INVADERS OF THE LOST GOLD (1982)
Label: Severin Films
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 88 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Full Frame (1.85:)
Director: Alan Birkinshaw
Cast: Stuart Whitman, Woody Strode, Harold ‘Oddjob’ Sakata, Laura ‘Emanuelle’ Gemser, Edmund Purdom, Glynis Barber
From Dick Randall, the notorious producer of such euro-cult trash classics as Pieces and Don't Open Till Christmas, comes the b-movie star-studded Filipino exploitation adventure Invaders of the Lost Gold (1982). This hot mess was directed by Alan Birkinshaw (Killer's Moon), it's a cheap and dirty bit of jungle adventure starring Stuart Whitman (Night of the Lepus) as a down on his luck, alcoholic adventurer named Mark Forrest who is hired to star in this this film, err, I mean to lead an expedition into the Philippine jungles by financier Douglas Jefferson (David De Martyn), who is funding an expedition lead by himself, an unscrupulous adventurer named Rex (Emund Purdom, Pieces) and a former Japanese soldier named Tobachi (Harold ‘Oddjob’ Sakata, Goldfinger).
The expedition is in search of a lost shipment of gold that a platoon of Japanese soldiers left behind in the Philippines during the waning days of WWII. The movie starts off strong in the 40's and shows the Japanese soldiers encountering vicious headhunting savages while transporting the gold through the jungle, forcing them to stash the loot in a remote cave. The try to hold their position, but most of soldiers are massacred by the spear and arrow slinging savages, with only three soldiers surviving the slaughter, each swearing to keep the location of the gold a secret, vowing to return to retrieve it someday.
Audio/Video: Invaders of the Lost Gold (192) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Severin films in 1080p HD and framed in 1.85:1 widescreen, with the alternate 'Greed' title card. This is advertised as being "scanned in 2K doe the first time ever" and it looks pretty great. The source is in great shape with just a few blemishes, most noticeably a fraction of a second green staining of the upper frame at the 1 min 23 sec mark and some grit and debris during the opening and closing credits. Otherwise grain is intact and organic looking, depth and clarity is generally quite pleasing, and the color reproduction is solid. This look much better than I was anticipating, a very solid upgrade from Severin.
Back to current day hired adventurer Mark charters a boat to take the expedition upriver into the deep jungle, bringing along his right hand man Cal (Woody Strode, Kingdom of the Spiders), a jungle guide named Fernando (Junix Inocian, Formula 51) and his wife Maria (Laura Gemser, Emannuelle: Black Velvet), plus the boat captain (Mike Cohen, Raw Force), the the financier, the finacier's sexpot daughter Janice (Glynis Barber, Edge of Sanity), and Rex and Tobachi.
The river journey is fraught with danger and in-fighting, with Gemser's character being an ex-girlfriend of Mark's that still carries a torch for him. Perhaps not coincidentally her husband is bitten and killed by a cobra that someone releases inside his tent while he was sleeping. Also not helping is that Rex and Mark are former associates who don't see eye to eye, its sort of an Indiana Jones versus Belloq scenario, and certainly not back accident, this want to be Raiders of the Lost Ark so bad. As the group travel deeper into the jungle more members of the expedition die; one is eaten by a croc at the water's edge, another is impaled by a bamboo boobytrap, and poor Cal just loses his balance and falls from a rickety foot bridge onto the rocky terrain below. The strangest of all is when Gemser's character dies in a mind-boggling skinny-dipping incident. Her death is shot in such a way that it does not make clear if she accidentally drowned or was murdered, or some unknown third option.
Like a lot of Randall productions this was shot very cheaply and with little resources, but the Philippine scenery make for a great backdrop for the jungle adventure. It also helps that we have a very interesting cast, with Whitman and Stroke as jungle adventurers, plus euro-cult star Purdom playing a pretty fun-to-hate baddie, and then we have some gorgeous eye-candy by way of Filipino strippers early on, plus the blond hottie Glynis Barber and euro-cult goddess Laura Gemser, the latter of whom naturally strips nude for her doomed skinny dip. Let's not forget 007-alum Harold ‘Oddjob’ Sakata as the older version of one of the surviving Japanese soldier who knows the location of the gold. There's a lot of known talent onscreen, and they're all slumming it in this cheap but still highly entertaining slice of z-grade cinema.
