All the pics displayed in this blogs are from the author's private collection or just snapshots from his private movie collection. Whenever I use another web's or person's pics, it will be always mentioned. Feel free to use the information or pics showed but please ask for permission or just remember to add the source wherever you use them. THANKS
Todas las fotos mostradas en este blog pertenecen a la colección privada del autor o son capturas de las películas de la misma colección. En caso de usar material de otra persona o web, siempre será mencionada su procedencia. La información y/o fotos de este blog están a disposición de cualquiera, pero por favor pidan permiso para usarlas o al menos indiquen su procedencia. GRACIAS
-Euro Crossing -Fatal glory -Queen of Phoenix: Against Destiny -Royal destiny -Thunder kids: Golden adventure -Thunder kids 2: Wonderful mission -kickboxer king -kickboxer the champion -the fighter, the winner Note: Wayne Archer's first movies at IFD were all co-starred by IFD superstar Jonathan James Isgar. Wayne Archer got his biggest & most important roles on IFD Kickboxing films.
Filmark
-Bionic Ninja -Golden ninja invasion -Ninja the shadow killer
Note: At Filmark, Wayne Archer, was well as most of actors, was never credited under his real name, we found him credited has Daniel Green and other names in the 3 movies he starred at Tomas Tang's production company.
Other Hong Kong movies credits
-Hong Kong Godfather (1985) -Blood sport -Armour of God (1987) -The Dragon Family (1988) -Tiger on the Beat (1988 -Death Cage (1989) -Killing Angels (1989)
-Princess Madam (1989) -City Cops (1989) -Aces Go Places V (1989 -Casino Raiders (1989) -Armour of God II
Wayne Archer was, indeed, another "classic" & important presence from the gweiloh actors who gave Hong Kong Movies that "international look" that producers of the time looked for their productions.
No puedo estar mas de 4 dias seguidos sin dejar de pensar en la IFD de Joseph Lai o en la Filmark de Tomas Tang. Esta afición mia a los productos de estos caballeros es ya algo más que una obsesión, se han pegado a mi como parásitos chupavidas y no puedo desprenderme de ellos. Cada vez que vuelvo a ver alguna de sus pelis me sale el instinto detectivesco y allá me lanzo en busca y captura de algún tipo de información que arroje algo de luz a las películas mas denostadas pero al mismo tiempo distribuidas a lo largo del ancho mundo y que el tiempo y su extrema bizarrez les están otorgando un estatus de culto en muchísimos lugares por lo que cada vez son más los que salen del armario y confiesan abiertamente que les gustan ( o al menos les diverte) las películas de la IFD y la FILMARK.
Que nadie se lleve a engaño. La IFD nunca rodó nada en Taiwan, el pícaro de Joseph Lai usó películas Taiwanesas para sus productos de terror, ninjas, kung fu..etc etc intercalando imágenes y secuencias rodadas en HK. Quién no conozca geográficamente ambos lugares, no notaría la diferencia, pero cualquiera con un mínimo interés turístico-cultural-cinéfago ( e incluso erótico, no nos engañemos), se daría cuenta de que una persecución en coche que empieza en Japón y termina en TST, Hong Kong, no es muy creible por mucho que los diálogos nos indiquen lo contrario como sucede en Ninja Thunderbolt por poner un ejemplo.
ninja thunderbolt se rodo entre Taiwan,Japon y HK, pero el doblaje nos quiere hacer creer que toda la accion se desarrolla en HK
El turno le toca ahora a GOLDEN NINJA WARRIOR y a DIAMOND NINJA FORCE, ambas pelis supuestamente “dirigidas” por Joseph Lai en el primer caso y por Godfrey Ho la segunda. No quiero reseñar las pelis, ya que existen miles de reseñas, sobre todo de Golden ninja warrior, en casi todos los idiomas usados en internet, pero si quisiera añadir algunos datos y curiosidades sobre estos dos títulos míticos que junto a Ninja Terminator y The Ultimate ninja tienen en común el uso y riñas entre los diferentes imperios ninjas por la dichosa estatuilla del guerrero ninja dorado.
