Taiwan Black Movies at IFD & Filmark (part 4): Equals aganist Devils

Here we go again with another black taiwanese movie released in Spain by IFD during the early 80's when the video boom was a wonderful fact in most countries. Spain, like Greece or Turkey and some other third-world european countries at the time, was a lucky place to get cheap, weird & bizarre movies from all over the world, due, of course, to a lack of laws that regulated the film distribution in the domestic circuits. A lot of small video companies flourished until middle 80's when everything was regularized & our enjoyment was limited & legally controlled.

 Getting Asian movies today is quite easy & cheap but 25 years ago, IFD was the main source we had if we wanted to see Korean, Thai or Filipino movies.

Intercontinental Films along IFD & its subsidiary Asso Asia & Ocean Shores made their big time in Meditarrean countries & soon other companies like Filmark or First Films join them & children like me used to explode of happiness everytime our moms took us to the video rental & we could catch titles like this taiwanese gangster film titled in Spain Lucha Entre Rivales ( Fight among Rivals) that made me think it was another kung fu adventure....of course I used to be dissapointed when I saw it for first time but they had something that made me keep them in my collection & I continued renting ( and recording) the "new arrivals" of the same type.

This is the first time I saw Roc Tien in a modern day movie!!!

So, when I saw Taiwan Black Movies documentary in 2008, I felt very happy because it talked about those movies I used to rent as kung fu actioners. I got surprised when the host or some people interviewed said most of these movies were gone forever. Surely they didn't know people like Joseph Lai & Tomas Tang "planted" many of them overseas outside Asia & those " seeds" were released in hundreds video rental shops & then kept in private collections.

First Spanish Betamax release of this Taiwanese Black movie.

 As many Taiwanese Black movies Equals against Devils was released several times by different ( or the same) companies during the 80's. They just changed the art covers to make people think they were "new releases".

Spanish VHS release

In this case, IFD bought a 1981 taiwanese production titled  The Desperate Prodigal &then re-dubbed it into English for the international video markets, retitled it as Equal Against Devil. The film was starred & directed by Roc Tien Peng whose some of his movies had been previosly released overseas by companies like Ocean Shores or IFD.

You may read a couple of different / opposite reviews of this film HERE.