run over, we only see a close-up of his face with blood coming out of his mouth. Though we do not actually see Barry Prima (THE DEVIL'S SWORD - 1984; REVENGE OF NINJA - 1984) get killed, we do see his body impaled on a pitchfork later on. As with most Indonesian exploitation films, there are a couple of "What The Fuck?" moments, one of them being when Nina and Kristy begin fighting each other like two kung-fu masters (complete with exaggerated sound effects) for no apparent reason that I could discern (again, I don't speak the language, so I could have missed something). That scene does set up the finale, where Nina takes on the mystery woman. I dare you not to laugh at Nina's sudden changeover from victim to victor. After being uncerimoniously slapped around and abused, she then takes a martial arts stance and proceeds to beat the crap out of her attacker and then stabs her in the heart just to make sure we know she means business! The ending is a scene-by-scene steal of the original FRIDAY THE 13TH shock coda, complete with Nina in a canoe out in the middle of the lake, the police waving her in and a Jason-like creature jumping out of the water to grab her out of the canoe, all while a faux Harry Manfredini score plays on the soundtrack! If you don't mind derivative filmmaking and can watch a film in a strange language with no English help, SRIGALA (when translated, means "Fox") may be worth a few chuckles. Just don't go in expecting the graphic bloodletting normally associated with films from Indonesia, because you will be disappointed. It's not exactly dry, but it's not as wet as it should have been since it was made made for Rapi Films, Indonesia's premiere purveyors of sleazy entertainment. Also starring Lydia Kandou, S. Parya, Siska Widowati, Dorman Borisman, Rudy Salam and Meike Wijaya. I couldn't make out any other credits because the fullscreen print I viewed was severely cropped and projected dead-center, cutting off all the credits on both ends (the film's title only shows "IGA" on-screen!). Video label unavailable.
1989 - Tarzan Raja Rimba (Kanta Indah Film PT)
Director Ackyl Anwari Cinematography Subakti Is
Cast Barry Prima (Tarzan), Machfud Abud, Alex Bernard, Panji Dharma, Yongki Dp, Yoshep Hungan, Ziela Jalil, El Koesno, Yurike Prastica, Donny Sabella, Rama Soedin, Joes Terpase, Rudy Wahab, Tonny Yusuf
Todd Stadtman’s review from his Die, Danger, Die, Die, Kill! blog:
1989’s Tarzan Raja Rimba looks even more promising for the fact that it stars the great Barry Prima, and was helmed by the director of the riotous Virgins From Hell, Ackyl Anwari. This was the first of two turns by Prima in the Tarzan role, the second being in the following year’s Tarzan Penunggu Harta Karun directed by M. Agnar Romli.
In the grand tradition of Tarzan films, Tarzan Raja Rimba shows our hero coming up against destructive forces from the civilized world, in this case a corrupt logging crew that is chainsaw-ing its way through the Indonesian rainforest like there’s no tomorrow. Of course, while this is a Tarzan film in name, it is, more importantly, a Barry Prima film, and so we get a version of Tarzan who gorily kung fus people to death. Yay! Tarzan’s favorite method of dispatch is to toss an opponent onto a convenient bamboo spike or pointy tree limb, but the logging aspect of the story also provides a generous supply of nasty hardware to further the carnage, including a band saw which Tarzan tests against the villain’s neck during the climactic fight.
Much like the many Indian takes on the Tarzan story, Tarzan Raja Rimba puts an emphasis on the irresistible sexual pull that Tarzan exerts upon any woman in his orbit. Early in the film, Karina, a female member of the logging team, is shown tossing restlessly in her bed, consumed by thoughts of the muscled jungle man. (And, after all, this is Barry Prima we’re talking about –- and he does look amazing in his loincloth and little leopard skin boots –- so who can blame her?) Later, she somehow falls afoul of her crooked colleagues and is forced to flee the camp. The expected menu of jungle perils follows, and she is ultimately driven into the protective arms of Tarzan. However, Prima’s Tarzan is not the thick-skulled, unwitting sexual catalyst that we see in, say, the Zimbo movies, but is rather played by the star as being articulate, authoritative, and not a little bit arrogant.
While making some concessions to the film’s tropical setting (when Tarzan forages for Karina, he returns with watermelon), Tarzan Raja Rimba still manages to deliver on at least the minimum of those ingredients that are internationally agreed upon as constituting a Tarzan movie. The most notable change in this regard is that, rather than an ape, Tarzan’s faithful animal companion is instead a bear –- and a bear played by a man in a very obvious bear costume, at that. (In fact, I think we may be seeing here an early appearance by the Masturbating Bear, back in the days before he succumbed to compulsive onanism). This bear leads the climactic elephant charge upon the villain’s camp at the movie’s conclusion, and also gruesomely mauls to death one of the female bad guys. At least, I think that’s what he’s doing.