La IFD le dedico 4 magnificas peliculas 4 a esta estatuilla
Entre la mayoria del fandom de las pelis de Joseph Lai, aún existe el falso rumor de que Ninja thunderbolt es la primera y unica peli de Joseph Lai que no tenía insertos postizos o dicho de otra manera que no pertenecia al grupo del “corta y pega” que luego hicieron famosos tanto Lai como Tang. El VCD de Ocean Shores de THE NINJA & THE THIEF demostró que era falso. Todas las pelis de ninjas de la IFD usaron el metodo del corta y pega. La única que incluye menos metraje nuevo es GOLDEN NINJA WARRIOR que se limita a un resumen de la pelea final de Ninja Terminator como prólogo ya que el metraje restante es una película 100% Taiwanesa sin ningún aderezo.
La única peli con ninjas de Lai que no es un "corta y pega" si obviamos la intro
Esta misma localizacion se puede ver de pasada en DIAMOND NINJA FORCE donde los protas asiaticos corren por la playa y en un momento dado se ponen a chingar que da gusto. Y ademas existe una película titulada WHITE PHANTOM ( editada en España como El fantasma blanco) rodada en Taiwan que tambien uso el mismo lugar para sus enfrentamientos ninja. Asi que una vez localizado el lugar en la isla de Taiwán, me puse mi gorra de pensar ( como dice el samura) y con el google y el google earth a punto, me dispuse a la caza y captura del dichoso emplazamiento. Y.....bingoooooo, de nuevo. Otra vez di en el clavo!!!! Las localizaciones de rodaje de GOLDEN NINJA WARRIOR, DIAMOND NINJA FORCE estan situadas en Sanjhih una ciudad al norte de Taipei. Comprueben ustedes mismos las fotos y cuando la impresión les deje respirar tranquilos, enivenme unos jamones, vinillos y muchos litros cubicos de Cerveza Franziskaner para que me pueda reponer de tantas horas de búsqueda y ataduras de cabos.
Tachan, Tachan, ¿Donde esta le golden ninja warrior?
Estos interiores se usaron tambien en White Phantom
Que Bonito es la memoria fotografica ¿verdad?
Según he leido por algunos sitios de internet, este lugar fue una especie de resort turístico, pero que los fuertes vientos que soplan por la zona, hizo que el proyecto se viniese abajo y finalmente fue abandonado. ¿Cuándo se construyo? ¿Cuánto duro el negocio? ¿Cuál fue la verdadera causa del abandono?. Lo que si hay que decir que el sitio da un yuyu impresionante, ya que la atmosfera fantasmagórica y esas formas geométricas del lugar, no es algo que veamos todos los dias a menos que hagais como yo y esteis engachados a las pelis de Tomas Tang y Joseph Lai de forma tan enfermiza como yo.
Here we have some other IFD movie posters from Egypt. I really love these vintage design from African countries where the handed-paint is still a very valuable art. The artists just make a wonderful pict drawing some of the most interesting shots from the movie itself, adding some nice details that attract the audience attention & let us to imagine those drawings in action inside our brain!!! How I enjoyed these kind of design when I was a kid ( and I still do) & I found these art covers in the video rental shop!...Looking at the art cover, the movie was already playing in my imagination!.
Ninja Thunderbolt was the first ninja movie starred by Richard Harrison at IFD & one of the most popular. The publicity department included Jackie Chan in the cast as a joke or just expecting the audience to spend the time looking for him. This egyptian design is exactly the same used in most of the international releases from other countries.
The design for Ninja hunt also kept the original design from IFD art department. The egyptian art designer for this film didn't change it a bit. He maybe was tired that day!
Secret Ninja, Roaring Tiger was "produced" by Tomas Tang & Joseph Lai at the time Asso Asia was offering us korean kung fu movies. I am not totally sure about if this is the original art work from Asso Asia because the Spanish poster was totally different to this one that has also been used in other international releases.