The flick starts off strong with a bloody, action-filled flashback to WWII with Japanese soldiers fighting against a tribe of savage headhunters (and losing), including a pretty grotesque pit fall trap with bamboo spikes. The flick finishes up decently, but the middle-section is over padded and a bit of a slog. Once we get over the hump though the deaths come at regular intervals, but they're poorly realized and weirdly edited; after the pitfall death and a savages head exploding in the opening reel set in the 40's the deaths get pretty tame. The final bit of business limps it's way to the finish line with an ending that screams 'we ran out of money, sorry', literally ending with a lucky shove of a cliff! The later deaths are oddly edited with insert footage of much lesser quality. I was expecting a Pieces level jungle exploitation adventure here, and that's sort of what we get. I love Pieces, but it's a cash-strapped cornucopia of goofy slasher goodness, but unlike that slasher this one fails to deliver the gore consistently enough for my tastes. It does deliver some great jungle scenery and an all-star b-movie/cult film cast wandering aimlessly through the jungle though, and that's still pretty entertaining.
Audio/Video: Invaders of the Lost Gold (192) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Severin films in 1080p HD and framed in 1.85:1 widescreen, with the alternate 'Greed' title card. This is advertised as being "scanned in 2K doe the first time ever" and it looks pretty great. The source is in great shape with just a few blemishes, most noticeably a fraction of a second green staining of the upper frame at the 1 min 23 sec mark and some grit and debris during the opening and closing credits. Otherwise grain is intact and organic looking, depth and clarity is generally quite pleasing, and the color reproduction is solid. This look much better than I was anticipating, a very solid upgrade from Severin.
Audio comes by way of uncompressed English DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono with optional English subtitles. The mon track sounds appropriately vintage and not very dynamic, but it does the trick and the score from Francesco De Masi (New York Ripper) sounds fine.
Extras:
Extras start off with Rumble In The Jungle, a 17-minute interview with Director Alan Birkinshaw who talks about how he landed the gig, shooting in the Philippines, the casting of the film, and his relationship with the notorious producer Dick Randall, including some fun anecdotes about the making of the film, including difficulties working with the drugged crocodile and how one of the squibs was electrocuting an actor playing one of the headhunters.
We also get 23-minutes of outtakes from Mark Hartley's Filipino exploitation documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed with Director Alan Birkinshaw and Wife of Producer Dick Randall. A lot of what the director covers here is repeated in the new interview, but it's still solid stuff. Randall talks a bit about shooting in the Philippines and the rampant corruption, as well as an encounter with Whitman on the set of the film, as well as what she thinks of her late husband's body of work.
The single-disc release arrives in a black keepcase with a single-sided sleeve if artwork with a fantastic illustration which is also featured on the disc. If yo ordered from the Severin web store there was also an uncensored version of the artwork in a limited edition slipcover which was pretty hot stuff!
Special Features:
- Rumble In The Jungle – Interview with Director Alan Birkinshaw (17 min)
- Rumble In The Jungle – Interview with Director Alan Birkinshaw (17 min)
- Outtakes from Machete Maidens Unleashed with Director Alan Birkinshaw and Wife of Producer Dick Randall (23 min)
Invaders of the Lost Gold (1982) is a messy and uneven jungle action adventure with a pretty great cast of b-movie legends. It'a more along the lines of Cannibal Terror (1981) and Massacre In Dinosaur Valley (1985) than Eaten Alive (1980) or Cannibal Ferox (1981), but it does have it's low-budget exploitation charms. Severin's Blu-ray delivers a pretty fantastic HD upgrade and a small but solid array of extras that help you understand why the movie is what it is.
Screenshots from the Severin Blu-ray:
Extras:
