Once actor Alphonse Beni & director Godfrey Ho worked together on IFD's Ninja Operation: Knight & Warrior, they made a deal for producing another movie. Beni gave the money to Ho & this one created a production company named STRONG PRODUCTIONS. Under this filming company they "created" their only work: a cut & paste movie titled TOP MISSION.
Top Mission is just a filipino movie whose real title is still a mistery that contains 15 minutes of added fotage from Beni & Ho. The story of Top Mission is another mess similar to the ones came from IFD & Filmark. I mean, there are two storylines just connected by very thin links. The original filipino source is about a muslim filipino who must fight a gangs of terrorist to get revenge & it has its highlight during an airplane hijack. The new added footage shows us the story of 3 old friends who were professional soldiers & ninjas facing each other after the oldest one is supposed to be the terrorist leader of the original filipino movie. Anyway, the stuff offered by Ho & Beni is funny enough to enjoy the film.
The most curious fact about Top Mission is Godfrey Ho never counted on IFD for distributing this film. For some obscure and unknown reason he decided to use Tomas Tang's Filmark to distribute Top Mission all around the world.
So, we can tell ( as Ho said in several interviews) he NEVER worked for Filmark, but he used Tomas Tang production company for getting an international distribution of his film. In this way, he was related to Filmark.
Ho was not the only technician from IFD who worked in Top Mission. The photography director Raymond Chang who had been working for Joseph Lai since Asso Asia, also moved from IFD in Top Mission and later followed Godfrey Ho during his time in Filmswell as photography director in titles such as Princess Madam or Angel Protectors.
Some screenshots from Top Mission, maybe my good friends Andrew Leavold or Jack J, could help me to identify the title of the original filipino source used for Top Mission.
Top Mission is just a filipino movie whose real title is still a mistery that contains 15 minutes of added fotage from Beni & Ho. The story of Top Mission is another mess similar to the ones came from IFD & Filmark. I mean, there are two storylines just connected by very thin links. The original filipino source is about a muslim filipino who must fight a gangs of terrorist to get revenge & it has its highlight during an airplane hijack. The new added footage shows us the story of 3 old friends who were professional soldiers & ninjas facing each other after the oldest one is supposed to be the terrorist leader of the original filipino movie. Anyway, the stuff offered by Ho & Beni is funny enough to enjoy the film.
The most curious fact about Top Mission is Godfrey Ho never counted on IFD for distributing this film. For some obscure and unknown reason he decided to use Tomas Tang's Filmark to distribute Top Mission all around the world.
So, we can tell ( as Ho said in several interviews) he NEVER worked for Filmark, but he used Tomas Tang production company for getting an international distribution of his film. In this way, he was related to Filmark.
Ho was not the only technician from IFD who worked in Top Mission. The photography director Raymond Chang who had been working for Joseph Lai since Asso Asia, also moved from IFD in Top Mission and later followed Godfrey Ho during his time in Filmswell as photography director in titles such as Princess Madam or Angel Protectors.
Some screenshots from Top Mission, maybe my good friends Andrew Leavold or Jack J, could help me to identify the title of the original filipino source used for Top Mission.
enhorabuena por este interesantísimo blog !
ResponderEliminarGracias por el elogio. Creia que la historia de estas productoras y sus pelis de ninjas no interesaban a mucha gente de España ( de ahi hacer el blog bilingüe).
ResponderEliminarPoco a poco irá tomando forma y espero que siga siendo interesante.
un cordial saludo!
Muy interesante artículo, no recordaba que fuese Godfrey Ho el director de la película pero no estaba mal del todo, se hacía entretenida...
ResponderEliminarIt looks like Romy Nario in the second photo,second from the right. I'm checking the Bembol Roco filmographies today and hopefully will get to the bottom of this mystery!
ResponderEliminar...Closest I could get was a 1986 Tagalog film called DIABLO FORCE with Bembol Rocco, Yusuf Salim and Robert Lee (none of the other acting credits match up).
ResponderEliminarI Knew it!!!!! I knew you could find the real title of this movie.
ResponderEliminarNow I am pretty sure TOP MISSION was done using the main body of DIABLO FORCE. About the other acting credits just say that HO & Filmark used thousand of fake names to make their products more commercials so it is normal not find another matches on the credits...even Godfrey Ho himsefl is credited as Henry Lee as director & as Godfrey Strong as Executive producer.