A political, nationalist taiwanese movie was become into an action movie thanks to the new dubbing work of IFD. It has nothing to do with the double feature directed by Chu Yeng Ping & starred by Briggitte Lin & Elsa Yeung Pink Force Commando & Golden Queen Commando. Those movies were distributed outside Taiwan & HK by IFD and they enjoyed a big success around the world. It is possible Joseph Lai wanted to continue that success retitling this movie. The Egyptian design is exactly to the original one.
This is really a good one!!!...They call him Chop-Suey was produced by George Lai ( Joseph's older brother) as co-production with the Philippines through his own & powerful production company Intercontinental Film Distributor (HK). The late filipino director Bobby A. Suarez was based in HK at the time & had a "special" relationship with the Lais till he had to leave Hong Kong dued to some problems with them. Together they produced some nice & weird movies starred by Chris Mitchum. They Call Him Chop Suey was starred by Ramon Zamora the filipino answer to Bruce Lee. Today this movie is avaliable from IFD.
Recently I found a webiste where Egypt posters from world movies were on sale. Sorry, I can't remember the address because I was net-surfing & taking care of my baby at the same time & I off the computer without adding the URL to my favourite folder. Well, I was checking the stuff offered in such website & I tried to search if they have IFD & Filmark poster in their catalog...I got very surprised when I found the following ones!!!
Mission Thunderbolt was the first installment on the IFD "Thunderbolt" series. The poster is very similar to the original one presented by IFD but Chan Wai Man figure was added in the Egyptian version. Phoenix the ninja was the international IFD title of a taiwanese movie titled Wolf Devil Woman.
Scape to high risks has kept the original IFD design used in all the international video releases. Today, this movie is out from IFD catalog.
Rivals of the dragon has a curious design that try to offer us a Bruceplotation movie. The movie was not produced by IFD. It was simply bought by Joseph Lai who erased the director's name from the credits. A very rare ( and baaaaad) movie.
Silver Dragon Ninja is one of my favourite Filmark ninja movies. It was starred by Paulo Tocha & Eric Neff who came from working in Jean Claude Van Damme's vehicle Bloodsport. This design used in Egypt was the one used in Spain for another Filmark movie starring Stuart Smith titled Ninja in the killing fields.
As we have seen, Jonathan James Isgar got to play from cheap movies at Filmark to big budgets & very influential movies such as Once upon a time in China or Armour of God 2. His roles were always important to the story even when he only played small parts. His charisma made him bright playing bad dudes on screen: From Villanous ninjas at Filmark, Superheroes, brave soldiers or honest police officers at IFD to elegant terrorists, henchman or slave trader in some of the "classic" Hong Kong Action movies ever done in the former british colony. The very best Kung fu movies or Heroic bloodshed movies had a regular cast of stuntment & supporting actors,So Jonathan James Isgar was also a regular "gweiloh" in many of the very best movies shot in HK during the first 90's.
Jonathan Isgar can considered the quintessence of the western actors who worked in Hong Kong cinema during its golden age.
Apart from his works in Hong Kong cinema, Jonathan Isgar got to work on TV series, international film / TV productions shot in Hong Kong, advertisement, voice dubbing & even stage perfomance.
Other productions shot in Hong Kong -Dragon, The bruce lee story (Starring Jason Scott Lee) -To be the best ( Starring Anthony Hopkins) -Noble house (Starring Pierce Brosnan)
Jonathan Isgar career's has proved how much charisma he has when he is on screen
AUSTRALIAN TV CREDITS -The Feds -Blue heelers -Halifax fp -Janus
His previous work in Hong Kong were very useful for TV series. As Mike Leeder stated IFD & Filmark were a kind of acting. school
ADVERTISMENT -Toshiba -Harley davidson -Herald sun newspaper -VP Cognac -Viceroy
When Hong Kong film industry was on its peak at the end of the 80's & Hong Kong producers were desperados looking for gweilohs to add to their films an international appeal, Jonathan Isgar took the chance to improve his skills at Louis Roth's actor's studio in HK where Mr Isgar work along some people like Stuart Smith and other favourite gweilohs.
