Devil's Express

This movie scared the hell out of me as a kid. I had to close my eyes through most of it and leave the theater even though I was used to horror films at a young age. This one scared the hell out of me. I have been looking for it ever since. I am 34 now

It starts out with a group of monks wearing orange robes carrying a tomb, with a head monk dressed in a black robe. They are away from the public eye out in a rocky woods area, walking through some trails until they get to their final destination where they lower the tomb to the ground, The monks in orange, surround the tomb, and begin some sort of a ritual, each kneeling and going into a meditative state chanting where they break out into a sweat. As they are doing this the head monk in black takes a sword and chops of their heads one by one showing a horrible display of fountains of blood shooting out the headless bodies. The head monk drags the tomb into a cave under ground and surrounds the tomb with the headless bodies. I always remember the chopping off the heads scene where each one of these monks that are meditating are well aware that they are going to be next to die as the camera pans over to each one as the others get there heads chopped off. Some were very reluctant as it showed on there faces and the sweat from fear. Like I said this was filmed very well.

It's five years later and you see a cop that's a martial arts expert training with his grand master in Hong Kong and then flying back to New York. Next the camera takes you over to the exact area where those murders occurred and into the cave. You see the decayed bodies still surrounding the tomb and all of a sudden a fist bust through the tomb from the inside. The purpose of the human sacrifices was to resurrect this demon form in the tomb and that's exactly what happened. You see the arm and the fist bust out of the tomb. It was grayish yellow with a rotten look. Next you see this abomination making its' way through the woods. You don't actually see it but just a camera view of something monstrous moving through the woods disturbing nature with it's presence as all the wild life birds deer's and small animals all scurrying out of it's path.

The demon makes it's way into the city. The next thing that happens is that mysterious horribly gruesome murders take place in the subways of New York City. For instance a Chinese businessman is walking alone in the subway and all of a sudden he feels ill and starts to hemorrhage from his eyes nose mouth and ears arms. His eyes bug out into very large balls. This causes his him to scream and me to scream as well and wanted to leave the theater. I never seen so much blood and torture before. Eventually they find this man's dead body. It's taken to the hospital and to the morgue where law enforcement starts an investigation.

Another person gets killed by electrocution in the subway. A worker gets his head ripped off and later at night a subway car loaded with people discover the headless body which causes a mentally disturbed bag lady to go histerical in the subway car. Next a rapist takes his victim into the darker dimly lit area in the subway on a night where there isn't any people to be seen. He knocks her down. He threatens her as she is crying and scared when all of a sudden the side walk starts to act as a conveyer belt with the rapist stuck to it, reeling him into the dark where there is no lights at all and he gets severed in half by a passing train. A very bloody and gory scene.

There are two cops trying to find out who is behind these mysterious murders they are both martial arts experts with the Star Warkawk Tanzania being the much better one and more of a leader with a strong minded dominant personality. He takes charge and leads the investigation of the mysterious gruesome subway murders. His girl friend is the next victim who gets killed in the subway. Warhawk thought it way the gangs the whole time but comes to realize that even the gangs don't go into the subways at night anymore since the killings and that the gangs seemed to be the first to keep away from the subway. He figures that the Chinese gangs know what's going on and the only way he is going to get anything out of them is to earn their respect. He goes into China town and confronts one major gang and it's leader. They won't answer any questions. He decides to take them all on using martial arts against whatever they know which is also martial arts. This is a deal he suggested to the leader that if he wins against all that he gets some answers. So he fights them and beats them even against their knives and other weapons in a very brutal vicious lethal display of martial arts more like Seagal than Jackie Chan.

A lot of breaking arms and stomping on this guys chest with one foot and at the same time pulling his arm breaking it. The guy throws up blood. This wasn't your cheesy blood squirting out of the mouth seen that we are all use to in those silly Chinese martial arts movies It was done real well with a feeling of real horror as he is puking violently and looks real scared as if to say "what did you do to me"? It was real graphic and dramatic, but short seen. Then he takes on the Chinese gang leader. This guy was fairly good and he ends up getting beaten bloody and throws in the towel. He feels now that he has no choice and decides to keep his end of the bargain by telling the cop of this Chinese occult witchcraft store that he could get info from. He goes there and see this old Chinese man running the place. It was the same monk that killed those other monks dressed in Black. For some reason I don't know why but he has a change of heart after the cop explains all that he went through and what has happened.

