Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In. Today we're addressing
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies six genre mash up film Devil's Express
Speaker 1: also known as Gang Wars. Did you know about this
Speaker 1: alternate title? Rob? Yeah, yeah, I'd run across some sort
Speaker 1: of alternate trailers for it. I guess you see this
Speaker 1: a lot with with with films that came came out,
Speaker 1: especially back in the in the nineteen seventies, where it
Speaker 1: comes out, maybe it doesn't play as well, or maybe
Speaker 1: something else happens in the zeitgeist and you want to
Speaker 1: you want a second shot at it, so you just
Speaker 1: retitle it and put it out there again and see
Speaker 1: if you catch any any viewers. So the claim that
Speaker 1: I came across, uh, we should maybe it's best to
Speaker 1: start with the elevator pitch. The elevator pitch here is
Speaker 1: that when an ancient Chinese demon is released the subway
Speaker 1: tunnels of New York, a saintly master of the martial
Speaker 1: arts named Luke Curtis must summon all his courage to
Speaker 1: defeat the Underground Evil. So it is a martial arts
Speaker 1: demon horror movie, but it also has elements of like
Speaker 1: gang fighting in the streets. And according to a write
Speaker 1: up by Code Red, which I think did the Blu
Speaker 1: ray rerelease of this movie, that they said that when
Speaker 1: The Warriors was released theatrically, which I think would have
Speaker 1: been in nineteen seventy nine, so three years after this
Speaker 1: movie came out, they say, the distributor of Devil's Express
Speaker 1: re titled it Gang Wars essentially to make it look
Speaker 1: like a Warrior's type movie. Of course, if you haven't
Speaker 1: seen The Warriors, that's just it's a movie about all
Speaker 1: these weird, different little gangs in New York that have
Speaker 1: their their own interesting costumes and quirks, and they're running
Speaker 1: around fighting each other and all that. And I think
Speaker 1: they wanted to cash in on that that Warriors magic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, The Warriors is is a fabulously weird film
Speaker 1: in its own right, because when we say weird gangs,
Speaker 1: we mean if you haven't seen it, it's like there's
Speaker 1: a baseball gang, there's the Baseball Furies. That's right. The
Speaker 1: first time I saw that, that was the funniest thing
Speaker 1: about it. To me, they were wearing baseball uniforms and
Speaker 1: they have bats, I think. Yeah, so it's like it's
Speaker 1: it's as if it's said in an alternate reality where
Speaker 1: you just have a bunch of wacky, wacky gangs with
Speaker 1: all these wacky themes. Uh. So it's definitely worth worth
Speaker 1: checking out superior movie to what we're talking about here today.
Speaker 1: But the one we're talking about here today, Devil's Express,
Speaker 1: is just a wonderful mash up of of different genres,
Speaker 1: uh that they all kind of slammed together awkwardly, uh
Speaker 1: you know, uh, scraping up against each other sometimes jack
Speaker 1: knifing around each other in a way that that is
Speaker 1: ultimately quite entertaining. Yeah. So they retitled at Gang Morris
Speaker 1: and there are gangs in this movie, and the gangs
Speaker 1: do fight, but this movie really has more to do
Speaker 1: with its star Warhawk ten Zania down a demon to
Speaker 1: fight in the subway tunnels. Yes, and you know, we
Speaker 1: can we can introduce war Hawk Tanzania all day and
Speaker 1: and we're going to get into war Hawk Tanzania in
Speaker 1: a minute. But why don't we go ahead and listen
Speaker 1: to the trailer. The original TV trailer for the film
Speaker 1: because you really need a narrator's voice to introduce Warhawk
Speaker 1: Tanzania to the world. To take a ride on the
Speaker 1: Devil's Expressed. What happens when two thousand years of evil
Speaker 1: strike a city see Warhawk Tanzania match blows which the
Speaker 1: Devil and those the Devil has possessed to Ford monsoon
Speaker 1: take a ride on the Devil's Express. It may be
Speaker 1: your last star rated R. See now, are aren't you
Speaker 1: completely on board with Warhawk Tanzania the either the next
Speaker 1: big thing or the cur big thing based on the
Speaker 1: salesmanship in this uh, in this particular trailer. One thing
Speaker 1: about the trailer is the trailer really plays it up
Speaker 1: as a horror movie. I think, what do you think
Speaker 1: about that? They definitely stressed the monster movie aspects of this,