Louis Roth's Actor's Studio was the main source for "gweilohs" on HK movies during the early 90's.
Hong Kong movie industry is no longer what it was but Mr Jonathan Isgar is still on the movie bussiness & during 2010, he has attended the following auditions. SCORPION KING 3 ‘OSIRIS’ ESCAPE FROM FLIGHT 777 ‘Ball Cap’, Leader Russian terrorist Group. IP MAN Voice double for Sammo Hung. OBA ‘THE LAST WARRIOR’ Sgt. Brown (American) LARGO WINCH ‘Hanson’ (Former C.I.A.)
The following video resumes some of the best moments & memories of Mr Jonathan Isgar career. It worths to see it & It would worths to see Jonathan Isgar on screen again & again. I know what I mean, while I was watching IP MAN 2 I could see Jonathan Isgar playing the corrupted police officer & even the boxer's trainer!!!. Indeed, those roles have some of Mr Isgar's influence.
Jonathan Isgar was internationally well-known thanks to Tsui Hark's Once upon a time in China where he played one of the most hateful villains ever seen on screen, but as we saw in the previous post, he was already a favourite popular face to die hard Hong Kong ninja movies to Filmark best movies. So it would be fair to recognize Tomas Tang was first one who let us enjoy Mr Isgar's acting skills. I still remember when I first saw Once Upon A Time In China with my younger brother & I shouted to him: hey!, This guy is the bad ninja from Ninja Phantom!!!!.
Jonathan Isgar offered us one of the most hateful villains ever seen in a movie
So even when we can tell Once Upon a Time in China was the movie who allow international audiences to notice how great actor Jonathan Isgar is, he had been delevoping an intense career in other previosuly great movies offering unforgetable supporting roles as bad guy and even shocking scenes playing a mere extra.
John Woo's Bullet in the head was full of shocking images, but the one starred by Jonathan Isgar where he loses his two arms while he is trying to defuse a bomb will be kept in your mind for days.
Now it is time to let the readers & followers of this humble blog the COMPLETE & FULL FILMOGRAPHY of Jonathan Isgar on Hong Kong movies but outside of IFD & Filmark productions.
-LEGACY OF RAGE (1986) -LEE ROCK (1991) -THE OUTLAW BROTHERS (1990) -UNDECLARED WAR(1990)
Ringo Lam's Undeclared War has a great ALL STAR CAST gweilohs from Hong Kong Cinema. Most of the gweiloh actors who worked for IFD & Filmark had roles in this fantastic movie that deserves more credit than it has!
-MISSION OF CONDOR (1991) -SPY GAMES -ARMOUR OF GOD 2- OPERATION CONDOR(1991
Apart from his role in OUATIC, Jonathan Isgar is also remembered for his funny role in Jackie Chan's Armour of God 2- Operation Condor. He played a funny arab & he was lucky to see Carol Do Do Cheng's & Eva Cobo's naked bodies...a real lucky "bastard"!!!!!
The newspapers covered the shooting of Operation Condor in Spain & Morocco
-ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA (1991) -FIGHT BACK TO SCHOOL II (1992
Mark Houghton, Jonathan Isgar & Mark King as bloody terrorists against Chow Sing Chi. Houghton, Isgar & King were along other the kings of the gweiloh actors in Hong Kong during the early 90's.
-MR. NICE GUY (1997)
Jonathan Isgar hit the only & one Samo Hung in Mr Nice Guy. He is one of the few people in this world who can tell: " I beat Samo Hung".
Jonathan Isgar is one of those actors who added a special ingredient to the wonderful movies ever came from Hong Kong. At the time Gweilohs were hired to give an international appeal to those movies, but Jonathan Isgar not only got to offer what producers were looking for their movies but he also made his roles unforgetable.
