{"id":9429,"date":"2014-08-17T01:59:46","date_gmt":"2014-08-17T05:59:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=9429"},"modified":"2014-08-17T01:59:46","modified_gmt":"2014-08-17T05:59:46","slug":"beta-corrupt-ones-the-peking-medallion-the-die-holle-von-macao-1967","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=9429","title":{"rendered":"Beta: Corrupt Ones, The \/ Peking Medallion, The \/ Die H\u00f6lle von Macao (1967)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\"CorruptOnes_Beta\"<\/a>Film<\/strong>: Good<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Weak<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong>Embassy Home Entertainment<\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a0NTSC<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0 1985<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Action<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0A crusading photographer in possession of an ancient Chinese medal is chased by a widow, the mafia, and thugs for a treasure hidden within a forgotten underground tomb.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0 n\/a<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

This crazy cocktail of Asian exotica, sadism, and search for ancient treasure may have been a production targeted at international markets using an international cast of TV and feature film stars, but this German-French-Italian co-production is still a low budget effort trying very hard to transcend the limits of its budget.<\/p>\n

In this case, some of the earnest efforts pay off, because director James Hill (A Study in Terror<\/strong>,\u00a0Born Free<\/strong>) was aided by cinematographer Heinz Pehlke and editor Alfred Srp (Sissi<\/strong>,\u00a0Julie Darling,<\/strong>\u00a0Killing Cars<\/strong>), so certainly in its original theatrical form \u2013 2.35:1 Techniscope \u2013\u00a0The Corrupt Ones<\/strong>\u00a0must have been a fast-moving upper-B level movie, but the only venue to catch the film for years (which is still apparently the case) was in terrible full-frame transfers via Embassy Home Entertainment on Betamax and VHS tapes.<\/p>\n

Director Hill was a hired gun, but many of the off-camera creatives had various levels of experience in the German film industry, and some of their prior collaborations undoubtedly shaped the finale \u2013 but more on that later.<\/p>\n

In its simplest form,\u00a0Corrupt<\/strong>\u00a0begins with a kind of James Bondian Cold War hook in which a tabloid-investigative reporter, Cliff Wilder (Robert Stack), barely manages to escape from Red China with photos of a forced labour camp with the aide of Italian treasure hunter, Mancini (Maurizio Arena).<\/p>\n

When the pair reach Macao, Mancini spots local gang operatives, and hangs around Cliff long enough to give him a gold medallion before he’s snatched by the Macao mafia and tortured for information.<\/p>\n

When Cliff realizes he possesses an object of note (and possible payday of $10 million), he must choose which ally is the most noble, if not the safest: Manicni\u2019s wife Lili (Elke Sommer, looking ravishing in meticulous outfits and hairdos), local police chief Pinto (scene-stealing German actor Werner Peters), thug Jay Brandon (Christian Marquand), or bella Mafiosi Tina (Nancy Kwan, quite good being discretely menacing).<\/p>\n

Before the race to reach the treasure kicks in, however, Cliff wanders into a brothel and has to fend off offers from Mme. Vulcano (Marisa Merlini) in what\u2019s a strangely yet deliberately funny scene. When he does confront Tina, it’s at her villa, where she shows off her torture skills on a minion with dripping acid after the boob broiled Mancini with a blowtorch before asking any questions.<\/p>\n

Producer Artur Brauner\u2019s prolific film background includes sexploitation fodder and Fritz Lang\u2019s late-era Mabuse films, so fans of Lang will get a sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu when the group of rivals shift alliances after theyretrapped in the hidden tomb of a Chinese noble close to the Red Chinese border.<\/p>\n

The stark torture scenes coupled with unusually elaborate tomb sets are likely borrowed ideas from Brauner\u2019s early Lang collaborations \u2013\u00a0Tiger of Eschnapur<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Indian Tomb<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(both 1959), Lang\u2019s Indian diptych \u2013 which similarly used torture (lions, water, starvation & abandonment), a cultish ruling class, and an elaborate trek through underground passages and caverns. Although these elements have been downscaled to suit the film’s budget, they’re still quite affecting, due in large part to the sharp editing and surprisingly solid fight choreography.<\/p>\n