He feels that this thing really got out of hand. I guess it wasn't supposed to venture off into the city's subways killing people there. This is not what the monks plans were. He agrees to help put a stop to it and help the cop. He gives the cop some crystal magnetic medallion and told him that if he wears it he could have a chance against this demon because as long as he wears this medallion the demons telekinetic powers won't work other wise he won't have any chance at all. The demon would have to contend on a much weaker physical level. The cop feel that in this case he could kill it with martial arts or a gun knife etc. He goes down there in the subway and the duel starts out with this demon playing tricks on him to catch him off guard. For example. His dead girl friend sees him in the subway and comes up to him telling him that she really isn't dead and that it was some sort of mistake or bad joke. Well, he really misses her and almost falls for it. She almost kills him before he shoots her.

This all takes place in the subway. I forgot to mention that his cop friend also gets mysteriously murdered earlier and also becomes alive and starts talking to him telling him that he wasn't really dead just injured and of course he ends up fighting him because a knife is suddenly pulled. He kicks his friend hard and knocks him down and his friend morphs into two twins and he has to fight them. Finally the demon shows itself as it runs out of tricks. It looks like a reptile in human form standing on two feet with a grayish yellow rotten decayed surface skin texture to it. It lifts a heavy steel beam and throws it at the cop. The cop and this demon carnation begin a physical fight to the death.

Suspenseful and scary all they way through. It's an original idea. I haven't to this day seen anything like it. Some parts may seem corny when reading the description but not at all when watching the film because it's done really well. Please let me know if you have a copy know where I could get a copy of this film.

Yeah, this one is a good ways away from being as awesome as it might have been. Which is not to say that its a complete failure, rather that those enticed by its combination of genres into thinking it might be some trash colossus should substantially downgrade their expectations. It reminded me most of some of the better works of Godfrey Ho, those films in which the cut 'n splice ninja flick maestro actually had an original script and a cast of semi capable performers. Inept, insane and idiotic in roughly equal measures, but conducted with verve and never dull. The inspired story is of martial arts school leader Luke Curtis who goes to visit his sifu in Hong Kong along with his shiftless buddy Roldan (though I preferred the subtitles in which his name was Rodan) who steals a sacred medallion and unleashes a demon, who returns to New York, possesses a Chinese man and sets up shop in a subway, killing at random and contributing to a race war between Chinese and black gangs. Lots of fighting ensues, as well as plenty of laughter. The attitude behind the writing seems to have been to cram the film with incident so that the audience could never relax and process the cinematic shortcomings. So more or less every moment has either fighting, people saying stupid things, the monster dragging people to their doom or spurts of picturesque photography in the Hong Kong section or vintage urban grime in the rest. The fighting isn't especially convincing (plenty of blows fall obviously wide plus some dodgy framing and people moving at unrealistic speeds), but it's a lot better than expected, with a cast that at least know how to move and a shooting style that lets you see whats going on. It helps that much of the fighting involves hero Luke, played by the awesomely named and almost as awesomely afroed War Hawk Tanzania. His character isn't as badass as his name but he has a solid presence and carries the film nicely, delivering his frequently hilarious jive dialogue with aplomb. In fact everyone gives it their all, even extras like a nasty old bag lady, crazy street preacher or clueless cop. Sadly the monster scenes are quite weak and there are only a couple of gore shots, also the dodgy quality of current available prints renders the subway scenes too dark. The climax is too abrupt as well, though when ultimately revealed the monster is kinda cool in a cheap-jack kinda way. Altogether its a likable rather than good film and a bit tricky to fully appreciate until a spruced up DVD appears, but trash junkies could do far worse with 80 minutes of their time. Slightly generous 6/10 from me...

