Gold Raiders (1983)

User Rating:

2.4/10   

Director:

Philip Chalong

Genre:

Action | Adventure

Plot Keywords:

Treasure | Blood | Indochina | Terror | Artificial Leg

Cast

Robert Ginty
Sarah Langenfeld
Sombat Krung Ron
Manop Noppol Reed
Nawarat Lalana Vasana
Somchai Poom Rong
William Stevens
Dusty Rhodes
Pichai Vasnasong	...	Thai General

Also Known As:

Fire Game (Europe: English title) (video title)

Runtime:

USA:106 min

Country:

UK | Thailand

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Norway:18

Trivia:

The German dub turned the movie into a sequel to The Exterminator (1980). German movie posters were misleading as well, saying (in English) "The Exterminator Man is back!"

Robert Ginty cleans up Thailand with rad motorcycle

Nothing too exiting here but a pretty entertaining thai action/adventure romp with an international cast (well... Burt Reynolds seemed to have had other obligations but they did get the lovably lame Robert Ginty, looking as wimpy as ever, and a cute caucasian girl who's acting abilities are limited to looking angry and/or horny whatever takes place in the movie... hey, good enough for me). As often when there's more than one county involved in the production we get an clichéd espionage story with a gold treasure that many parts are after - my guess is they were reaching for sort of a mixture between James Bond and Rambo with some local thai spice to make it exotic for foreign sales. We get some dumb dubbing, a high body count with lots of juicy squibs, a glide-flying motorcycle with a built-in rocket launcher (sadly the only gadget, but a good one indeed!), great evil communists, a character named Porn - who gets sick and is replaced by Penporn (did the writers see Café Flesh? ) and best of all - an underground Mario Bava-esquire lit cave filled with fat, super-duper-mega evil vampire bats with gleaming red eyes! Best vampire bats ever. But maybe I oversell it now, the film do have some obvious problems that makes land at "enjoyable B movie" rather than "trash action classic". Especially the pacing and cutting feels very... thai (judging from the few other 70s and 80s thai films i've seen). Even though there's action and excitement in almost every scene the movie still drags a lot in parts, and it's a bit overlong too. Still worth checking out for fans of trashy 80s action Asian B films though, it gets a mild recommendation from me.

The Swedish video release I saw had a perfect widescreen print and has the line "The Exterminator man is back" all over the front, back and side of the cover. They even renamed the film GOLDRAIDERS (The Exterminator Man is back!) on the tape label. You've gotta miss the early days of video when even bloody Robert Ginty was a selling name!