Stack is typically wooden and his limitations as a dramatic \/ romantic lead are more evident than in his prior \u2018Asian\u2019 thriller, Sam Fuller\u2019s\u00a0House of Bamboo<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(1955), where he played an agent masquerading as an arrogant American ass to infiltrate an American crime syndicate in Tokyo. He\u2019s still okay as reluctant hero Cliff, but he\u2019s neither no better nor worse than his co-stars who have little opportunity to transcend their limited roles, and the dialogue concocted by a mish-mash of non-writers and genre veterans like Brian Clemens (The Avengers<\/strong>,\u00a0Captain Kronos \u2013 Vampire Hunter<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n

The sole exceptions among the cast are Peters as the amoral and opportunistic police chief (an unsubtle riff on Claude Rains\u2019 Captain Renault in\u00a0Casablanca<\/a><\/strong>), and Kwan, playing Tina as sexy, astute, organized, and pseudo-nationalistic (although she clearly uses safeguarding national treasures from greedy Western paws as an excuse to steal for her).<\/p>\n

Georges Garvarentz\u2019 score is adequate \u2013 some unusual instrumental effects add menace to the film\u2019s torture scenes \u2013 but it is noteworthy for the heavy use of the\u00a0Ondes Martenot<\/a>\u00a0(the woo-woo electronic sounds similarly used by Richard Rodney Bennett in the tongue-in-cheek spy film\u00a0Billion Dollar Brain<\/strong>), and a title track with banal lyrics sung by Dusty Springfield, fresh from her hit \u201cThe Look of Love\u201d in\u00a0Casino Royal<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0that same year.<\/p>\n

Whereas Sommer would ease into horror and international productions, the film didn\u2019t really transform Stack into a film star. His last crack \u2013\u00a0Story of a Woman<\/strong>\u00a0with James Farentino and Bibi Andersson in 1970 for Italian director Leonardo Bercovici apparently wasn\u2019t enough, pushing Stack back into the stable environment of network TV series and TV movies.<\/p>\n

Kwan\u2019s career was neither aided nor damaged by the film, but it is striking that only three years earlier she\u2019d earned second billing in the airline disaster drama\u00a0Fate is the Hunter<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(1964) with co-star Glenn Ford. What followed in the coming years were small roles in productions outside of the studios\u2019 realm.<\/p>\n

The Corrupt Ones<\/strong>\u00a0may well one day materialize as a Warner Archive release, since Warner Bros. handled the film\u2019s original theatrical distribution in the U.S. and the U.K. It is odd, however, that Germany\u2019s Constantine Film never released the film in a proper widescreen DVD.<\/p>\n

James Hill would direct several genre films and revisit the hallowed ground of\u00a0Born Free<\/strong>\u00a0with the 1969 \u2018true life sequel\u2019\u00a0The Lions are Free<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 before ending his career with the TV series\u00a0Worzel Gummidge<\/strong>\u00a0(1979-1981),\u00a0Worzel Gummidge Down Under<\/strong>\u00a0(1987-1989), and\u00a0Alaska Kid<\/strong>\u00a0(1993).<\/p>\n

To North American audiences, Christian Marquand is perhaps best-known for small roles in\u00a0The Flight of the Phoenix<\/strong>\u00a0(1965),\u00a0Candy<\/strong>\u00a0(1968),\u00a0Apocalypse Now: Redux<\/strong>\u00a0(1979), and\u00a0A Choice of Arms<\/strong>\u00a0\/\u00a0Le choix des Arms<\/strong>\u00a0(1981).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2014 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a> \u00a0— \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a> —\u00a0Composer Filmography<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This crazy cocktail of Asian exotica, sadism, and search for ancient treasure may have been a production targeted at international markets using an international cast of TV and feature film stars, but this German-French-Italian co-production is still a low budget effort trying very hard to transcend the limits of its budget…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[2453,2965,2964,2963,1332,2962],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2s5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9429"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9466,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9429\/revisions\/9466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}