Incontro nell'ultimo paradiso

Daughter of the Jungle (1982)

** (out of 4)

Ringo (Rodolfo Bigotti) and Butch (Renato Miracco) decide to take a trip to the Amazon. When they boat runs out of gas they end up lost in the jungle. After a little walk they run into a strange tribe but after an even further walk they run into Luana (Sabrina Siani), a beautiful jungle girl who they decide to call Jane (after Tarzan).

Umberto Lenzi's DAUGHTER OF THE JUNGLE is an Italian comedy that really isn't all that funny but at the same time I must admit that it kept me more entertained than I thought it would. The film was obviously shot on a low-budget and for the most part I didn't find it funny at all but at the same time there's no question that Lenzi knew how to film in a jungle and that is the reason to watch this.

Comedy is a very subjective thing so perhaps some will get more laughs out of this picture but I really thought the two male leads were extremely annoying. I know their act was meant to be funny but I find it more annoying than anything else and the English dubbing really didn't help things. Another problem with the film is that it looks rather ugly as there's certainly nothing overly good about the cinematography.

With that said, the film does feature some wildlife (large snakes, elephants, hippos) and this helps keep it entertaining. Siani is also an extremely attractive woman and seeing her run around naked was another plus. I also thought Lenzi handled the jungle locations extremely well but one does wish that he had spoofed up his cannibal films a bit more.

The iconic Italian director Umberto Lenzi became a cult filmmaker in several genres as Giallo, Peplum & Sandals, Poliziotteschi and mainly Jungle Adventures as CANNIBAL FEROX, in this specific niche came out the sexploitation Incontro Nell' Ultimo Paradiso featuring the eye-candy Sabrina Sianni in sexy tiny outfits allied in a strong humor oriented.

The plot is quite simple two dumbest guys travel to Amazon jungle for a touring, soon they get stranded into a deep forest, bumping up angry natives and later both are caught by a moronic gang of rubies smuggles, at night they sneaking away and daylight they meeting a naïve jungle sexy girl, hereinafter the smart one figure out escaping from there by a jammed helicopter meanwhile the lovesick wondering with gorgeous girl team up a bunch of natives to struggles against the gang.

Shot at Dominican Republic on those everlasting palm trees quite opposite with Amazon rain forest, whoever wrote the screenplay underpinned the offering in two key elements, firstly in dizzying sexy beauty of Sianni and also in many stereotyped characters as the gang leader Dupré and their fat, stupid and even stutter sidekicks, aiming for became it a delightful and harmful Sunday matinee, let it see easily.

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First watch: 1992 / How many: 4 / Source: TV-Youtube / Rating: 5.

Directed by Umberto Lenzi, Daughter of the Jungle is a tongue in cheek parody of both Tarzan and cannibal movies. Sabrina Siani plays the roll of Luana (a female Tarzan-like character) who was lost in the jungle as a child when her parent's helicopter crashes. Rodolfo Bigotti (Ringo) and Renato Miracco (Butch) are two goofy tourists who manage to get lost in the jungle, chased by cannibals and 'rescued' by Luana.

OK, the movie doesn't deserve a 6 based on it's production values, acting, direction, or story; but I give it that score because it's just damn funny. I watched the English dubbed version and the voices alone are hilarious... the brutish guy sounds like Pee Wee Herman while the main bad guy's voice and accent change throughout the movie, another character even cracks a joke about it. The dialog is no less funny as Butch constantly harangues Ringo and blames him for everything. Sabrina Siani is not the best looking girl but she's better than average although she carries a little more junk in the trunk than I personally care for. I give her props, she plays her role well and acts with extreme confidence even when topless. That last might seem silly but many women in film assume distracting, self conscious postures while topless. It's not a movie for everyone but fans of tongue-in-cheek comedies and cannibal movies might find it entertaining.