Still, if you put these Burroughsian –- or Weismullarian? -- trappings aside, Tarzan Raja Rimba is pretty much indistinguishable from one of Prima’s Jaka Sembung movies, though sadly one without all the mystical flying around and modular body parts. There’s the “tournament” style scene, where Prima’s martial arts skills are tested against a towering, carnivalesque goon in the bad guys’ employ, who seems to have been hanging around in the wings for just that purpose. And then of course there is the requisite tableau of martyrdom in which Prima is chained and abused before dramatically freeing himself to wreak havoc upon his oppressors. All of this, in sum, means that, if you are a Prima fan –- as I most certainly am –- this will probably be the best Tarzan movie you’ve ever seen.
1982 - Perempuan Bergairah (P.T. Parkit Films)
[International title “The Fighters”, also released on German VHS as “Mad Fighters”; re-released in the
Director Jopi Burnama Writer Deddy Armand Producer Dhamoo Punjabi
Cast Eva Arnaz (Bambi – Troma version only), Barry Prima (Barney – Troma version only), Ruth Pelipessi, Yustine Rais, Leyla Sagita, Wieke Widowati
Bill Gibron’s review from the DVD Verdict website:
Okay, here's the story with Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters. The movie begins with some Asian women wrestling. There's a kid filled with sickness coughing up a lung while watching the match on TV. And then…well, then some more Asian people talk about diseases and one of the actresses discusses making money as a grappler. Then…the mob, or Yakuza, or some Eastern version of the mafia…the syndicate, that's right, the syndicate shows up and they control all the wrestling in Malaysia, or wherever we are and…it's Indonesia, that's right. Well, the crooks threaten people. So an Amer-Asian man helps the main female fighter to…um…fight. And then there is some more fighting. There is a subplot involving gambling or some manner of match fixing, and then we learn that the little boy from the beginning of the film needs a major medical procedure or his brain will explode, or something. All the while the syndicate is trying to control the sport and business with hired goons and…oh yeah! Right! There's also an undercurrent of unspoken lesbianism in the female mat world (imagine that) since a weird woman leader of a rival gang of wrestlers keeps giving our leading lady big moon eyes. A character or two gets tortured and there is a sex scene and…what was the name of this movie again? I think I've forgotten.
Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters is one of those movies that is so blatantly incomprehensible that you could watch it a hundred times with pad, pencil, and several copies of Asian Actors Illustrated and you'd still find yourself swamped in dead-end plotlines, strangely circular dialogue, and the random insertion of scenes into the story for no other reason than their sexual or action/violence content. You think David Lynch's
So what does Troma do when they pick up this paltry poverty row reject? Do they simply offer it up as a sample of foreign filmmaking at its most flabby and say, "Sorry folks, but it is kinda stupid, huh?" No, what the do instead is make it a billion times more incredibly asinine by letting founder Lloyd Kaufman's brother Charlie take a What's Up, Tiger Lily? crack at comedying up the crap. Indeed, with the new "funny" overdubbed soundtrack he makes it worse! That's right, when it was simply a sloppy wrestling women movie with unfathomable narrative flubs, it was a forgivable cinematic fart. But when Charles Kaufman tinkers with the tale, he really lets one fly, and the stench spreads like a degenerative case of olfactory awfulness throughout your system. Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters, the dumber dubbed version, is a crude, lewd story of implied incest, infant penile dysfunction, and incredibly raunchy retorts. Kaufman's royal blue humor startles and soils you in a way that, at first, is mildly amusing, but over the course of 90 minutes grows crass and tasteless. For example, the made-up malady for the sick little boy in the film is some strange anatomical idea that his vas deferens runs from his testicles into his head. So he is not supposed to be aroused, lest his skull explodes with sperm. Hardy har har. I mean, the kid is like eight! If you don't think Chuck can draw out multiple gags out of that little bit of biology, you are dead wrong. In addition, crude crap and dick remarks are slathered on in overkill fashion, and just when you think the revelry can't get any more retarded, the male Ameri-Asian lead is turned into an Elvis impersonator, and a very bad one at that. Unfunny voices, near incomprehensible dialogue exchanges, and a plethora of bodily noises create a cinematic experience even more painful than trying to decode the original's intentions. You'll need a shower with real lava to cleanse your carcass of this crusty caca. Re-dubbing a movie has never really worked: Allen's Lily is limited, Kung Pow: Enter The Fist, is just cow dung, and without Godzilla or Mothra around to geek things up, there is no real reason to see or hear Asians speaking sans their natural language. It has been known to be funny in small snippets, but "the hilarious 'Tromatized' post-synchronization" on this film is a consistently flat failure.