Speaker 1: which I think is I mean, that's what brought me
Speaker 1: to it. I realized, Oh, this is not just a
Speaker 1: New York City martial arts gang war movie. No, there's
Speaker 1: also some sort of a subway monster in it. There's
Speaker 1: a demon and um and I'm a sucker for any
Speaker 1: any film that that puts monsters in a subway, especially
Speaker 1: the New York subway system. Um. I'm just instantly enthralled. Oh,
Speaker 1: of course there. But stylistically this film has a lot
Speaker 1: of things in common with a lot of these sort
Speaker 1: of crime exploitation movies of the nineteen seventies. I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of people online uh saying that it has
Speaker 1: elements similar to black exploitation films, which are a a
Speaker 1: genre that has has a very complicated legacy. Of course,
Speaker 1: these were films that came out in the early seventies,
Speaker 1: especially they're they're often said to have been inspired by
Speaker 1: a couple of seminal works. One was Melvin Van Peeble's
Speaker 1: Sweet Sweet Backs Badass Song, which I think came out
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one, and another big one was Gordon
Speaker 1: Parks movie Shaft. And it's debatable whether those are whether
Speaker 1: those should actually be thought of as black exploitation movies themselves,
Speaker 1: but they certainly are are thought to have inspired this
Speaker 1: genre of films that had sort of larger than life
Speaker 1: black heroes, but that also tended to deal with themes
Speaker 1: of of crime. And we're often said in New York
Speaker 1: City and have this complicated legacy because on one hand
Speaker 1: that they had these larger than life black heroes. I've
Speaker 1: read about some scholars talking about how you know, finally
Speaker 1: you could have like a black hero on the level
Speaker 1: of James Bond, that kind of like superhuman nous uh
Speaker 1: in a movie starring in a movie of his own.
Speaker 1: But then also like the term black exploitation actually was
Speaker 1: coined by a member of the Double a c P
Speaker 1: who is very against the genre, who because basically, I
Speaker 1: think he thought that it perpetuated negative stereotypes about the
Speaker 1: black communities in America. Yeah, because these were often movies
Speaker 1: about crime, so that you know, you had you had
Speaker 1: gangs in them, they had they had would feature uh,
Speaker 1: prostitution or drugs and violence. Um. And and if you
Speaker 1: just if you're just watching these films of this genre,
Speaker 1: you know, it makes you think like this is all
Speaker 1: there is, this is all there is to um to
Speaker 1: two black culture into black life in America at the time.
Speaker 1: And in a similar way, of course, you also have
Speaker 1: kung fu exploitation films, and this is also the kung
Speaker 1: fu exploitation film where if you watch films of this caliber,
Speaker 1: you see um, basically Asian characters, Asian cultures, and certainly
Speaker 1: uh in this case like Asian American life as being
Speaker 1: just martial arts like, this is a movie that features
Speaker 1: several different Asian actors, or at least Asian stuntman and
Speaker 1: Asian martial artists, but there's not a single Asian character
Speaker 1: of any depth. I like, I do not know any
Speaker 1: of the Asian characters names in this film. I don't
Speaker 1: know that they're given names. Yeah, that's right. And of
Speaker 1: course this movie would not be the only one that
Speaker 1: sort of mashed up the the seventies martial arts exploitation
Speaker 1: style movie with black exploitation aesthetics. These two things had
Speaker 1: collided in other films as well, but in this case
Speaker 1: it also brings in horror, which is a very interesting
Speaker 1: third element here, third rail. It's the third rail that
Speaker 1: drives the train, you could say that. So of course
Speaker 1: this is a This is a grimy seventies grindhouse film,
Speaker 1: but it also borders on one of our favorite genres
Speaker 1: that we've discussed before. Of course, this other genre we've
Speaker 1: talked about was the supernatural wrestling movie, such as the
Speaker 1: film starring El Santo, where the noble luchador hero must
Speaker 1: confront a mummy or a dracula. The one we talked
Speaker 1: about on the show was Santo and the Treasure of Dracula,
Speaker 1: which it was a really fun movie to talk about. Uh. Here,
Speaker 1: this is not exactly the same thing, but it's kind
Speaker 1: of close. Because this is essentially a supernatural martial arts movie.
