3/10
Lousy and below average Spanish/French co-production by Jesús Franco providing an inconsequential jungle tale
27 May 2022
African adventure in Jesús Franco style with very short budget, ordinary stars , being a colorful but inferior production. This exciting film contains thrills , an idiot romance, disconcerting characters , adventure and action scenes of infighting between violent tribes that generate little entertainment . A lighthearted romp about jungle adventures , concerning an expedition looking for a person who has presumably missing somewhere in African jungles . As a little girl is adopted by a tribe of Africans along with her godfather after their plane crashes in the deep jungle. But some of her relatives are scheming to murder her to get the valuable inheritance . Long time after , a bunch of adventurers head to a primitive tribe in Africa to find a treasure of diamonds and a white girl who was lost years ago and was made the tribe's goddess .

This Spanish/France co-production results to be a simple , plain and embarrising fun . Silly movie , containing inadequate action , thrills , worn-out cinematography , lush landscapes , brief nudism , anticlimatic score ; all meld together under Jess Frank 's failed direction . It is an unttractive and predictable adventure spectacle , ordinarily directed by the Spanish botcher filmmaker Jesus Franco . The plot is nothing more than a female version of the often-shot Tarzan story, but it lacks the curious mixture of glossiness and raw excitement that most Tarzan films have to offer. Instead, we're left with unconvincing sets and plenty of stock footage to pad out the predictable tale . As the production values are really cheap , you don't get to see Tarzana herself riding real elephants or fighting real jungle animals, just inappropriate insert stock footage. Here stands out the attractiveness of a very young Katja Bienert who spends the time of her screen appearance wearing nothing but a little junglekini thong bottom. She's badly accompanied by varios familar faces from Franco films , such as : Antonio Myans , Olivier Mathot , Mari Carmen Nieto , Daniel White : Franco's composer and of course Lina Romay. This El tesoro de la diosa blanca(1983) or Diamonds of Kilimandjaro (United States title) or The Treasure of the White Goddess results to be a late example of numerous topless jungle girl movies emanating from Europe in the late 1960s , 1970s, and 1980s this is par for the genre. It follows in the wake of the Sixties and Seventies sub-genre about semi-naked Tarzanas , when abounded this sort of films , such as : into Golden Goddess of Rio Beni (1964) by Eugenio Martin with Gillian Gills , Tarzana, the Wild Woman (1969) by Guido Malatesta with Femi Benussi or Daughter of the Jungle (1982) by Umberto Lenzi with Sabrina Siani.

Produced by Daniel Lesoeur , Marius Lesoeur from Eurociné and Manacoa Productions , Jesús Franco's owner , the latter directs this off-the-wall jungle/adventure in his usual bungling style . The motion picture was lousily written, edited, produced and directed by Jesús, Jess, Franco. Jess was a Stajanovist, restless writer, producer, director who realized over 200 pictures. His career spans over 50 years with a few successes and lots of flops, making all kind of genres : thrillers, adventures, action and with penchant for Terror and erotic genre . Jesus used to sigb under pseudonym, among the aliases he used apart from Jess Frank or Franco Manera, were the following ones : Frank Hollman, Clifford Brown, David Khune, James P. Johnson, David Though, among others. Franco used to use ordinary trademarks, such as : zooms , nudism, foreground on objects , filmmaking in DIY style and managing to work extraordinarily quick in very low budget, as well as frequently releasing various titles at the same time. He was a prolific filmmaker, directing a lot of lousy movies. However, making some acceptable films , such as : We are 18 years old, The awful Dr Orloff, The Bloody Judge , Count Dracula, 99 women, The Blood of Fumanchu, Faceless and a few others. And many of them were heavily cut and with double versions. Rating Viaje a Bangkok : 3/10 . Inferior and below adventures action movie. Only for Jess Frank completists.
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