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Released by: Umbrella Entertainment
Released on: June 7th, 2017.
Director: Eddie Romero/Cirio H. Santiago
Cast: John Ashley, Pat Woodell, Sid Haig, Charlene Jones, Jeannie Bell, Stan Shaw, Pat Anderson, Ken Metcalfe
Year: 1972/1974
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The Movie:
Umbrella offers up two women in prison trash epics shot in the Philippines in the 1970s on one double feature DVD.
The Woman Hunt:
Our first feature, very much inspired by The Most Dangerous Game, begins with a trio of sleazy mercenaries - Tony (John Ashley), Silas (Sid Haig) and Karp (Ken Metcalfe) - abduct a group of pretty but unsuspecting women for their filthy rich employer, Spyros (Eddie Garcia). What could Spyros possibly want with a group of beautiful captive women? Why he wants to use them as sex slaves for his house guests and then hunt them for sport, of course! Given that he lives on a secluded island why out somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, he figures he can get away with it too.
Eventually, however, Tony has a change of heart and realizes that he's been a part of something very wrong. To make up for his past sins, he decides to help a few of the women - McGee (Pat Woodell), Billie (Charlene Jones) and Lori (Laurie Rose) get off the island in one piece. It won't be easy, however, because not only is Spyros a trigger happy asshole, but his right hand woman, Magda (Lisa Todd), is equally malicious and sadistic!
Written by someone named David Hoover (with story contributions from none other than Jack Hill), The Woman Hunt delivers pretty much exactly what you'd expect it to - scantily clad (often partially nude) women in near constant peril, exotic locations, ultra-sleazy villains and plenty of trashtastic set pieces. If this one doesn't break much in the way of new ground (it really is an unofficial remake of The Most Dangerous Game in pretty much every way), it's at least an entertaining slice of seventies drive-in nonsense with plenty of skin and violence.
Romero keeps the action moving at a good pace, but the film is pretty much completely devoid of character development. These characters exist, but they don't really change much save for Tony, whose change of heart comes only after the women are kidnapped, beaten and raped and as such is a bit of a hard pill to swallow. Regardless, the cast are fun. Sid Haig steals every scene that he's in and is quite funny in his part. Eddie Garcia hams it up while John Ashley, who also produced, tries his best to make his character at least somewhat noble. Lisa Todd is fairly awful here - you might remember her from The Doll Squad, The Devil's Rain and Hee-Haw where she played Sunshine Cornsilk. The rest of the female cast members are fairly one note as well, but they look good running around the jungle, which is really the whole point of this movie in the first place.
TNT Jackson:
Directed by Filipino exploitation master Cirio H. Santiago and released in 1974, T.N.T. Jackson (she'll put you in traction!) stars the beautiful Jeannie Bell as Diana 'T.N.T.' Jackson, a foxy lady whose brother was murdered by a gang of nogoodnik drug dealers on the mean streets of Hong Kong. She heads east to find his killers and after taking a cab as far into the bad part of town that the driver will take her, she soon finds herself in the middle of a backstreet brawl. Shortly after, she meets up with a Chinese native named Joe (played by the mysterious Chiquito!) who happens to own a nightclub that some of the men she's after hang out at.
Joe and T.N.T. hit it off, and before you know it he's helping her track down the bad guys - while T.N.T. falls for Charlie (Stan Shaw), a black guy who works for a gangster, Sid (Ken Metcalfe), who wants to know just what it is this lady is after and why she's moseying around on his turf. As Sid tries to up the ante with his drug business, he figures T.N.T. must have something to do with it and so he decides it's time to take her out - but Charlie thinks otherwise. Meanwhile, TNT comes ever closer to figuring out who killed her brother and getting her revenge - but don't forget about Sid's pesky lady friend, Elaine (Pat Anderson) who will prove to be a serious thorn in T.N.T.'s side!
Highlighted by a fantastic scene in which a wonderfully topless Ms. Bell takes out a bunch of bad guys in a naked kung fu sequence for the ages, T.N.T. Jackson is a blast from start to finish. Plenty of wonky fuzzed out seventies music compliments the big hair and bad fashions just perfectly while Santiago keeps the movie zipping by at a remarkably quick pace. At this point in the game the director had enough movies under his belt that he knew what he was doing and it shows, his knack for fun, fast paced trash movies really shines through here.
There's not much to the story here and what plot there is really just seems there in order to move the film from one badly choreographed martial arts scene to the other but that just adds to the zaniness of the whole thing. Throw in a ridiculous amount of gratuitous movie, some awesome tough talking dialogue from our uber-sexy soul sister leading lady and some recycled music and you've got yourself a hell of a good time at the movies.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Both of these have been transferred from old analogue tape sources and are presented in 1.33.1 fullframe. Image quality is watchable enough but pretty soft with obvious color fading and murky black levels. TNT Jackson has been released domestically by Shout! Factory as part of their Lethal Ladies set (reviewed here) in a film sourced anamorphic widescreen transfer that looks quite a bit better, but this DVD release from Umbrella appears to be the only way to see Woman Hunt on disc anywhere in the world.
English language Dolby Digital Mono tracks are presented for both films, there are no alternate language options or subtitles provided here. The audio is, for the most part, fine if unremarkable. Dialogue is generally easy to understand and the levels are well balanced but there are a few lines here and there that come across as a little garbled.
Extras are limited to static menus and theatrical trailers for each feature.
The Final Word:
Umbrella Entertainment's DVD release of The Woman Hunt and TNT Jackson is light on extras and sourced from tape masters but it does offer fans of Filipino trash films the chance to see a fairly obscure entry with the presence of the first feature.