Speaker 1: Like Warhawk, Tanzania must confront not just corrupt cops and
Speaker 1: rival gangs on the gritty streets of nineteen seventies New York,
Speaker 1: but the denizens of hell itself. Absolutely. Yeah, and I mean,
Speaker 1: and it's ultimately it's it's a Baowolf and Grendel story.
Speaker 1: You know. It's the story of the hero who must
Speaker 1: travel down into the depths, into the dark realm where
Speaker 1: the monster lives, in order to defeat it. Uh and
Speaker 1: uh and you know that's exactly what happens in this film.
Speaker 1: Speaking of which, is this our first martial arts film
Speaker 1: on Weirdhouse Cinema? Have we done another pure martial arts film? Uh?
Speaker 1: So many movies have elements of martial arts in them.
Speaker 1: I would find it hard to believe we haven't touched
Speaker 1: on anything there. But this might be the closest thing
Speaker 1: to a pure martial arts movie. Yeah. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and talk about the people who made
Speaker 1: this possible. There's a there's some several fun connections in
Speaker 1: this film. Um At first glance, it might look like
Speaker 1: a you know, with these z pictures from a casting standpoint,
Speaker 1: where where nobody goes on to to do anything else
Speaker 1: or has any kind of interesting connections for the rest
Speaker 1: of the world. But that is not the case. Let's
Speaker 1: start at the top with the director and also one
Speaker 1: of the screenwriters, Barry rosen bore N six. He only
Speaker 1: directed a couple of pictures, but he was a producer
Speaker 1: on the nineteen seventy five film Black Force, where he
Speaker 1: apparently met some of the stars of that that he
Speaker 1: would utilize in Devil's Express And as a producer, he
Speaker 1: went on to work on some at least a couple
Speaker 1: of really fun projects, including Highway to Hell in he
Speaker 1: was line producer on that. This is the the Wonderful
Speaker 1: Hell Cop Movie, starring Patrick Bergen and the entire Stiller family.
Speaker 1: Like Ben Stiller's in it, Ben Stellar's mom is in it,
Speaker 1: Ben Stellar's dad is in it. Yeah, weird, so weird.
Speaker 1: It is a weird film. Gilbert Godfrey shows up playing
Speaker 1: Hitler uh because it's hell Uh. There's all these bizarre
Speaker 1: elements in it, So that's that's definitely. Um. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it in a while, but that was one I
Speaker 1: finally remember catching on like USA Network back in the day. Okay,
Speaker 1: and then Rosen also produced twenty two episodes of Highlander,
Speaker 1: the series, so uh, kudos on that. I can just
Speaker 1: see him sending the dailies back being like no, no,
Speaker 1: gotta have more juice in these quickening scenes. Now I
Speaker 1: mentioned that Rosen was one of the writers on Devil's Express.
Speaker 1: There are four other screenwriters that are credited, so this
Speaker 1: is basically Rosen at all. Um. I'll list their names
Speaker 1: quickly here, but but they didn't really I don't think
Speaker 1: any of them really went on to do much else.
Speaker 1: But uh, still, the people that made this possible Nicky Patton, Uh,
Speaker 1: Pascal Vacuire, Ceotis Robinson, and Bobby Saberstein. These are the screenwriters.
Speaker 1: Moving on, let's get to the main event here. Let's
Speaker 1: get to our to our star, the man who and
Speaker 1: this plays Luke. But it's hard to imagine anybody with
Speaker 1: a name like this just playing someone with a name
Speaker 1: like Luke. But we're talking about war Hawk Tanzania. You know.