Now that revival is everywhere, it would be a great idea to make a movie about those gweilohs who were in Hong Kong as travellers or just trying to do something different in their lifes and they ended working in movies as suporting actors or even as main stars thanks to the thriving movie industry in HK about 25 years ago.
NOTE: All the pics displayed on this post are copyrighted & belongs to Mr Jonathan Isgar. Please add the original source if you ever use them for any purpose.
Few days ago, I linked Jonathan Isgar public profile in this humble blog. On his profile, we can check his full filmography plus some many interesting details such as dates, production companies & the roles Mr Isgar played on those movies. Well, I have found Jonathan Isgar starred at least another 2 movies at IFD he may not be aware of them. He has recognized he hasn't seen his own movies from Joseph Lai's factory so here we are to make a FULL filmography. Jonathan Isgar says he started working for Tomas Tang's Filmark International so I have decided to start with those movies. Due to a lack of information about the exact dates of these productions ( supposedly shot during 1987) I decided to follow the alphabetical order.
FILMARK INTERNATIONAL
-DEATH CODE NINJA -NINJA: AMERICAN WARRIOR
The very best ninja movies ever produced by Filmark are the ones starred by Jonathan Isgar. The main source were excellent taiwanese or Hong kong action movies & the new ninja action was also superb.
NINJA: WARRIORS OF FIRE NINJA PHANTOM HERO USA [ aka Ninja phantom, aka Ninja empire]
Jonathan Isgar used to be credited as Joff Houston in his Filmark ninja movies & he played villanous roles.
IFD FILMS & ARTS LTD.
-AEROLITE FORCE 5: MISSION DYNAMO
When Mr Isgar worked for IFD he played more honorable roles such as war heroes or police officers betrayed by his colleagues
-AEROLITE FORCE 6: SOLDIER TERMINATOR
Nice outfits, heavy machine guns & other props for shooting in some Hong Kong forests around Shatin
-CATMAN: LETHAL TRACK -CATMAN: BOXER'S BLOW
The superhero the world needs!... & the movies any people with a great sense of humour wants to see.
-EURO CROSSING -FATAL GLORY -LA CONNECTION
Some still pics taken during the shooting of LA CONNECTION.
-QUEEN OF PHOENIX: AGAINST DESTINY -ROYAL DESTINY -THUNDERKIDS GOLDEN ADVENTURE [aka Thunder ninja kids golden adventure]
Mad Mel, the sympathetic old grandpa from Thunderkids Golden Adventure
Original trailer for Ninja Warriors of fire that used a taiwanese thriller titled QUEEN BEE as main source. Both old & new fotage bring us a really bizarre & magnetic movie. A must see. TO BE CONTINUED
Note: All the pics showed on this entry belong to MR JONATHAN ISGAR & have been taken from his website. Please ask for permission to the owner if you would like to use them. THANKS
Not too many new posts lately but during my free time I am still looking for new IFD / Filmark movies, contacting people & preparing new info about locations, new interviews & preparing more old spanish video covers about IFD / Filmark movies.
Today, I just want you to notice I add in the side bar two new interesting addresses. I named them Special sites for the reason these sites belongs to 2 of my all time favourite IFD ( oh, well, and many other hong kong movies from its golden age) actors and friends who are living icons of the History of Hong Kong action movies: Mike Abbott & Jonathan James Isgar. Thanks to them I have been able to uncover some secrets & info that were unavaliable till now: names from uncredited actors / technicians, location sets, pics..etc etc.
If you wish to visit them personally through the world wide web, just click on these links:
Most of people look at Filmark movies with the same view they see IFD movies or even worse, they think Filmark just imitated IFD working ways. They may are right but just in part because it is true Filmark "cut & paste" movies were born in the IFD's shadow as profitable bussiness in the international video markets. But what maybe not too people know is that Tomas Tang, chairman of Filmark international, also tried to produce action movies in the purest Hong Kong style, with no new edited scenes, using popular & well known actors, shooting in many & different locations & of course, with his eyes put on the world market including Hong Kong...remember that IFD & Filmark movies were for international market excluding Hong Kong.