This was the second and last of Warhawk Tanzania's only movie appearances, both starring vehicles. I guess he didn't catch on, no doubt because the movies weren't particularly well made and because by then both the blaxploitation and "kung fu" genres had passed their U.S. commercial peak due to oversaturation of the market with cheap knockoffs. He had the right look, and if he wasn't much of an actor, there were worse ones who were successful enough (particularly in martial arts cinema), so I guess it was more a matter of bad timing than anything else.

"Devil's Express" is a bit slicker than "Black Force" (confusingly, both have sometimes been called "Gang Wars"), a little wilder and more fun. WT plays a karate master who goes with his buddy (Wilfredo Roldan as "Rodan," the same name his character had in "Force") to a conference in Hong Kong. Afterward, they see the sites. Problem is, his buddy is a bit of an ***hole, and he steals an amulet from some ancient burial ground (or cave, in this case). So naturally once they get back to NYC, a demon spirit follows them, mostly holing up in the subway system and possessing the bodies of various unfortunate passers-by it's murdered in order to get back its stolen treasure. Police, the heroes' dojo, and a rival Chinese group of fighters all get caught up in the eventual mayhem.

The mix of horror, martial arts and blaxploitation sounds like trash heaven, and "Express" gets about halfway there. It's fairly well-made on a B-pic level, and reasonably fast-paced, but despite the decent premise there's not much colorful idiosyncrasy to the characters or situations. (Apart from Rodan being an entertainingly snotty jerk, that is.) But the real problem is that neither the fighting or horror elements are developed sufficiently. There's a lot of fighting, and clearly most of the participants have at least some training. But the film is edited in a way that is pretty obviously covering for them--we get much kicking and "thwack!" noises but it's not very convincing as anything but faux-fighting. (There are even a couple moments when characters say "Ow!" in pain, even though we've just clearly seen their opponent's kick didn't connect.) The monster is introduced rather late, then kept largely out of sight. So, this is a promising mix of elements, but the fighting isn't very impressive and the horror is likewise also mostly "cheated" (people go "Yaaagh!!!" at something we don't see, then are presumably murdered offscreen).

So, fairly amusing grindhouse action junk from the period, worth seeing once for those who like this sort of thing. But not the guilty-pleasure classic you might hope for.

The working title of "Gang Wars" was "The Phantom of the Subway" but it was first released as "The Devil's Express".The film mixes blaxploitation genre,American martial arts and horror flick and does this with huge enthusiasm.The acting is mostly wooden and Warhawk Tanzania is not as awesome as his name.The fights are well-shot and there is a decent amount of blood and gore.The film's running time is padded out by random inserts of not exactly important scenes for example the fight between two sleazeballs and karate waitress.The gang war and subway murders committed by amulet seeking demon are fun to watch.A trash classic.7 out of 10.

OK. I wasn't expecting much of this film on Amazon, but it was a short blacksploitation/chop-socky film with a lead called Warhawk Tanzania. Let's start with him. 70s machismo kung fu artist, with almost no acting ability, bizarre novelty fight stances, but full of 'I'm going to be the next Jim Kelly' enthusiasm. He isn't. He's actually quite terrible. His Jersey Hispanic sidekick is even worse, at both the acting and fighting. the support actors were similarly poor, with the bizarre exception of the 'educated' jokey detective drafted in to help solve the case. He just seemed to be in the wrong film entirely. As expected, the story moves along in a disjointed fashion. Full of poorly shot fight scenes, where you clearly see that the kicks and punches are missing, but somehow the recipient lurches back in agony. Some of the subway/monster scenes have a genuinely eerie 70s feel, and in parts, the film is not bad. The DP tries some effects in part- slomo/monochrome, etc. I won't spoil the plot, because actually that doesn't matter. Made in a time when New York was genuinely a dangerous place, people wore flares, and production values were less important than the 'vibe'. I happily watched this to the end just to ensure that Warhawk put the fiend 'in the pocket'. If you can wade through the clichés and cheesiness, this is worth a view, if only for the terrible fashion, grubby New York outlook, 70s jazz-hipster dialogue and an actor inspired by decolonisation to change his name so spectacularly. Worth a view. They don't make 'em like this anymore!