Althought June is a month that makes me lazier due to the high temperatures in South Spain area, here we go again with another Taiwanese black movie used & distributed by IFD during the video boom in Spain. At that time it seemed IFD catalog was endless.
IFD & Filmark released some of the most obscure taiwanese gangster movies on video, but sometimes they also brought us some with better known stars who also got a career in Hong Kong whose movies enjoyed better distribution. One of that movies was Phoenix The Raider.
IFD creative unit was also a bit lazy about choosing names or titles, when they found an interesting one they used countless time like the Thunderbolt or Phoenix. Do you remember Phoenix the ninja? the girl in Ninja Dragon was also named Phoenix...Curiously these two words have always been used on Taiwanese movies titles or characters.
Well, Phoenix the Raider was starred by Elsa Yeung & later superstar Brigitte Lin who was named as Venus Lin in most of her movies distributed by IFD like Golden Queen's Commando or its sequel Pink Force Commando also starred by Elsa Yeung and other future HK movie starlettes. By the way...Briggite Lin also starred a taiwanese movie titled Burn Phoenix burn in 1982. This coincidence should have been used by IFD guys and re-name Briggite Phoenix Lin instead Venus...
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| Spanish VHS cover |
Once again, we guess Phoenix The Raider was the IFD international title given to a taiwanese gangster movie originally titled The Deadly Angels, a 1982 movie co-directed by Ulysses Au Yeung-Jun a veterane director & Leung Sau-Geun an actor who starred some movies along Lin & Yeung and then he tried to be director on this film but the experience was too much for him since he never directed anything else.
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| original taiwanese poster displayed at HKMDB. |
The deadly angels was starred by some regular Taiwan black actors such as Eagle Lee, O Chung Hung or Heung Wan Pang and even we find a young Charles Heung today the powerful head China star in an early role as an inspector before he became the bodyguard of Mr Ko Chun The God Of Gamblers himself!!!
Hello Jesus:
ResponderEliminarI always enjoyed The IFD opening of their movies with "the woman in white" light bearer, a sort of a trademark symbol which always recalls the Columbia Pictures woman in draped dtess hoding a torch. Well I was so excited to discover that IFD actually took their picture directly from "Pink Force Commando",
the Brigget Lin/ Elsa Yeung cult classic (one of several) that IFD distributed. I won't go into the context of the image in the film because I sure you would have mentioned if you had an opportunity to see it. But now we know, that the IFD torch bearer is Teresa Tsui Jun-Jun from Pink Force Commando, the statuesque star from such movies as "Island Warriors", "Golden Queens Commandos" (both with Elsa Yeung) and "Woman Warriors of Kinmen", the Taiwanese woman army propaganda film. It may seem to some a small thing but I love tracking the taiwanese actresses from "Island Warriors" to other similiarily themed films. If you haven't seen "Island Warriors" you simply must!!! If you have trouble finding it, I will get you a copy. Best, Jim Keller