Speaker 1: I read some reviews saying like, uh, sort of deriding
Speaker 1: the film for trying to rely on the what they
Speaker 1: claimed was non existent star power of war Hawk Tanzania.
Speaker 1: But I kind of disagree. I mean, war Hawk Tanzania
Speaker 1: is clearly not a not a super experienced actor, but
Speaker 1: I do kind of think he has star power. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he absolutely has star power. I mean, he
Speaker 1: he has the looks, he has this, this this really
Speaker 1: righteous afro hairstyle. This, he's he's got this cool mustache.
Speaker 1: He's he's lean, he's mean, he can throw some kicks
Speaker 1: and punches. And yes, he only has I think two
Speaker 1: different delivery styles for his dialogue, but you feel it
Speaker 1: when he delivers those those lines like he's still he's
Speaker 1: still connecting with you. But but yeah, to think about
Speaker 1: the trailer, especially a couple of trailers that I watched
Speaker 1: for this, is that they really do sell war Hawk
Speaker 1: Tanzania as if he is either the you know, the
Speaker 1: the current big thing or the next big thing in
Speaker 1: martial arts cinema. Like he is exploding. The war Hawk
Speaker 1: Tanzania train is about to leave the station. Are you
Speaker 1: going to get on board? Yes? I'm on board. Yes,
Speaker 1: I have my tickets right here, first class. Because I mean,
Speaker 1: if nothing else. It's also just an amazing name. War
Speaker 1: Hawk Tanzania just undeniably cool, and we see that in
Speaker 1: his character too, Like I feel we call him Luke,
Speaker 1: but I feel like the characters war Hawk Tanzania as well.
Speaker 1: I should also stress war Hawk Tanzania had one, I
Speaker 1: think one film credit prior to this and no film
Speaker 1: credits after this. Uh. He was in that that exploitation
Speaker 1: film Black Force that I mentioned earlier that came before this,
Speaker 1: and then he he just does not appear in anything else. Um.
Speaker 1: And I don't think anything is really publicly known about
Speaker 1: the man. I would say that it probably went one
Speaker 1: of two ways though. Either after this film he has
Speaker 1: decided that he was just going to live a private
Speaker 1: life and be a private citizen, and if so, you know,
Speaker 1: more power to him, or war Hawk Tanzania has spent
Speaker 1: the decades since this movie battling actual demons and monsters
Speaker 1: around the world, taking the fight to the forces of
Speaker 1: evil as only war Hawk Tanzania can. He is a
Speaker 1: he is a martial arts exorcist of your mass transit systems. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's a fighter. He's a lover. Uh, he's a demon hunter,
Speaker 1: He's a peace broker. He brings it all to the table.
Speaker 1: Totally agree and believe it or not, there are other
Speaker 1: actors in this film. I mean it seems like like
Speaker 1: maybe they at first they thought we we'll just cast
Speaker 1: war Hawk. We don't need anybody else. War Hawk Tanzania
Speaker 1: is enough to fill up an entire film. But then
Speaker 1: they as well, we have to catch all these other
Speaker 1: roles too. Uh huh, Well, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: know anybody's name except Rodan. Well, first there's uh, we'll
Speaker 1: get to well, let's go ahead and hit Rodan, because
Speaker 1: Rodan's his but Rodan's is his his companion. They're on
Speaker 1: the same course, they're on the you know that they
Speaker 1: seem to have the same mission in life, but it
Speaker 1: becomes clear as we'll discuss that they do have different
Speaker 1: agendas going on. There there's some conflict between them. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there's totally conflict. But I mean, so Rodan is Luke's
Speaker 1: student in the movie, his student of martial arts, because
Speaker 1: Luke is a martial arts master. But whereas Luke is
Speaker 1: you could argue pretty much lawful good. You know, he's
Speaker 1: in many ways sort of a paladin or presented as such,
Speaker 1: viewed as such by the creators of the film. Rodan
Speaker 1: I would say is more in the sort of chaotic
Speaker 1: neutral territory. Yeah, yeah, he's you know, he'll he'll be good,
Speaker 1: especially if he's there with Luke, if you know, he
Speaker 1: has that that war hawk energy keeping him in line.
