Original subtitles

Hi, everyone.

As the Rappy Films title card comes on the screen, or in the case of

I Want to Get Even, Rapey Films, just a quick aside before

we start the commentary proper.

This initial credit sequence is a part of the film that's often missing from

VHS prints from around the world.

It's quite an extraordinary one because it features an English voiceover

announcing the initial export title of the film. Not Violent Killer,

as the title card says, but Violent Assassin, which...

My sound guy, Jesse just pointed out, makes it sound like we're watching a

trailer for the film and not the actual title sequence.

And then we have this almost mondo sequence of drug addicts shooting up and

losing their minds while a camera team are actually filming them.

You can see the sound and camera guy in the background.

It's quite extraordinary. I mean, the fact that the sequence was trimmed in

certain territories, I think is an absolute travesty because it kind of

brings a heaviness, more of a semblance of reality to what is a

most extraordinary narrative.

Even though it's grotesque and tasteless and all of these things, I

actually think it's quite well done.

and moves the film just for that moment and only very slightly

into shockumentary territory, which, of course, Indonesia

is no stranger to.

I'm thinking Shocking Asia 1 and 2 and all of the various other

70s and 80s mondo films that feature Asian sequences. They went straight to

the... Black Heart of Black Magic Islands, Indonesia.

And then all of a sudden, which you'll see very, very soon, bang,

we're back into 80s action and to the world of cartoon

villains and henchmen and...

bikes and jeeps and disco bars and the whole film suddenly

slips into this kind of carnival mode not that there's anything wrong with

that uh it's just that this sequence for me sets up um you know a kind

of vague feeling of this this film slipping in and out of various film

universes so we go from the cartoon

to the grotesque, to the grim.

And now here is Cobra doing what Cobra does,

brutalize women and take lots of drugs while doing it.

So, hi everyone.

Officially, this is the start of the audio commentary.

My name is Andrew Leavold.

I'm a Queensland, Australia-based filmmaker.

writer, B-film researcher and historian.

And my peculiar zone of interest is in genre films from

Southeast Asia.

And I'm very, very happy that Mondo Macabro have asked me back to do my

third audio commentary for one of their releases.

The first was back in 2021 for their Blu-ray release

Filipino sex horror film called SILIP.

I also provided the essay for their special edition Red Case release and

also directed the four filmed interviews for their special features.

And if you have even a passing interest in bizarre Asian erotica and

violence, and I've got a feeling watching this right now,

You probably do.

I really recommend that you check Celeb out.

Then in 2023, I did a commentary for Mondo Macabro's previous Indonesian Blu

-ray release, the 1982 ultra-gory black magic kung fu

actioner called Special Silences, a film in which a sorcerer gives

red pills to his victims and fully grown trees burst through their

stomachs. It's one of those films that I discovered tape trading back in the

1990s. A movie just so out of a parallel universe that

cinema was never the same ever again.

And I got that feeling watching the Filipino two foot nine James Bond

knockoff for your height only.

Also a Mondo Macabre release starring Wang Wang, with whom I became so

obsessed that I ended up making a documentary and writing a book about him

called The Search for Wang Wang.

And of course, that then extended into the absolutely crazy world of

the Filipino bee film that surrounded Wang Wang.

Now, I said it in my commentary for Special Silences and I feel like I

should say it again because I would say that you probably haven't listened to my

commentary on Special Silences. I do find it extremely weird that I'm doing

an audio commentary for a film that I have absolutely no personal connection

to. I've never been in...

an indonesian film i've never made a film in indonesia i have been to bali

once and yes i went looking for the mad screaming witch

from mystics in bali in the rice fields but with absolutely no luck and

i have been drinking with lady terminator herself barbara ann constable

who lives in the same in Australia as me. And I've interviewed her several

times about her adventures on a movie set in Java, in Jakarta.

Plus, I have collected and watched pretty much all of the

Indonesian export titles from the early 70s to the early 90s.

I'm slowly writing a Bible on those films.

And I'm also watching as many local films that were never exported, that

never made it past the Indonesian borders as I possibly can.

With or without subtitles, it doesn't matter. That's all part of the

adventure.

Now, my main focus of interest is, of course, genre filmmaking in the

Philippines.

And I've devoted three documentaries, a book, countless chapters and essays on

that subject.

But being part of Southeast Asia, you notice connections

between Indonesia and the Philippines and all the other countries' film

markets.

And how they intertwine when their films mainly...

genre films action fantasy horror some sex go out into

the global marketplace so what is happening on a film set in manila often

has a direct effect on one in west java or what film distributors are buying

in milan or berlin are having a direct impact on both

Sometimes with Hong Kong influence, whose producers and distributors

have very close ties with Southeast Asian producers and would often directly

affect supply according to demand.

So it can get complicated when you start digging into the complex interrelations

between Southeast Asian films, producers, distributors.

buyers, etc.

But it is all connected and I will sometimes refer to the Philippines and

Hong Kong quite a bit in this commentary.

So like I said, I'm going to be referring a lot to my previous

commentary on Special Silences and in that I covered this

period of Indonesian exploitation cinema.

leading up to the Special Silences release into the international

marketplace in 1982.

I Want to Get Even, a.k.a. Violent Killer, a.k.a. Violent Assassin, a.k.a.

numerous other titles, is slightly nearer to the second half of that golden

era of Indonesian trash cinema exports, which I would argue

begins... in the late 70s with the international release of Primitives and

ends with the international co-productions of the early 90s. So

please think of this as Indo Trash 102,

part two of a much larger history of Indonesian genre exports,

according to moi.

