Raw Force (1982)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

Edward D. Murphy

Writer:

Edward D. Murphy (writer)

Release Date:

July 1982 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Horror | Action | Comedy

Tagline:

...Invaders of the Jade Tombs!

Plot:

A group of martial arts students are en route to an island that supposedly is home to the ghosts of martial artists who have lost their honor...

Plot Keywords:

Island | Martial Arts | Monk | Slavery | Violence

Cast

Cameron Mitchell	...	Captain Harry Dodds
Geoffrey Binney	...	Mike O'Malley
Hope Holiday	...	Hazel Buck
Jillian Kesner	...	Cookie Winchell
John Dresden	...	John Taylor
Jennifer Holmes	...	Ann Davis
Rey King	...	Go Chin
Carla Reynolds	...	Eilleen Fox
Carl Anthony	...	Lloyd Davis
John Locke	...	Gary Schwartz
Mark Tanous	...	Cooper
Ralph Lombardi	...	Thomas Speer
Chanda Romero	...	Mayloo
Camille Keaton	...	Girl In Toilet
Lin Lin Li	...	Gun Moll (as Maggie Lee)

Also Known As:

Kung Fu Cannibals (USA)
Shogun Island

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

USA | Philippines

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:(Banned) (1989) | Iceland:16 | Australia:M | Norway:18 | UK:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Philippines

Company:

Ansor International

Goofs:

Continuity: When the guy is talking to Eilleen in the shower, he puts his glove on twice.

Quotes:

Hazel Buck: I'm going shopping. Is there anything you need, besides deodorant?

Movie Connections:

References "The Love Boat" (1977)

A wild tale of martial artists vs cannibals, zombies and Nazis.Unfortunately the uneven tone and dull action wound an near exploitation classic

This movie has everything a good exploitation movie should have: Zombies, cannibals, Nazis, naked chicks, blood, action, comedy, piranhas ...unfortunately this movie doesn't quite work as well as it should.

This is the story of a cruise ship that promises some people a trip to exotic locales one of which is Warrior Island where disgraced martial artists go to die. Also on the Island are a band of cannibalistic monks. Through a chain of events too complicated to explain the Nazi pilot who is trading kidnapped women to the monks for jade sinks the cruise ship so it can't go to the island and ruin his deal. The survivors end up on the island anyway and the monks let loose the zombified remains of all of the dead martial artists on the survivors.

At this point you're either intrigued or repelled by the nonsense you just read. If you're repelled move on to the next movie, if you're intrigued keep reading.

Lets be honest this isn't a good movie by any conventional standards. Its got bad acting, bad special effects and a dumb plot. But then again its got the spirit to go for it anyway and it almost manages to be one of the all time classics.

Unfortunately the film falls down in two key areas. First it doesn't know whether its serious or tongue in cheek. There are times when the cast seems to be playing it straight and times when they seem not. The unevenness of tone makes it hard to know how to take the movie so it ends up rubbing you the wrong way. The other problem is that the action sequences are filmed basically in a point and shoot style. There is no excitement generated from what we are seeing on screen because the camera man seems bored by it all. Its awful because this is often a really fun movie at times.

If you are an exploitation movie fan, or a fan of movies that are just out on another planet I'd give this movie a shot, because even with all of the bad in it there is just an incredible collection of wild and way out things going on that you're very likely to find something to love.

On the exploitation scale of 1 to 10- 6.5 rounded up to 7.