Snakes – Wtf-film: cult cinema and video reviews

Posts Tagged ‘Snakes’

King of Snake

September 4th, 2010 | article by Kevin Pyrtle | 1 Comment »
Tags: Action, Annoying Children, Awesome Titles, Crap, Danny Lee, Giant monsters, Science Fiction, Snakes, Taiwan, Thriller

film rating:
a.k.a. Daai Yi Wong, Daai Se Wong
(lit. Big Snake King)
company: ??
year: 1982
runtime: 88′
director: Chui Yuk-Lung
cast: Tarcy Su, Leung Sau-Geun,
Ng Fung, Danny Lee,
Paul Chang Chung, Chow Shui-Fong,
David Tong Wai, Unknown Taiwanese Actor (1)
writers: Yiu Hing-Hong
and Ng Man-Leung
special effects director: Chujio Shintaro
cinematographer: Liao Wan-Wen
Not available on home video

Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more. Next week things will be different – honest! But every misguided quest must have an end, and the finale to my impromptu monster-palooza is a real snooze.

1982’s grammatically impaired King of Snake is perhaps best known for being purchased by Joseph Lai’s IFD Film and Arts and manipulated by Hong Kong schlock extraordinaire Godfrey Ho into the 1988 oddity Thunder of Gigantic Serpent. That film follows French super-soldier Ted Fast as he hunts down balding white villain Solomon while a girl’s giant pet snake runs amok. King of Snake doesn’t gain much from the exclusion of Ho’s material, and instead offers viewers twice the boring story stuff and half the absurd fun.

Tah Tien

June 27th, 2009 | article by Kevin Pyrtle | No Comments »
Tags: Chaiyo, Dinosaurs, Fantasy, Folklore, Frogs, Giant monsters, Snakes, Sompote Sands

company: Chaiyo Productions
year: 1973
runtime: 99′
country: Thailand
director: Sompote Sands
cast: Sombat Methanee, Suphak Likitkul,
Sukhon Kewliam, Somphong Pongmitr
not on home video in the USA

Do you like Thai food? Thai culture? Traditional Thai architecture? Are you a fan of the music of Ennio Morricone and Gustav Holst? Do you love giant monster movies and relish nothing more than the sight of intricately constructed scale models of famous landmarks being lovingly demolished by all manner of stop-motion or suit-mation beasts?

If you answered yes to any of the above, then I can’t recommend enough against watching this film from the embattled Chaiyo Studios and founder Sompote Sands, made most famous in recent years for the much publicized legal war between it and Tsuburaya over the ownership of Ultraman. It seems important to note that Sands and Chaiyo are rather definitely the ‘bad guys’ in that particular situation, which has been written about extensively at scifijapan.com and elsewhere.

Thunder of Gigantic Serpent

May 1st, 2008 | article by Kevin Pyrtle | No Comments »
Tags: Action, Annoying kids, Giant monsters, Godfrey Ho, Kaiju, Not on DVD, Science Fiction, Snakes

IDF Films & Arts Ltd [1988] 86′
country: Hong Kong
director: GODFREY HO
cast: PIERRE KIRBY, EDOWAN BERSMEA,
cast: DANNY RAISEBECK, DEWEY BOSWORTH

THUNDER OF GIGANTIC SERPENT (the IMDB lists the original title as DAAI SE WONG) is something I’ve known about for some time. I first stumbled upon an image of it while sifting around an old and now-defunct video trading page and wondered why I’d never heard of it before – more information was gleaned from MONSTRULA’s [monstrula.de] file on it under the German release title of TERROR SERPENT. Since then the film has become more or less readily available on the bootleg video market, with VHS and DVD dupes from a Greek VHS source cropping up on many lists online.

Other than those few sources, there’s not much to go on with this one other than intuition. The IMDB only recently added a page for the film, which is no wonder since precious little reliable information on the title or how it came to be is available.