THE MUTHERS (1976)

  Filipino blend of blaxploitation, kung fu, women in prison and jungle action cinema directed by the prolific Cirio H. Santiago. Fairly standard by-the-numbers action movie plot that is unique for starring 4 black ladies in the lead roles. Jeannie Bell is the one I'm most familiar with having been the star of TNT JACKSON before this. Lots of terrible martial arts and gun-fu is on display. Not much more to recommend this one though. 

                       Not very much like RAMBO but there is lots of action in the jungle!:

EQUALIZER 2000 (1987)

 Fairly unmemorable ROAD WARRIOR rip-off flick directed by Filipino hack-meister Cirio H. Santiago who made a whole slew of very similar films around this time and didn't seem to ever get much better. This one has the added impediment of having no nudity(despite top-heavy co-star Corinne Wahl playing what I'm guessing is one of the only women left alive after the apocalypse) to go along with the copious amounts of gun violence on display.
 I viewed the unrated version of this recently and it really just adds a bit of blood and some longer scenes adding up to about 10 minutes extra footage. This really didn't boost my feelings toward this one much either way. Good movie to goof on with some friends though if that's your bag.

 

STRYKER (1983)

 Having just seen director Cirio H. Santiago's FUTURE HUNTERS in a theater recently, a film that starts out as a ROAD WARRIOR-rip-off and then moves into modern-day 80s action flick, it was interesting to see this earlier film of his where he goes full-blown post-apocalypse epic. Not that the movie is all that interesting. You've seen it all before, the Earth's freshwater-supply is all gone for some reason that's never explained, people dress like punk rockers and souped-up vehicles explode a lot.  Similar to FUTURE HUNTERS there's a gang of midgets(did Cirio just keep these guys on his payroll?) and an all female troop of amazons(who of course wear super-skimpy short-shorts because that's so functional in a desert wasteland but I'm not really complaining). The main hero here(Steve Sandor) is also pretty dull. I did find it interesting that there's a poster referring to this as MAD MAX 3 and if I had to choose my favorite between this and that stupid THUNDERDOME movie it might be a toss-up.

FUTURE HUNTERS (1986)

 OK, so this movie starts out in the future year of 2025 where it's a cheap-ass ROAD WARRIOR rip-off. After about 15 minutes or so of that the hero(Richard Norton) jumps back in time to the current day of 1986. We meet our new replacement heroes(Linda Carol and Robert Patrick(the T-1000 from TERMINATOR 2 in his first movie role)) and some Nazi villains. Then we travel to Hong Kong and meet up with Bruce Li where the film becomes a kung-fu movie for awhile. From there it's off to the Philippines where there's Mongols that look like they rode out of the 13th century, a village of midgets who look they are from the stone age and finally a tribe of Amazon women who like to feed people to their hungry alligator pets.  Directed by crap-meister Cirio H. Santiago this is clearly not the best-made action movie you could watch but I do love his kitchen-sink/running-the-gamut approach to filmmaking on display here and this might be my favorite(and the easiest to stay awake for) of his movies I've viewed so far.

Shown on TV and with presumably edited out boobs as DEADLY QUEST. Here's a promo:

BAMBOO GODS AND IRON MEN (1974)

 This is an AIP version of a kung-fu flick. It's also produced by Cirio H. Santiago so it has that crappy Filipino action movie feel to it. Also the main couple in this are black so it has a blaxploitation feel. As you might suspect by all this it really feels like quite the mish-mosh of genres and overall it's a pretty standard unexceptional viewing experience. The one thing this has going for it is there's quite a bit of female nudity for a martial-arts movie. Outside of all the naked Asian ladies I'll probably forget most of this within a few days. One thing I'll probably not forget is that this might be the only movie that ends with the whole cast in black-face(even the black folks!).

The 70's, when people still listened to the radio:

ANGELFIST (1993)

 Director Cirio H. Santiago made crazy action and exploitation movies in The Philippines all the way through the 70's and on into the 2000's. By the 90's I'm pretty sure most all of his stuff, like this movie here, went direct to a video release(at least here in America they did). This movie mixes martial arts(there's a tournament backdrop) with a revenge plot(Cat Sassoon looking for her sister's murderers) and rolls it all up in ample nudity including multiple shower scenes and even some topless kung fu which is one of the best types of kung fu there is. I've never seen any of the other Cat Sassoon movies, mostly just because they're from the 90's which is never a good sign, but if they're as wild and naked as this one I might have to give them a chance.
 Got to watch this in a theater yesterday which is probably a pretty rare opportunity and it's definitely an entertaining watch with a crowd of bad movie lovers. AKA KICK ANGELS

 

TNT JACKSON (1974)

Director Cirio H. Santiago was responsible for a ton of exploitation flicks throughout the the 70's and then a bunch of cheap-ass action epics that went straight to video in the 80's and 90's.  Shot for pennies in the Philippines most of them aren't all that great but they must have made money for someone cuz he never stopped  churning them out until he died in 2008.  This one was made for Roger Corman's New World Pictures and was co-written by cult actor fav Dick Miller.   It's sort of a mash-up of a kung-fu and blaxploitation flick that comes of as a crappier version of Pam Grier's FOXY BROWN.  You get a little blood and some boobs(including a cool topless-fu scene by star Jeanne Bell).  Bell's acting and fighting is pretty awful but it fits in well in a trashy film of this type.  The plot is your basic brother is killed now I must get revenge type and it plays out exactly how you expect it to.  Not the worst or best of either of the genres it's part of.  Check it out for the great giant afros though.