Now, of course, the character that we were just introduced to in the disco

sequence is the lovely Irma, who we see here with

her boyfriend, I believe. I don't think they're married, which, you know, from a

Muslim country would be quite scandalous in itself.

If Snake Queen Susanna was the queen...

of indonesian horror this actor here eva arnaz was the action queen

stunning absolutely stunning glamorous as well as most adept

at fighting scenes she started with supporting roles in films like

primitives from the late 70s with co-star barry prima a long-haired mixed

-blood titan of indonesian cinema who she ended up marrying.

She started headlining in films like Five Deadly Angels in 1980, and

also with Barry Prima in films like Special Silences from 1982, Deadly

Angels Strike Back, To Burn the Sun, The Fighters. I mean, these guys really were

the power couple of Indonesian genre cinema.

Primeva. I'm going to call them from now on, during the early 80s. Sadly, they

divorced by the end of the decade and Eva seemed to retire from acting to take

care of their child.

Rudy here is played by Clift Sangra.

Clift Sangra, as the voiceover so clearly enunciates.

This is Rappi Film's other Barry Prima.

introduced opposite Susanna in a fantasy film called Sangkuryang

in 1982.

They met on the set, fell in love, and they were married the year that this

film was made in 1983.

Now, if I was Kat Ellinger, I would spend an entire commentary on the

sexual politics of I Want to Get Even.

I mean, the poor character of Irma, who we've just witnessed, pregnant,

partnered to the balloon-muscled Rudy.

Our first encounter with the couple, and it didn't bode well for the rest of the

film.

There's a few initial I love yous, and then he throws a couple of right hooks,

and... the initial rape sequence, of which there are many.

Like, when you rent this rape revenge extravaganza,

you're really getting bang for your buck, and I don't mean to be offensive.

But I am, so that's how it comes out.

Only then he apologises for not being able to have normal sex with her.

without hitting or assaulting her. She accepts the apology and they cuddle.

All the while she harbours grave fears, and these are backed up by an equally

concerned doctor in that previous sequence, that Rudy's constant hitting

and raping may have a detrimental effect on their unborn child.

And guess what? It does.

And I shouldn't be apologizing for anything I'm saying. I mean, we're

watching a Blu-ray of I Want to Get Even, and you're listening to the

commentary track.

So I realize that we're veterans of cinematic sleaze here, and we kind of

understand how exploitation cinema works.

So it's for these precise, gigantic lapses from political correctness.

that give these films, you know, their intrinsic, peculiar appeal.

But I can imagine someone coming in cold and wondering, what in Allah's

green garden of unearthly pleasures have I stumbled on?

You know, I get it, but I'm not going to be a rape revenge apologist.

This is...

a safe space here for being wrong.

And us Generation Xs, and let's face it, I'm 54 years old and I'm still watching

this nonsense.

Us Gen Xs grew up on wrong.

And we're not terrible people per se.

We're just the lost generation that overdosed on irony.

So if you're finding anything I'm saying in the least bit offensive, then...

I can honestly say that my work here on Earth is complete.

But we haven't really determined yet precisely what the hell

we're watching.

So, like Special Silences, I Want to Get Even is another relic from the

VHS export years of the 1980s, where obscure Asian...

and particularly Southeast Asian action films and or fantasy and

or horror, could be sold to Western video distributors, dubbed into

English or French or German or Spanish or Italian or whatever, or subtitled

into Swedish or Finnish, and then sold as a cheaper alternative

to a Hollywood or European genre film.

So a representative from, say, Indonesia's rapey films.

I don't really know if it's rappy or rapey. Let's just call it rapey from now

on. Would set up a stall at an international film market and have a

whole slate of titles.

Video masters, cover art, exploitation materials.

Ready for a buyer from...

say, Hungary or Colombia or the Middle East, to

purchase for their own territory, limited to their country, usually

all video rights.

If Rambo First Blood Part 2 costs $50,000 for Turkey,

Lady Rambo from Thailand, for instance, would cost $5,000.

It's an easy sale and chances are it's going to be dubbed into Arabic or

subtitled. And a Turkish indiscriminate, undemanding audience

isn't really going to give a shit that it's not Sylvester Stallone.

They still get the big bazookas, the gigantic weapons, the big balloon

muscles, etc, etc.

So, unlike Special Silences, which only ever received a very

minor VHS release in the Netherlands, before

sinking completely into obscurity and now being rediscovered on Blu-ray

through Mondo Macabro, I Want to Get Even was sold to several territories.

Original title, Berlang Terlarang. Oh, God.

Apologies, Indonesia. I'm so sorry.

Berlang Terlarang.

And as we said before, sold under the export title

Violent Killer on the exploitation material.

Violent Assassin on the voiceover.

It was then.

released on German video as Commando Wildcat.

So West German VHS.

On Danish VHS, under my favourite title of this particular film,

Lady X-Terminator, as opposed to Lady Terminator, that didn't get made

for another five years.

On French video...

in the unimaginatively titled but still quite relevant Cobra

Gang, and finally in the US on VHS as

I Want to Get Even, which I believe is the title that Mondo Macabro

are releasing this as.

I really wish they had a Chosen Lady exterminator, but I guess that would

have caused a little bit of confusion.

over what you're actually ordering through Mondo Macabre.

So the film was released in Indonesia, I believe, in 1983.

Not 1987, as IMDB and a lot of other sources indicate.

Four reasons that I'll say very shortly.

Directed by Maman Vermansia.

who was a reasonably prolific director.

He also made the export films Empire on Fire, the

really incredibly sleazy Escape from Hellhole,

and the much more innocuous Teen Idol.

Understandably, that one didn't get an export release.

Unlike Special Silences, which dates from roughly the same period and stars

the top marquee name Barry Prima in a wild mix of black magic and martial

arts, I Want to Get Even, from 1983, is straight

action exploitation.

Although there's absolutely nothing straight about it.

For me...

It's as bizarre as Special Silences in its blatant disregard for

logic and taste.

Borderline offensive moral posturing.

And a mouth-dropping finale. I mean, you've seen it already, I'm assuming. So

I'm not giving anything away where Eva Arnaz as Irma.

blasts a motorbike rider in mid-air with a grenade launcher.

And its central advertising was built around this film's central image.

You know, a glamorous woman in a bandana, leather outfit,

massively oversized weapon.

Of course, it's usually a guy on the video cover, you know, sometimes from

Italy.

or the Philippines, or an Australian, or American in the Philippines.

I'm thinking Richard Norton on the cover of Equalizer 2000, or Richard Harrison

in Fireback.

And as the 80s progressed, the weapons become bigger and much more

complicated and convoluted.

So on the front cover of I Want to Get Even,

It's practically a bazooka, a grenade launcher.

And the one holding it is the one and only Eva Arnaz, Queen of Indonesian

Action Cinema in the early 80s.

Now, you can only imagine the power of that image.

First of all, to an Indonesian male in a very strict Muslim society.

then to someone from the Middle East or Pakistan or South America.

This powerfully charged image of female empowerment, what

is going through his head at that particular moment?

You know, has his perception of womanhood been changed forever?

Possibly not. But I think for that one split second,

He's considered a whole other universe in which these almost Russ Meyer-esque,

statuesque women reign supreme.

I'll quickly mention the other male leads in the film.

The guy that we see in the background, the guy playing Ronnie.

If you've seen Special Silences, then you'll recognise him as the guy who

takes control of the red pills and forces everyone to

have gigantic trees burst out of their stomachs. It's Dickie

Zulkarnayan. And he was a classic villain.

Originally, you know, quite a handsome...

male lead in films from the early 50s when there really weren't too many

Indonesian films at all. I'll go into the reasons why that was.

But by the 70s, he had transformed into quite a decent, what the

Filipinos would call contrabeater or screen villain.

And not only was he in Special Silences, but he was also...

One of the bad guys, in fact, he was the evil wizard in Barry

Prima's The Warrior, Jaka Sambang.

He was also in Escape from Hellhole, Virgins from Hell, Hell Raiders,

Daredevil Commandos, Final Score. I would say probably in half the

Indonesian exports from the 80s, you'll see his...

huge, glassy, menacing eyes boring into the hero's soul.

He's kind of like the personification of evil in these Indonesian films.

Rudy, the boyfriend, as I said before, was Susanna's real-life husband,

Cliff Sangra.

Not really...

Much of a power couple as Eva Arnaz and Barry Prima, but

he's still had a couple of decent films in him.

But Cobra, Godfried Sancho, a

character so memorable that the French renamed the film after him. And there he

is there with his bald pate and slightly...

portly muffin top sticking over the top of his tight pants.

Quite handsome back in the 1950s when he started off as a matinee idol.

And here he is in the early 80s playing rapey

biker gang bosses.

So a logical...

character evolution there so i've seen quite a few reviewers

get a little mixed up about what they believe the religion is depicted in i

want to get even some assume that it's christianity on display here and i

guess the quote at the very end from the book of revelation

is confusion personified.

And a lot of people think that this is a Thai film or a film from Hong Kong or

somewhere else. But no, this is Indonesian. And with the exception of

the island of Bali, which is Buddhist, Indonesia is

a Muslim country and it's a very strict one at that.

And so it often amazes me considering the amount of films coming out of

Indonesia that would definitely qualify as exploitation films.

Films exploiting female flesh, depicting sex outside of marriage,

rape, etc.

Films made not just for foreigners.

but were also released into the local market, as was I Want to Get

Even Here.

And there were also a great number of films that would be considered

exploitation that weren't ever exported beyond Indonesia's borders.

So, you know, you would imagine that these films would inflame the

authorities.

And often they did, you know, running foul of the censors and local

authorities.

Lady Terminator from 1988 was definitely one of those.

And as I said before, you can find the DVD in the Mondo Macabre Library.

And that film really pushed the limits of sex and blood

in a domestic Indonesian film.

And I believe that the film was censored or completely banned outright in certain

regions of Indonesia.

But I Want to Get Even displays a very heavy

-handed moralism, and I suspect probably more heavy than most local

films, which seems to compensate for the...

overt scenes of sin and sleaze and degradation.

And there's a heavy dose of punishment for poor Irma, even though she's in a

seemingly loving relationship.

Her husband beats her.

She's raped twice and loses the baby before she's allowed

any kind of vindication.

And then, you know, cut to...

Ronnie's sister Mia, played by Nina Rozier.

She too is raped twice, purely because of her familial link with

gangster Ronnie.

So in the crime world, depicted in I Want to Get Even,

rape is the currency of revenge.

And so are bazookas, it would seem.

It's a very, very strange world. I'm sure you could write an entire book

on just how messed up the politics of, the sexual politics of I Want to Get

Even truly are.

So the film sits within the category of rape revenge films.

Jesse and I were racking our brains before trying to think of the first rape

revenge film. It possibly is The Virgin Spring by Ingmar Bergman.

There's probably films before it which we can't think of at the moment.

But then you get a lot of those rape-themed revenge films.

coming out of the post-Death Wish period or around the time of Death Wish, around

the early 70s.

Last House on the Left being an infamous example.

Then in the late 70s comes I Spit on Your Grave, 1981, Ms.

45.

And I've got a feeling that those films, because of their reach,

into the global marketplace may have been watched by Indonesian filmmakers.

They may have been taking notes.

Not forgetting Straw Dogs, of course.

How could I have forgotten, Jesse, the Sam Peckinpah masterpiece?

And there are other classical examples from Asia.

Japan's Lady Snowblood series, for instance.

In Hong Kong, films, rape is a plot staple.

And I've got to do a quick Filipino reference.

From the Philippines, a very I-spit-on-your-grave-inspired film

directed by Sirio H. Santiago, Naked Vengeance from 1985.

But rape revenge films coming out of an intensely Muslim country, however.

Now, as a quick aside, I should mention that the tricycle driver here is played

by another veteran Indonesian character actor, H.I.M. Damsik.

You'll see him in Jaka Sembong, a.k.a. The Warrior, Queen of Black Magic.

Ghost with Hole, he's always playing the gaunt and haggard,

often comic relief.

So, however, as I said before, rape revenge films coming out of an intensely

Muslim country, you can't help but feel that there are dimensions

to them that we Western audiences aren't aware of.

Can you imagine Muslim women seeing depictions of themselves being

brutalised and sexually violated?

Male audiences anywhere within the Muslim world, or on the planet really,

getting a kick out of seeing Irma knocked around and lose a baby.

And let's name it, the sheer...

chutzpah of rapey films giving us a film that features not one

not two but four rape scenes five if you include the

unnamed girl at the beginning um violated by cobra uh i mean like

i spit on your grave this is ugly stuff and i dare anyone

to call this titillating

So I just want to talk briefly about our producers here,

Rapey Films, PT Rapey Films.

Most of the Indonesian film industry back in the 70s, 80s, and still

today, was dominated by Indian-born or

producers.

from within the Indian community, and specifically the Sindhi community, S-I-N

-D-H-I community of approximately 100,000 living in Indonesia,

having fled the violence before

the Indian province of Sindhi was absorbed into the Muslim

Republic of Pakistan.

And it emerged that there were two main players

entering the global market.

P.T. Rapey Films and P.T. Parkett Films, who

were responsible for Special Silences.

So these guys had been film distributors, and most of the...

Film distributors, as I said, were Indian, some were Chinese, since the

late 60s. In the early 70s, however, the government had introduced

quotas, forcing film distributors who were

importing films from Europe, America, Hong Kong, to match

those imports with local product.

Almost overnight, many of these film distributors suddenly turned movie

producers.

And at the same time, the Indonesian government decided to relax their

very strict censorship regulations so that these local films could compete

with overseas product.

And within the space of a year...

All of a sudden you had quite racy, sex

-themed thrillers and dramas, melodramas, some very racy horror films,

and quite overt on-screen violence and

titillation.

So in the 70s, so about 10 years before...

I Want to Get Even was made, saw local versions of

the really popular Hong Kong and Taiwanese kung fu action films that were

doing extremely well at the box office, as they were all around the world,

but especially in Indonesia.

And a lot of the local films that were aping, those Hong Kong and Taiwanese

kung fu films, were actually being picked up by Hong Kong distributors.

And some were even being sold abroad, not as Indonesian martial arts films,

but as a kind of anonymous Asian generic kung fu film.

And they had their own superstars, like George Rudy, for instance.

So it was almost by accident that Indonesian films were slipping out into

the global market.

But it was an Indian family concern, P.T. Raipi Films,

who really led the Indonesian charge into the international marketplace.

P.T. Raipi, set up by Gopi Samtani in 1968.

kind of coasted along in the 70s with some parochial comedies, sleazy

dramas and that sort of populist fare.

But then in 1979, Rapey had a local hit with a film called

Primitives. It was their take on the Italian cannibals in

Southeast Asian genre.

and specifically the Italian film directed by Ruggiero Diodato,

Last Cannibal World, which Primitives stole entire sequences from.

So this initial batch of rapies films to go out into the marketplace

was, I believe, two films.

Primitives and a film...

that they made around about 1980 called Queen of Black Magic, a super

gory and very weird fantasy horror film starring

Susanna, who, as we said before, throughout the 70s was the

reigning queen of Indonesian horror.

Both of these films were packaged.

and prepared for sale at the 1982 Manila International Film Festival.

So as far as I can tell, it was the first time that Gopi Samtani had been

abroad selling his product.

And from the look of it, from the number of sales

of primitives abroad, including Australian VHS,

which was my very, very first experience of watching a, you know, in inverted

commas, Indonesian trash film,

Gopi Samtani did rather well in getting his product out into the international

marketplace.

And so, of course, that emboldened Raby to attend the other

film markets, Mifed, Venice, American Film Market.

Et cetera, et cetera.

So they then packaged their next few films and went back out into the wider

global film arena with that incredible Barry Prima film, The Warrior.

The Hell Raiders. It was a gory tale of resistance against the Dutch.

And The Snake Queen.

basically the queen of Black Magic Part 2, starring Susanna as a

snake queen.

Meanwhile, rivals and fellow Cindy community

batchmates, P.T. Park at Films, sold their own

production, Fire of Vengeance, in late 1982.

And then...

For the next 10 years, Rapie and Parkett were solid presences

at just about every international film market and

were extremely successful in getting most of their productions, which were

around four to five per year, out into the global marketplace.

But really, out of the two companies, it was PT Rapi that was the major

player in the Indonesian export trade.

I mean, you just have to look at their production slate for 1983.

And this was less than two years after starting to sell their films abroad.

They made...

Three films starring their top actor, Barry Prima.

Two of those films were direct sequels to their hit 1981

export, The Warrior, a.k.a. Jack Assembung, in which

Prima plays a peasant turned revolutionary against his Dutch

oppressors and being endowed with magical powers to fight.

off the powers of evil.

And it was this combination of fantasy, folklore,

history, martial arts, and completely over-the-top gore

that made it so unlike any of the other exports coming out of

Asia at the time, just like Snake Queen and Queen of Black

Magic.

And of course, if you haven't got The Warrior DVD released by Mondo Macabro,

you desperately need this one. It is such a great film.

So in 1983, P.T. Rapey produced not one,

but two Jacka Sembong sequels.

The Warrior 2, a.k.a. The Warrior Against the Blind Swordsman.

and The Warrior 3, a.k.a. The Warrior and the Ninja.

Sometimes credited as 1985.

I've got to always go back to an online resource put together by

the Indonesian Film Centre, indonesianfilmcentre.com,

and it definitely says 1983.

Rapey also released a third Barry Prima fantasy, and I talked a lot about

this one on the Special Silences commentary, where I give my

top ten favourite all-time Indo trash classics, because,

let's face it, it's pretty hard to pad out these 90-minute commentaries.

You might notice that there's a little bit of padding here as well.

The Devil's Sword, also a Mondo Macabre release.

An absolutely mad mix between the Snake Queen and the Warrior,

featuring a magical sword from a meteorite and a crocodile queen, of

course.

Fourth film from 1983, Violent Killer.

aka I Want to Get Even, the only non-fantasy title.

And yet all four rapey releases for 1983 were dubbed into English

and other languages and released into the international marketplace over the

next year or two years.

I mean, really, we're...

getting an extraordinary number of DVD and Blu-ray releases of these golden age

Indonesian films.

I mean, apart from the ones from Mondo Macabre that I mentioned before,

recently there was a rapey film from 1981 called

Srigala, a.k.a. Wolf, a.k.a.

The Indonesian Friday the 13th.

starring Barry Prima, never before released overseas. So this is a real

coup. I can't remember off the top of my head which label it's on, but it came

out in, I believe, 2023 and is definitely worth tracking down.

Special silences, of course, on Blu-ray and the first time in digital for the

very first time through Mondo Macabro.

Severin Films have scored a couple of fantastic titles from

rapey films.

Primitives and Satan's Slave from 1982.

Both of those are just jaw-droppingly fantastic.

Now, all we need, hint, hint, Mondo Macabro, is a

Barry Prima...

Jacka Sembong, Warrior Box Set, and the world will be a much better place.

Looking at the screen now, I can see another one of those moments that were

designed entirely to confuse the senses and completely justify all of the

excesses, the on-screen excesses of I Want to Get Even.

And this is...

Irma's entire abortion is murder speech, which would have gone

down very well in conservative Muslim Indonesia as well as Bible Belt America.

But, I mean, seriously, why would anybody want a child

with a steroid freak?

who blames his wife-beating tendencies on his, inverted commas, condition,

and then expects all to be forgiven.

What an asshole.

Now, one thing I love about Filipino genre films is that they

call their action cinema goon films, named after the endless waves of

henchmen who get

Moaned down by the hero's AK-47 or M16 or

even his bare fists.

And I'm looking at those kind of goons. The ones with the big

70s mustaches and casual wear.

I mean, I really love the fact that Indonesia also gives serious screen time

to its goons.

Just like these guys.

It's craggy-faced bit players.

You know, I've spent almost 30 years trying to identify all of the Filipino

goons. And it's proving a little bit more difficult with Indonesian films to

create a similar kind of goon database.

But all of these guys.

All of these mustachioed Hawaiian-shirted apes

all look very familiar.

And just like their Filipino counterparts, I'm sure they're also

stuntmen. They've probably starred in hundreds of these action-centric films.

And just like their Filipino counterparts, they deserve to be

celebrated.

They should get their own documentary.

In amongst all the scenes of those girl goons training in Kung Fu,

which I'm all for, equality through depravity all the way,

girls being used as drug mules, etc.

If you ever wondered if it was hard to get, I want to get even past the censors

in... Indonesia. I think the scenes with the drug addicts and

the gangsters selling drugs may be the clue.

Cobra's modus operandi is eventually revealed in the film.

He intends to operate a nationwide drug operation in which all the

islands are represented to create a nation of addicts.

via college students.

It's like an American campus in 1968 where students are getting turned on to

dope and communism.

It's always those goddamn students.

So there's one justification for I want to get evens.

Avalanche of sleeves.

and distinctly anti-Muslim behaviour.

You know, and it's really the film posing as an expose on the drug rings

that are threatening to undermine Indonesia's new order under

Suharto.

And not, I repeat, not an excuse to

wallow in the very filth that we're meant to condemn.

Unlike the 60 years of exploitation cinema which preceded it.

So there's even a vaguely Reef of Madness moment where Cobra settles down

to smoke a joint that has been brought to him in one of his Kung Fu Gals bikini

bottoms.

And he really does look like he's enjoying it.

But should he?

So back to Indo Trash 102.

And if you were to draw a dividing line between the two halves of this

golden age of Indonesian trash cinema, I would say it should be where local

companies begin to import Western actors to extend their reach into the

marketplace.

less recognisably, in quotation marks, Indonesian, and with the addition of

actors like Chris Mitchum and Cynthia Rothrock, who have made films all over

Asia, much more generically Asian.

So an early white face in Indonesian cinema is Rambu

himself, Peter O'Brien.

an expat New Zealand jack-of-all-trades who was picked up by P.T.

Park at Films for a passing resemblance to actor Sylvester Stallone,

probably in the same way that all Asians look like Bruce Lee

in the eyes of the West.

And so from 1986...

Parket made the first couple of films, The Intruder, a.k.a. Rambu,

also The Stabilizer.

Those two films are possibly high-water marks of insane

Indonesian action cinema.

Forceful Impact from 1987,

Jungle Heat from 1988.

Double Crosser, An American Hunter from 1989.

And Triple Cross, a.k.a.

Angel of Fury from 1990.

Also part of this cycle are a couple of films starring

Chris Mitchum, son of Hollywood legend Robert Mitchum, who had made

films already in Taiwan.

the Philippines and Thailand from the 1970s. From 1984, he

made a German-Indonesian co-production called No Room to Die.

And he followed that by Final Score in 1986 and American Hunter

in 1989.

And let's not forget Cynthia Rothrock.

That grand dame of Asian martial arts cinema.

And God damn, I think I might even send her a copy of this to her because I

think she deserves a shout out.

She started in Hong Kong films in the mid 80s and then

graduated.

Some would say graduated to.

Indo trash in the late 80s with Jungle Heat, Triple Cross, Lady Dragon 1 and

2.

Cynthia, I salute you.

And, of course, possibly my

favourite, definitely one of my favourite Indonesian trash films

starring Brisbane Zone.

Barbara Ann Constable, 1988 Lady Terminator.

Seriously, track down a Mondo Macabro DVD of that one.

We're talking golden age Indo trash.

I think a really good question is, why did the bubble burst on the Indonesian

export bubble?

I mean, really, if we put all of these film releases on a timeline, we're

only talking about just over a decade between the first global push in

1982 to the final sputter of titles,

Dangerous Seduction, sorry, Dangerous Seductress, the Mondo Macabre release.

It's probably one of the last ones, and that dates from around about 92, 93.

So that initial gold rush of titles appearing on video around

the globe, that desperate grab for titles in a market absolutely

exploding around everyone, had started to stabilize and slow

down. All those smaller labels taking these modestly budgeted genre

films from Southeast Asia started to dry up as the

larger labels took over.

And the Philippines will testify to this. You know, they too had a massive

take up of titles from Manila International Film Festival 82

onwards.

And I think that's really, I mean, aside from the period from the late

50s to late 70s where Eddie Romero and Jerry DeLeon were making films for the

drive-in market and Roger Corman had started his first films with Sirio

Santiago.

Aside from that period, 82 to 92 was when the Filipino

made... independent productions started getting dubbed into English and sold all

over the world.

And they had an even greater pickup of titles,

up to 50 titles a year, as opposed to Indonesia's

seven or eight maximum per year.

So from local films dubbed into foreign languages to co-productions with the US

and Europe, Hong Kong, etc., the Philippines too started to experience a

slowdown round about this period. For the Philippines, there were some extra

factors involved.

There was a massive explosion of a volcano called Mount Pinatubo in

1991.

And that halted film production for about six months on the island of Luzon.

There were also concerns about people getting kidnapped in the countryside by

NPA, National People's Army, communist rebels

and Muslim separatists down south.

In Indonesia, there weren't those concerns, but they also shared with the

Philippines.

a problem of cable tv taking over in america and people renting

less of these sort of cheapish genre films on

vhs um american producers started doing less co-productions in southeast asia

they discovered that they could probably get a jungle a lot cheaper by filming

in mexico

And Asian films really didn't have the sort of cachet that they did in

that initial Kung Fu boom and straight afterwards.

And if audiences wanted high-octane Asian action, they would

rent a John Woo movie or take advantage of that avalanche of

really slick action films coming out of Hong Kong.

From the late 80s onwards.

And films were also going direct to VHS.

The quality was starting to suffer. Films weren't being made on 35mm

anymore. They were starting to be filmed on digital and just looked shitty.

And here, of course, we're watching this stunning remaster

of a film that was made in 1983.

relatively cheaply but it still looks absolutely sensational and uh the

master's coming out of rapey at the moment apologies rapey films if you are

actually called rappy but uh right now i'm quite comfortable calling you rapey

after what you've made me sit through in the last 60 minutes

And of course, if we're looking at the screen right now, we're looking at the,

what should be a lot more infamous miscarriage scene,

using a skinned rabbit, the same way that Joe D'Amato used a skin

rabbit in Anthropophagous.

I don't know, this scene just seems even more sleazy to me because

it represents, you know,

Irma's unborn child that had been pretty much kicked out of her

over the course of the previous film hour.

As I was saying before, there were a number of reasons and the director

VHS market was one of them why Southeast Asia was no longer a go-to

for saleable product.

for the US, continental Europe and beyond.

But what we're seeing right now, and probably one of the reasons why

Rapier is confident enough to dust off these old masters and start

releasing them into the Blu-ray marketplace, is that

in the early 2020s, We're seeing the rise of the Southeast Asian

genre film once again on streaming platforms such as Netflix.

And Rapey Films appears to be leading the way, revisiting

the gory supernatural films, their gory supernatural films of

the early 80s, and even remaking them in the case of Satan's Slaves.

I doubt rapey's more contemporary thrillers would translate to

2024.

And I'm thinking specifically about I Want to Get Even.

I mean, its real beauty is in its ugly early 80s aesthetics.

The seedy discos, the kung fu dungeons.

the goons in casual wear, the dirt bikes and jeeps galore, the synth score that

would make John Carpenter gag on Adrian Barbeau's afro wig.

So really, we're talking about all the reasons why I love I Want To Get Even

so much. It's that synth score, that...

Proto John Carpenter synth score and the disco numbers.

The absolutely head-scratching would

-be disco numbers and its rat hole-like bar scenes that

look like they were filmed in the inside of someone's shitty bathroom.

I love the...

Basic action scenes that sometimes even border on the amateur.

I love the film's overt evangelizing.

I love its abominable sexual politics.

I love its outright disdain for film conventions.

I love its garish 80s fashions.

I love the goons. I love both the male and female goons.

And here, of course, we see some of the male goons getting gunned down by a

vengeful Rudy, who seems to be feeling a little

bit of remorse for having kicked the fetus

out of his girlfriend.

I mean, I love the goons in this film.

I don't know if they were professional stuntmen like they were in the

Philippines, but that foot on the neck looked pretty convincing there.

And I wish I knew the name of that lead female goon, the one with the headband,

who was licking the post.

That one with the headband right there, licking the post while

Cobra goes raping again.

There are just so many moments in this film, you know, these ellipses, these

wild tangents that for me just mark out the frontiers

of what cinema represents.

and only in places like Indonesia, Philippines,

Turkey, Pakistan, essentially all of the territories

that Mondo Macabro have been mining for this wild, wild

East cinema for the last couple of decades.

I've got a feeling that it was the Mondo Macabro book.

that Pete Toombs co-authored that sent me on so many

wild toboggan rides into uncharted film territories.

I don't think I would have really delved as deeply into the Philippines as I

would if I didn't have a roadmap provided by the Mondo Macabro book. And

I'm serious here, Pete.

You inspired me to dig deep.

And I think we had this conversation after my first trip to the Philippines

when I said, I got a lot closer to Wang Wang than you did.

And you said, mate, keep digging.

And that's why you did the forward of the Search for Wang Wang book, because

you pretty much wrote the Refidex on weird Filipino

cinema before I even had a chance to.

travel any of its dusty roads.

So this is also for me a kind of demented time

capsule. And I think of films in general like that, that they are

time capsules of a time, a place, people, of a language, of a culture, of

customs.

But it's also a time capsule of audience desires and expectations

and of beliefs and dreams and fantasies and

nightmares of controls, social, religious

and other.

They're time capsules of exploitation, of titillation,

of carpetbaggery, of opportunism,

And so many other isms that I can't even think of right at this moment. But

they're there to be able to sink into and experience

rightly or wrongly.

And quite often we're sinking in these to experience the wrongness of them.

I mean, I want to get even is ugly cinema.

And I'm not just talking about their shirts.

It is ugly.

And like those shirts, there's an ugly beauty to these films.

But you know this already.

You know, this isn't your first rodeo, clearly.

You know, you've already watched this film.

And I'm preaching to the perverted right now.

big finale and of course you know all of the transgressors are punished

and wrongs are righted and the Muslim senses

of Indonesia are we assume reasonably happy overseas audiences

are sitting there scratching their heads going what the fuck did I just watch and

Really, you know, another Indonesian trash classic has been

released by Mondo Macabro for your viewing pleasure.

But not before we get one last rape scene in...

It doesn't end. It really doesn't.

Now, in this slow build-up... to the finale i i can't begin

to describe just how much these final sequences of events

do my head in and in the best possible way i mean the entire narrative

and all the weird quirks and ticks along the way build up to

the final five minutes of this film five minutes of absolutely

glorious bullshit.

I also call bullshit on our female goon there who's listening to Cobra upstairs

and is having way too good of a time at poor

Mears Express.

So, to recap.

Rudy rapes Irma, but it's okay. She understands.

Kiss, kiss, cuddle, cuddle.

Cobra kidnaps Irma, shoots her full of morphine and rapes her.

Rudy then gets revenge on Ronnie for selling her to Cobra

by raping Ronnie's sister Mia.

And then Cobra seeks revenge on Ronnie by also raping Mia.

This is one of the most convoluted

revenge-fest clusterfucks that I've ever had the

intense pleasure of watching.

I mean, it seriously puts I Spit In Your Grave...

in the category of, you know, simple family entertainment.

So, we're coming very close to the end of our exploration of the Indonesian

Kung Fu, Disco, Rape, Revenge, Biker,

Drugsploitation, Epic, I Want to Get Even, aka 300 other

titles.

all of which make you want to go and rent it on a budget label VHS from

your favorite hole-in-the-wall video store in West Berlin in the mid

-80s.

I hope you decide to check out my other audio commentaries.

So, Sillip and Special Silences on Mondo Macabro.

I've also done audio commentaries for Severin Films on their Blu-ray releases

of Curse of the Vampires and their new release, Eat Him or Black.

I also did Black Mama, White Mama on Arrow Video and another

Eddie Romero film, Beyond Atlantis, with a good friend of mine, Howard S. Berger.

on the label VCI.

And, you know, like I said before, it's not easy trying to fill 85 minutes

on a disc that you really didn't have anything to do with.

But I hope I've filled in a few question marks, raised a few more, and

have you reaching for your pen?

to jot down more indo trash titles to chase down and discover for yourselves

and some of the other ones i would recommend so

have your pens ready from around about 1985

bloody vengeance starring barry prima

There's also a great World War II film called Blazing Battle, starring George

Rudy, the Kung Fu star.

