Jungle Heat

"Jungle Heat" is an extremely violent but pretty retarded exploitation film, supposedly set during the final months of the war in Vietnam. The American army commanders haven't got many motivated heroes left so they're training local soldiers to fight against the dangerous Vietcong. Three lousy weeks for training and then these men are sent into the jungle where sadistic Vietcong troops play torture games with their prisoners. There isn't the slightest bit of continuity in the screenplay and the only sequences that are remotely worth mentioning involve some ingenious killing methods. For example, one poor soldier is buried up to his neck in the sand, where his head is shaved and subsequently cut open with a nasty razor blade. If that's not enough yet, the sleazy Vietcong fatso pours pure acid on his exposed brains which causes the poor sucker to literally jump out of his skin. I never saw that before! In another sequence, which I'm sure will be appreciated by members of the Animal Liberation Front, a harmless rat is set on fire and set free amongst prisoners that were drenched in gasoline! However, don't get too enthusiast over the brief description of these two scenes, as there still remains 85 minutes of dull and completely inept footage to struggle yourself through. The choreography in the jungle scenes is awful, nobody bothered to hire any real actors (even Sam "Flash Gordon" Jones acts like a sock puppet) and the poor dubbing continued to hurt my ears long after the film was finished. Some of the exterior filming locations showed great potential for a compelling Vietnam story, but one-time director Jobic Wong totally doesn't know how to use them. If you ever come across this ultra-rare movie in a second-hand store, or something, put it right back on the shelf. I know it looks like a real treat for gorehounds and cult-fanatics, but it's pure garbage.

Jobic Wong's JUNGLE HEAT (1989) is a low budget HK/American (I assume) co-production. The film is set in a Vietnam war and stars Sam Jones, an incredibly uncharismatic actor, as a tough instructor who has to send a bunch of younger soldiers for some mission to the war. They go through the training and soon we are already in the jungles. There's a very thin and almost non-existant plot there, but we all know what this film was made for: to show some jungle violence and gore and NOTHING else.

The film is laughably bad and horrible and the actors are of course equally uninteresting. On any real cinematic level this film is pure trash and junk and gets 1/10 from me. But as a jungle adventure exploitationer, the film is pretty strong.

There is violence which is definitely gratuitous and they always use as juicy close ups as possible. The "skinning by acid" torture scene is pretty sadistic and the effects are fine even though the budget must have been very small. Other scenes of carnage include the usual gun fights, excessive blood letting and one severely SICK killing of a real rat: They set the poor animal on fire and let it run through the room in agony as the soldiers laugh and watch it running and setting some convicts on fire as they've poured gasoline on them. But I really can't understand a live creature had to be tortured to death for a film like this.

The film is pretty rare and unknown and not so many people have seen it. The Greek VHS is the one I saw and it is supposed to be uncut, too, unlike the British version. This film belongs to the genre I don't appreciate at all because the film lacks all the possible cinematic merits or positive things and so is complete nonsense on any other level than the gore 'n carnage level. And the fact is that even exploitation films like this can (and should) be cinematically interesting and have at least a little talented director, cinematographer and so on. Fans of trash and junk will probably want to check this out as well, but I'm not sure I'll see it again ever.