The German DVD cover is just great: Leung Kar Yan, Tommy Cheng, an exotic girl holding a M-16,etc
Here Satanic Crystals enters. Based on the info displayed in some movie data bases such as www.hkmdb.com, this movie was produced by Tomas Tang & his usual co-producer at Filmark Dallie Yeung. In 1989, the international film markets had changed a lot. People were not interested on ninja movies but in kickboxer movies. IFD stopped to produce Ninja movies & most of IFD "classic technicians" moved to other companies & other directors and DPs started took Godfrey Ho's or Philip Ko's places at IFD.
Present Entertainment was a Filmark "face washing" at video markets
Let's suppose something similar happened to Filmark, its ninja & action films were losing their place in the markets & they tried new ways to continue their film production & distribution. So, at that time, Filmark distributed korean kickboxer films like The little kickboxer & other movies with children "a la" Kung fu kids. Most of these movies were edited on tape in Spain & many fans ( I included myself among them) thought Filmark started to produce full fims without stock material from other asian films. We were wrong: Filmark was just distributing asian films that were bought by Tomas Tang in some Asian markets like Joseph Lai did in the early IFD days.
89 Present Entertainment???? Satanic Crystals was a real present from Tomas Tang
But Satanic Crystals was the exception with some slight differences. Satanic crystal as many Filmark "cut & paste" movies was directed by Tommy Cheng Kei Ying & the action choreographers were Donald Kong Do & ex-venom sun Chien who also got supporting roles as they do in their Filmark " classic" films. We also found in the cast some IFD "renegades" like James Ha who was working in some IFD movies at the time such as War City saga or Paul Wong who used to direct some IFD movies or Wang Seung Lam ( one of the regular ninjas at Filmark movies) or George Nicholas an american action actor who made his life at movies in Taiwanese productions ( ninja movies with Lo Rei & other productions from Taiwan) & some filipino Rambo-ripoffs f. Then, where are the slight differences????
Tommy Cheng Kai Ying is to Filmark what Wang Lung Wai was to Shaw Bros: a great filmmaker & a vicious villain
Satanic Crystals was produced by Tomas Tang & Dallie Yeung as I stated above but they produced it through another production company named PRESENT ENTERTAINMENT & was starred by people like Leung Kar Yang, Shing Fui On, Ng Man Tak ,Stuart Ong or Ha Chi Jan ( the traitous vietcong girl from Samo Hung's Eastern Condors) just to name some of them. This cast was not the usual one for a Filmark production, righ?
The magnificent trio from filmark: ex-venom Sun Chien, Donald Kong Do & Tommy Cheng Key Ying. 3 wonderful & extremely underrated people from Hong Kong cinema
So, if the producer was Tomas Tang & most of the technicians & supporting actors were the regular troupe at Filmark, Why they avoided Filmark name and they use Present Entertainment as producing company? The answer may be Tomas Tang didn't want the audience to think this movie was another cut & paste movie from his factory. Maybe Tomas Tang wanted to start to produce another kind of movies that could be sold & distributed not only in the international markets that were already a bit saturated of direct to video asian productions but also in the local market in Hong Kong.
George Nicholas was the villain in some Lo Rei ninja movies distributed by Filmark. At last, he got to work & hold a contract for Tomas Tang in the right way
Anyway, Tomas Tang ,as Joseph Lai, was a smart person & he mixed all the elements that can make a succesful movie: Well known actors, international appearance with some gweilohs, stunning martial arts & gun play choreography & urban and selvatic action ala Indiana Jones.
A younger Ng Man Tak worked for Filmark before his stardom along Stephen Chow Sing Chi.
Shing Fui On so nice as usual on the screen
Just taking a look to the trailer, you feel Filmark production was behind.
If Filmark had continued producing this kind of products, the story would have been very different today. We can say the same if IFD decides to make this kind of movies again.