I think I mentioned before Hell Raiders. That's another Barry Prima war against

the Dutch action film.

And there are so many of those war ones, either against the Japanese or against

the Dutch.

Dubbing these films from Indonesian and putting them out into the international

marketplace. Tiger Commandos, Freedom Force, Daredevil

Commandos, etc.

There were three warrior

titles that I think I mentioned before.

There's an extra two out there if you know where to look.

And I'm talking about those special torrent sites that we're not supposed to

talk about.

You should be able to find the other two.

Warrior slash Jack Assembung film starring Barry Prima on there.

He's also in a great film from around 86, 87 called The Terrorists.

And there's another.

One of those warrior-type films that's worth checking out from 1985 called The

Blind Warrior.

Revenge of the Ninja, also starring Barry Prima.

Virgins from Hell, a great Mondo Macabre release.

And a couple of really sleazy ones from the early 80s. Jungle Virgin Force.

and War Victims from 1983.

So when we look at the number of films that made it out into the

international marketplace, it's only around about 50 to 60

titles. It's quite a finite number of films.

So it is very easy to be able to delve into this very...

rich but limited film culture and overdose on.

And it seems to be getting easier through streaming, through DVD and Blu

-ray releases, and also through YouTube and torrenting sites to

be able to build up a decent collection of Indonesian trash cinema.

get to know the faces, watch an unsubtitled film or two, try

Mystics in Bali and then find all the other flying heads with organs attached

films from that particular LIAC cycle of films.

Like the Philippines, Indonesia is the gift to trash cinema that keeps on

giving.

And I would also recommend that you check out some of the more exotic titles

from the Philippines, like Killing of Satan, W is War,

Zuma, The Snake-Headed God.

Oh my God, that's the subject of many more audio commentaries to

come, I'm sure.

So I should really...

Say many, many thanks to Jared Orner and Pete Toombs and everyone at Mondo

Macabro for inviting me on and letting me ramble

uncontrollably about my unfathomable love for Indonesian

trash cinema.

Special thanks to my good friend and musical collaborator, Jesse Brecken

-Thomas.

for recording this. He's worked on the soundtrack to every one of my films, as

well as recording pretty much all of these audio commentaries. So please

check out his music under the Screaming Meanies on various

streaming sites.

And thank you for listening.

Please track me down on social media.

And I'd love to know what you thought of this particular

audio commentary, which I know is going to some

abstract places, but 90 minutes, it's a

slog. And recording these things is like going into battle every time. You really

don't know if the material is going to defeat you or not.

And here it comes, the drive-up to that final

five minutes of jaw-dropping, unbelievable

bullshit cinema that is the concluding sequence

of I Want to Get Even, where Irma, played by Eva

Arnaz, finally gets even.

But that's then followed by, oh, followed by some very

convincing drawn-on cartoon fire, followed by what I

believe is the most offensive sequence in the entire film.

After everything that Rudy has put Irma through,

beaten her.

Raped her.

Oh, and look.

Look at that mid-air explosion.

I just... I can't get over that.

And then the follow-up shot.

And this has got to rank as one of my favourite sequences in any trash film.

Full stop.

Let's just sit here.

quietly for the moment and revel in the majesty of the final scenes of

retribution for poor Irma, who's been through so much.

She's now carrying the small bazooka or grenade launcher, whatever you want to

call it, owned by a former employer, gang leader,

and all-round nice guy, Cobra.

I mean, really, if anyone deserves to be blown up by their own

bazooka, it's Cobra.

So we get a little bit of rough and tumble between the two very early

80s, I don't know, Datsuns or something like that.

And, of course, I'm just not even able to build up the tension here.

we all know what's going to happen the final money shot of the film

and like i said before what i consider to be one of the most brilliant

moments in any exploitation film indonesian or otherwise

is uh irma's final moment of revenge against

the gang leader who

Well, raped her, shot her up full of morphine.

He then makes his way out of the car. Come on, Cobra.

Don't keep us waiting.

Let's just take a moment to drink in the majesty of this action sequence.

Absolutely magnificent.

And of course Rudy's alright.

And here comes that special grenade.

Just for Cobra.

Come on for God's sake, get out of the car.

I'm finding it almost impossible to keep this commentary going with so much

action going on in the screen.

So apologies for the moments of silence, but Jared, Pete, I'm sure you're going

to forgive me.

Here he goes.

Car goes up in flame and so does half the film's budget.

And yet by some miracle, Cobra lives.

And now, and now for the film's money shot.

And possibly...

The defining moment of Indonesian trash cinema.

I'm sorry, I couldn't say anything. Words failed me.

And here is the most offensive sequence of the film.

This is the guy who beat and raped her, left her to be

abducted, raped again, brow beat her,

to have an abortion and was one of the main reasons for

her miscarrying a child.

All it takes is a few moments of bonding through super violent

retribution and it seems all is forgiven.

I mean, really.

I wanted Irma to turn the fucking bazooka on Rudy and burst his balloon

muscles.

But apparently that would have been too much. So instead

we're left with the spectacle of the happy couple reunited

for a while perhaps.

Anyway, ladies and gentlemen.

It's been an absolute pleasure being your tour

guide through the wilds of Indonesian trash cinema

and through the murky sexual and

cultural politics of I Want to Get Even, a.k.a.

Cobra Gang, a.k.a. Violent Killer, a.k.a. Violent Assassin.

AKA 400 other titles.

Thank you for listening.