Scorpion Thunderbolt

'What the Hell's this all about?'- remarks Richard Harrison to his dead porno star girlfriend after shes tried to kill him and vomited orange liquid during their back row nookie in a sex cinema. Its a question you may be asking yourself after experiencing this slice of random cut and paste filmmaking. The backbone of Scorpion Thunderbolt is an unreleased (at lea st to the west) asian horror movie- which in the age old tradition has been fleshed out with new footage featuring an american star to sell it to western territories. In its original incarnation Scorpion tells the tale of Helen Yu- a journalist who hides a dreadful secret- shes a snake monster! In flashback we witness Helen's mother to be being lead astray by a handsome young man. During an outdoor quickie with the strapping lad the girl discovers he is really a human sized snake. The whole encounter was revenge motivated on his/its part since the girl's father sells dead snakes and boils them down for soup. The girl gives birth to Helen but the apparently normal child is a monster who turns on its mother during breast feeding. A bloodbath ensues with the girl's father trying to take an axe to the infant, only to have his eyes pulled out by snakes, blinded he inadvertently murders his daughter with the axe. In present day Hong Kong- Helen is transformed against her will into the snake monster by a sinister blind night-watchman and his mysterious flute playing (which can also make dogs walk backwards). The film begins with one such gore murder as a nubile girl is chased by a weirdo only to end up eviscerated by the monster. The police, lead by Inspector Jackie Ko- initially suspect this bald limping loony of the killings and track him down to a mental hospital where he's in the process of eating a cat- he reacts to attempts at capture by beating the cops with the dead pussy and hiding up a tree. In the process of the investigation Helen falls in love with Ko- who has his own problems in the form of a revenge crazed ex-con he helped put away. Breaking into Ko's home the masked criminal handcuffs Ko to a table forcing him to watch as the man ties up and strips a pretty female police office in one of the films more censor troubling scenes. Ko breaks free and fights the madman, while in a neighbouring apartment block the monster goes bonkers mutilating some disco chicks- the monster's speciality being mashing girls faces in with its giant claws. Ko and Helen go on a date but its a disaster, the masked man shoots up their picnic and an attack by snakes causes Ko to crash the car. Finally they end up in a hotel where Helen again turns into the snake monster snuffing out a couple in a sauna. When Helen tells him the ghastly truth Ko remarks 'Does that mean... I'm in love with a vampire?'- of course it'll all end in tears. The 'new' plotline which is at best clumsily interwoven into this narrative concerns some nonsense about Richard Harrison and the 'hypnotising power of a woman's witchery'. Under the orders of a witch everyones out to stomp Richard, whether its the plumber or the aforementioned sex actress who hitches rides by flashing her attributes at passing motorists. With one of his worst films recently under his belt (Eurocine's kiddie movie Get Up Kiko and Run) getting flashed by bimbos and breaking bones must have been a blessed relief to Harrison. Scorpion Thunderbolt slithered out from the studios of Joseph Lai's IFD films- in the mid- Eighties Joe's niche was to have the ubiquitous Godfrey Ho shoot footage of Harrison to pad out the rottenest of Kung-Fu films (never did it matter that the new footage didn't remotely fit in with the rest of the film). The commercial surface of this enterprise is best illustrated in titles like Ninja Commandments, Ninja Dragon, Ninja Hunt, Ninja Kill, Ninja Show-down, Ninja Terminator, Ninja The Protector, Ninja Thunderbolt and Ninja Operation parts 1 to 8. A rare nugget in this cinematic rough- Scorpion Thunderbolt has all the unpredictability of a hard core mental patient- even in its original version the tone catapults from slapstick farce to heavy duty gore. A Shocking Asia-esque feel also looms over the film with its 'amour' of settings like red light districts and tacky discos. Add to this the fact that you are just never quite sure what's meant to be funny and what's unintentional and you have a film butchered of what sense it may have once possessed but retaining a power to take you off guard. If the idea of a blind night-watchman is absurd the film ups the ante by having him appear on a TV chatshow at one point 'a most talented man he's a blind night-watchman who has overcome gout and arthritis- he also plays the flute'. The highlight though belongs to the Jerry Lewis impersonator who learns the hard way that its not wise to kick an irate snake monster's tail. Remarkably there is way too much to savour in this true grab bag of a film for one single viewing- for moments of unguarded lunacy only filter out with each viewing. Scorpion Thunderbolt will provide a weeks worth of late night viewing fuel for tired eyes- the stunningly inappropriate use of Jean- Michel Jarre's Oxygene is worth the price of admission alone.

Trust me. I've been in enough sleazy video stores, pored over myriad Z-grade shlockers to be able to qualify this as the most inept waste of celluloid I have ever seen. And yet it achieves greatness in a way only the most bereft of talent can, a deliriously incompetent mishmash of bungling Kung-Fu action, tomato-ketchup horror and side-splitting soft porn. Only the most insane need apply.

Another cut and paste film starring Richard Harrison from Joseph Lai's cinematic chop-shop IFD Films. But this time there is nary a ninja in sight as we have Harrison battling a demented witch who is killing people by controlling a woman who turns into a large half human/half snake monster. The main portion of the film deals with the snake woman and her love affair with a cop and that begins to get old after a while (although it is gory). The Harrison inserts have him going to find and destroy this "evil witch who lives in a red castle" and they are the highlight of the film. His first scene has him picking up a girl after she has flashed him on the side of the road. "I hate to see someone stand in the rain," he says. Then she tells him that she is an actress (she is actually an assassin sent by a witch) and they should head to the studio to check out her latest film. Cut to Harrison and that chick in a screening room watching one of her films which consists solely of her being tied up naked and painted on by some Chinese dude. Harrison looks at it completely stone faced and then leans over and says, "I've got to admit, you have f@#king talent!" She then proceeds to do a striptease for him set to the sounds of looped Jean Michele Jarre. The climactic battle features stings from both RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and SUPERMAN. Awesome!

By far the best of Godfrey Ho's cut-and-paste movies, SCORPION THUNDERBOLT features tawdry kung fu combat, soft core sex, blood 'n' gore, and a goofy rubber snake-beast! The spliced together elements don't make much sense, but there's something about this weird mishmash of a movie that makes it bizarrely enjoyable!

I don't know who the Director of the Donor movie was, however, he/she was light years more talented then the director who received the credit Godfrey Ho. In an effort to not give away too much suffice it to say that the leading man Inspector Lee played by (Homer Cheung) I think - is involved in a love triangle with his fellow Lady Detective and also Journalist Helen. Now one of these lady's turns out to be a real snake. So much bizarre stuff happens during this film including cut inns of the Ho Directed part with Richard Harrison having an almost too graphic sex scene with a stripper. There are too many snakes, a funny maniac named Hagow, a Monk, a Witch and a blind guy who blows a futile flute just to name a few. Scorpion Thunderbolt is not a feel good flick and it left me a little uneasy, but I still highly recommend it.