Speaker 1: But if he's off on his own, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he's he's running games all over town. As we find
Speaker 1: out now. Rodan is played by the actor and martial
Speaker 1: artists Wilfredo roll Dan, who lived I think nine through
Speaker 1: so he did pass away last last year. Um Lower
Speaker 1: East Side resident and apparently like regional at least regional
Speaker 1: martial arts legend. Uh. He was born in Puerto Rico,
Speaker 1: and he moved to the continental United States at a
Speaker 1: young age. His acting career seems to have consist of
Speaker 1: two different periods. He did some exploitation films when he
Speaker 1: was very young, including this one, and then some other
Speaker 1: film work later in his life after he retired from
Speaker 1: a career as a as a pe teacher for the
Speaker 1: for the New York City Board of Education. He you
Speaker 1: can look him up there in his their websites about
Speaker 1: him and memorials to him. He apparently sang he was
Speaker 1: a much beloved uh master, I think a grand master
Speaker 1: of a particular system of martial arts. Uh that he
Speaker 1: did not I don't think he did not found this.
Speaker 1: The school of Martial Arts was founded by a guy
Speaker 1: in the name of Frank Ruez. But yeah, he was
Speaker 1: an accomplished martial artist and like sort of a regional celebrity.
Speaker 1: You know, you'd hear to talk about like New York
Speaker 1: City people, you know, uh, the sort of characters that
Speaker 1: that fill up the city that might not necessarily be
Speaker 1: no own by people who are not themselves New Yorkers.
Speaker 1: What seems like Wilfredo was one of those individuals. And
Speaker 1: he's a he's he's pretty good in this movie. You
Speaker 1: see him that I was throwing some amazing kicks and
Speaker 1: he's he's not bad. As an actor. I feel like
Speaker 1: he's got as a sort of a natural chrisma as well,
Speaker 1: but also a kind of uh something you don't trust
Speaker 1: about him. He's got a meanness to him, and of
Speaker 1: course that comes out in the character as well. Now
Speaker 1: there's another martial arts really partial martial artist character that
Speaker 1: shows up earlier on and that's a cop character by
Speaker 1: the name of Chris and Chris was played by Larry Fleischman. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is another like Warhawk age unknown. Don't know when
Speaker 1: this guy was born. Um, presumably still alive. British born actor.
Speaker 1: He popped up in nine Johnny Got His Gun. He
Speaker 1: was on All My Children, Law and Order, a couple
Speaker 1: of video games. He's perfectly fine in this. Now another
Speaker 1: really interesting and weird actor that shows up in this film.
Speaker 1: Not very much like he basically shows up for two scenes,
Speaker 1: almost as if you wander into the shot and they
Speaker 1: decided to pay him. Um. But a wonderful, wonderful actor
Speaker 1: that many people probably know by his his stage name,
Speaker 1: his performance name. Talking about brother Theodore. Oh, his scene
Speaker 1: in this movie was one of the best parts of
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Yeah, um, I think is it two scenes?
Speaker 1: Is he also? Is there a scene where he's looking
Speaker 1: at a dead body in a subway with some police
Speaker 1: officers for no real reason. Uh? If so, I missed,
Speaker 1: don't recall that one. I remember the one where he's
Speaker 1: preaching to the crowd, and we'll get to that later. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He mainly just has a ranting scene. So yeah. Brother
Speaker 1: Theodore also known as Theodore Gottlieb. He was born in
Speaker 1: nineteen o six, died in two thousand and one, and
Speaker 1: I read, I've read that he improved all of his
Speaker 1: lines in this as well. Um, he was a German
Speaker 1: American actor who performed a kind of stream of consciousness
Speaker 1: stand up and he has a fascinating life. I was
Speaker 1: reading the New York Times, Oh bit for him by
Speaker 1: Douglas Martin, and the whole thing's worth reading. Fascinating character.
Speaker 1: But I want to read just these, these, these two
Speaker 1: snippets from it quote. Born to great wealth in Germany,
Speaker 1: he ended up in Dachau, only to be released when
Speaker 1: he signed over the family's great fortune for a single mark. Einstein,
Speaker 1: said by some of Mr Gottlieb's friends to have been
Speaker 1: his mother's lover, helped him get to the United States.
