Egyptian posters for 80s actioners!

Attack And Destroy (198?) Egyptian posters are colourful and tackily beautiful, but don’t tell you a whole lot! The first person to tell me the date, cast and crew for this Dante Rivero actioner gets a SEARCH FOR WENG WENG T-shirt.

Commander Lawin (1981) Renowned stuntman Eddie Nicart followed his first two film as director, the Weng Weng spy spoofs Agent 00 and For Y’ur Height Only, with a more standard Tagalog actioner starring veteran goon Dante Varona (also in Agent 00). As was the style of enterprising indie producers in the early 80s, it was dubbed into English and sold all over the world as a First Blood-style jungle revenge epic.

Raiders Of Atlantis (1983) While Antonio Margheriti/“Anthony M. Dawson” was burning through Luzon’s foliage making his Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now reduxes, fellow Italian Ruggero (Cannibal Holocaust) Deodato was busy marrying the Road Warrior with Warlords Of Atlantis. The offspring: a mad, apocalyptic biker science fiction nutjob. With US actor Christopher Connelly, Italian imports Ivan Rassimov George Hilton and Michele Soavi, and expats Bruce Baron and Mike Monty.

Prison Camp Girls (1983) Udo (Flesh For Frankenstein) Kier presides over a tropical hellhole in a particularly sleazy WIP entry known as Escape From Blood Plantation and Island Of The Bloody Plantation, directed by Celso Ad. Castillo for Jess Franco’s regular Swiss producer Erwin C. Dietrich.

Black Fire (1985) Kinavesa Films, also known as Silver Star, was Chinoy businessman K.Y. (or “Kimmy”) Lim’s low-rent production outfit. Using mostly a crew of well-seasoned locals and foreign actors living in the Philippines, he managed to squeeze out one jungle war and action film after the other for around the US $20,000 mark. Black Fire stars Romano Kristoff and US/Filipino Jim Gaines, who also wrote the script with Teddy “Page”/Chiu.

Ninja Warriors (1985) and Ninja’s Force (1985) Kinavesa/Silver Star entered the Ninja craze with two bizarre, to say the least, Romano Kristoff vehicles. Ninja Warriors top-bills American martial artist Ron Marchiano, and rounds out the cast with the familiar faces of Ken Watanabe, Mike Cohen (the American scientist in For Y’ur Height Only), Nick Nicholson and Mike Monty. Kristoff also co-directs Ninja’s Force with Teddy Chiu, and features most of the Ninja Warriors cast plus Jim Gaines.

SFX Retaliator (1987) A latter-day Kinavesa film trotting out Chris (son of Robert) Mitchum for an umpteenth run through the Philippine jungle. “John Gale”/Jun Gallardo directs also-rans Gordon Mitchell, Linda Blair, and Kinavesa stock players Nick Nicholson, David Light and Jim Moss.

Double Target (1987) & Strike Commando 2 (1988) Italian B-specialist Bruno Mattei spent two years running around the Philippine jungles as “Vincent Dawn” making a clearly unhinged series of primo direct-to-video shockers. Double Target stars Miles O’Keefe as a Vietnam vet looking for his son in Ruskie-infested territory; Bo Svenson, a Ventalin-huffing Donald Pleasence, “Alan Collins” and Mike Monty co-star. Strike Commando 2, an in-name-only sequel, features an unmemorable Brent Huff leading a much more memorable cast of Richard Harris, Vic Diaz, Jim Gaines and Jim Moss.

Demon Of Paradise (1987) Roger Corman’s Man in Manila, Cirio H. Santiago, reworks The Creature From The Black Lagoon to ludicrous effect. With Cirio’s 80s regulars Henry Strzalkowski, Nick Nicholson, Joe Mari Avellana, David Light, Ronnie Patterson and Joseph Zucchero, it’s more like a frat house reunion than a fright fest, but an enjoyably silly one nonetheless.

The Sisterhood (1988) & Silk 2 (1989) Allah only knows what Egyptian audiences made out of Cirio’s two faux-feminist exploitation hits. The Sisterhood treads familiar Mad Maxine territory, while Silk 2 sees precocious Playboy model Monique Gabrielle (Emmanuelle 5) take the lead in an unrelated revenge saga to 1986’s Silk. “Hooters with Shooters” indeed.

Black Cobra 3: The Manila Connection (1990) One of the dying breaths of both the co-production craze and the Italian film industry, Fred Williamson returns to the Philippines a second time in the Black Cobra franchise, this time under the watchful eye of Antonio Margheriti’s son Eduardo. This by-the-numbers cop actioner also stars Mike Monty, David Light and Maria Isabel Lopez.