Umberto Lenzi, the pioneer of disturbingly gory cannibal films, directs. A strange change of pace for this director and the jungle genre. Be advised, this is a dumb, unfunny slapstick comedy-adventure with cardboard characters and comic book villains. There's even a comedic fat guy thug who constantly falls down or gets conked on the head. Hilarious. Probably better in the original Italian as the English dubbing is horrible.

Our heroes are a pair of knucklehead dudes from New York who seem to have wandered in from some frat-boy sex comedy (which were popular at the time). After pointlessly wasting a half-hour of screen time, they get stranded in the Amazon jungle -- which just happens to be full of African wildlife. They stumble across hostile natives, semi-comic-relief criminal goons hunting for rubies, and Luana, a beautiful blond jungle girl (Sabrina Siani from "White Cannibal Queen"). Luana cavorts with a chimp, swings on vines, talks to elephants, swims topless, and does a classic Tarzan yell. After getting an eyeful of Luana, one guy says: "Edgar Rice Burroughs got it all wrong." (That's the funniest line in the film.) The dopey dialog is loaded with wisecracks that reference other films ("you got it all over Bo what's-her-name"). She grew up alone after her parents perished following a helicopter crash-landing. Among the many implausible plot points is the repair of the helicopter that's been rusting away for 16 years. We're also supposed to believe these clueless dolts can somehow refine crude oil sludge into gasoline without any technology. Okay, whatever...

The only saving grace is the absolutely gorgeous Sabrina Siani, one of the most appealing and sexy jungle girls to come down the pike. She wears a skimpy leather top and a barely-there thong that hides none of her fabulous caboose. Siani has the kind of perfect posterior that anthropologists should study and document for future generations. Fortunately, we have this film. Everything else in this dreadful "Sheena" rehash is instantly forgettable.

Umberto Lenzi is perhaps most (in)famous for "Cannibal Ferox", a film that is not good maybe, but is certainly memorably brutal. This movie seems to have a similar plot with two Euro-idiots deciding to tour a Third World jungle where they encounter both a primitive tribe and vicious ruby smugglers. However, they also meet a lone teenage white girl (Sabrina Siani), who is living there for no apparent reason, and the movie becomes instead a throwback to the late 60's "female Tarzan" movies like "Luana", "Samoa", or "Tarzana". Although it was apparently filmed partly in the Dominican Republic (rather than a European zoo), this movie resembles the contemporary cheap-jack Eurocine/Jess Franco productions ("Cannibals", "Diamonds of Kilimanjaro") much more than it does the Italian cannibal epics. The "locals" seem to be a strange mixture of African and Asian, while I strongly suspect many of the "natives" are really white Europeans in grease-paint. To make matters worse, this is actually a comedy. Italian comedies are really an acquired taste (not unlike huffing paint thinner), but even by the standards of that inferior genre, this is pretty inferior.

Lenzi was fairly proficient at gialli and police thrillers (i.e. "So Sweet, So Perverse", "Almost Human"), but he demonstrates no aptitude whatsoever for screwball comedy. The male characters are all incredibly annoying, but it's hard to know whether to blame the Italian actors or the talentless idiots responsible for dubbing them into English. Then there's barely legal Euro-model Sabrina Siani, who had a great body, but absolutely no idea how to use it. It wasn't that she was a bad actress so much as that she was simply NOT an actress. She never really made any attempt to act, just letting her pert young breasts and her post-adolescent derrière do it all for her. Unlike someone like Edwige Fenech, who was a genuinely talented actress, or Gloria Guida, who was definitely serviceable, Siani doesn't manage to pull off either funny OR sexy here. Her body is the only thing she (or this entire movie) has going for it.

If you're tempted to see this, I would recommend instead Franco's "Cannibals" (also with Siani) or "Diamonds of Kilimanjaro" (with Katja Bienert). Both movies are much more unintentionally funny than this movie is intentionally, and most of the annoying cast in those gets devoured by bloodthirsty cannibals.