As for the DVD offering from the mighty mad minds at Troma, Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters is fairly low grade. The image is mediocre, faded and full screen. The soundtracks swings between muddled and ear piercing. The introduction by Lloyd himself is entertaining, as usual, and the promotional material from Troma is always good for a laugh. Too bad the movie it's supporting is so stupid, in either format.
Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters is the kind of movie you'll watch hoping it delivers on its promising setup and title titillation. But the minute you've suffered through the un-dubbed dyspepsia of the original version or the complete vulgarity of the "reimagined" dialogue, you'll want to wash your brain out with Drain-o. No amount of broad butt kicking and/or gal-on-gal mat mambo can make up for the ridiculous, repulsive movie plot here, whatever it is.
Monkeyface’s review from the Internal Bleeding website:
What do you get when you cross an Indonesian women’s wrestling movie, Troma Entertainment, and an action star who talks like Elvis? You get one of the funniest redubs in film history… Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters! FFFF is the story of Bambi, an exceptional Greco-roman wrestler on her way to the top. Unfortunately her brother has come down with a fatal case of dickosis, a made-up ailment where a buildup of semen goes straight to your brain. The only remedy is surgery, or oral release by a hooker. It’s a shame, but I guess there aren’t any 10 year old prostitutes in the
Along comes Nathan, a trophy shop owner who is ready to help Bambi get the money she needs for her brother’s surgery. But being a trophy model is an unthinkable career, and Bambi not-so-politely declines all of Nathan’s advances. On the way home from an event, Bambi and her best friend Mia get in a little tussle and are aided by karate master and Elvis impersonator Barney. He is also a professional wrestling coach, and after a little persuasion he talks the 2 girls into joining an underground tag-team wrestling federation. As you can imagine a love story begins brewing between Bambi and Barney (who doesn’t love an Elvis impersonator). They are well on their way to making enough money for the surgery… but there is trouble brewing around every corner!
This is by far my favorite Troma movie, even if it is just a redub. I caught this flick on Cinemax in the late 80’s and it took me about 12 years before I could find the movie on VHS. There is some great action throughout including the female wrestling and some pretty good kung-fu scenes. But the real treat here is the comedy. Even though the words might not match up with the lips, the story Troma added to the scenes is just priceless! You get an Elvis impersonator, a talking snake from the ghetto, a girl who hums some of her scenes and a guy nicknamed Monkeyface… what is not to like!!! If you love Troma films, or really any kind of mindless comedy you need to check this film out. I have 2 words for you – Tuna Melt!
1984 - Membakar Matahari (P.T. Parkit Films)
[International title “To Burn The Sun”, sometimes listed as “Burn The Sun”, and released as Poings D'Acier Contre Main(s) De Fer"; rereleased in the
Director/Story Arizal Screenplay Deddy Armand Cinematography Harry Susanto Music Gatot Sudarto Fighting Instructor Edy S. Jonathan
Cast Eva Arnaz (Bambi), Barry Prima (Barney), Bram Adrianto, Mathias Agus, Malino Djunaedy, Edy S. Jonathan, Husin Lubis, Ruth Pelupessi, Wenny Rosaline, George Rudy, Suhaimi Said, Tuty Wasiat
Synopsis (from the Troma website): They're back and they're more ferocious than ever!
This is the story of women. Women shattered by violence. Women left alone, the sole survivors of slaughtered families. Women sold into a vicious and brutal international crime syndicate. Women subjected to poverty, horror and brutal sex. Experience a secret glimpse into the erotic realm of the Asian underworld, where women are a high-priced commodity and anything is available... for a price.
Pushed to the farthest limits of sanity, and battered beyond ordinary human capacity, there is one woman who decides to fight against her destiny. She's tougher than a rabid canine! Braver than a battalion of Bruce Lees!
With vengeance pulsing through her veins, she journeys back into her past, kicking anything that gets in her way, settling the ultimate score... swiftly and permanently! Her task is to terminate the misery and sexual torture of her soul-sisters in slavery. She and her fighting female friends are out to topple the power pyramids of the Asian underworld! Fighting ferociously, with fists and feet flying, these females are out for revenge!