Speaker 1: And then we also here, always an aristocrat, he suddenly
Speaker 1: found himself working as a janitor at Stanford University, where
Speaker 1: he managed to defeat thirty professors at chess simultaneously. So
Speaker 1: I don't know, Okay, I don't know anything about this guy.
Speaker 1: So I admit I'm coming from a place of ignorance.
Speaker 1: But I feel incredulous at reading these sentences the thirty
Speaker 1: I mean also knowing that he is very much a
Speaker 1: performer and um uh and and kind of a professional weirdo.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't doubt him on the on the
Speaker 1: core backstory here, but the chess thing raises my suspicion.
Speaker 1: Maybe he really was a brilliant chess uh player? And
Speaker 1: and which is you know, wiped up the matt with
Speaker 1: a bunch of Stanford University professors. But I don't know
Speaker 1: either way. I like them the myth building though, because
Speaker 1: he seems this is one of those weird characters you
Speaker 1: see show up in some stuff and um, yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems like it's hard to tell where the mythology ends
Speaker 1: in the real life begins with him. But anyway, he
Speaker 1: he ended up in the United States eventually got into
Speaker 1: acting in comedy. He had a small part in Orson
Speaker 1: Wells The Stranger in nineteen forty six, which was his
Speaker 1: first role, and many of our listeners probably know him
Speaker 1: from his final picture. He shows up in nine the Bourbs.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the Bourbs? Joe? Um? Is that the
Speaker 1: one with Tom Hanks. I'm not sure that I've seen it.
Speaker 1: It's it's one I saw when I was a kids.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it as an adult. But you have
Speaker 1: a number of of weird character actors playing weird neighbors
Speaker 1: in that. I think Bruce Dern is in it as
Speaker 1: well a couple other people that you know, people would
Speaker 1: viewers would recognize. But yeah, but yeah, Brother Theodore, isn't
Speaker 1: it playing one of the neighborhood weirdos and it's pretty
Speaker 1: pretty good. I'm sorry, does they have vampires? I don't
Speaker 1: think it has vampires. I think it's just weirdos. It's
Speaker 1: got while since I've seen it. I don't remember what
Speaker 1: the payoff was, but there was a lot of like
Speaker 1: creepy goings on and like suburban basements. May be confusing
Speaker 1: the bourbs with the money pit. Yeah, different movie, but
Speaker 1: some very similar era, I think now. Brother Theodore has
Speaker 1: two excellent voice actor performances on his um filmography from
Speaker 1: the animated films of Drunken and Bass. So he uh
Speaker 1: he played Have you ever seen two? Is the Last Unicorn?
Speaker 1: Joe No, I haven't Okay? Fabulous film score by America, wonderful,
Speaker 1: wonderful vocal of voice acting performances throughout. But Brother Theodore
Speaker 1: places character Rock Uh Hunchback who attends the witch Mommy Fortuna,
Speaker 1: who runs this, uh, this I Joe of of magical
Speaker 1: creatures and monsters, and so he's this, uh, he's this
Speaker 1: really fun character and not a not a huge character
Speaker 1: in the film, but a memorable one. Another character you
Speaker 1: played in the Ranking and Bess animated films. He voiced
Speaker 1: Gollum in nineteen seventy seven The Hobbit and in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties The Return of the King. Both great roles, both
Speaker 1: great performances. Um, I have to say, I've i've I've
Speaker 1: fallen back in love with the original animated Hobbit in
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, and I think i'm I
Speaker 1: can without a doubt. I can say, brother Theodore is
Speaker 1: my Gollum. Can you sing the songs? No? I can't
Speaker 1: sing sing the song, but has good songs in it too.
Speaker 1: Seven The Hobbit also one movie. It's it's it's brilliant.
Speaker 1: They managed to fit that that entire short book into
Speaker 1: one short film. I don't think you could do it
Speaker 1: in less than for six hour movies. Yeah, somehow they
Speaker 1: did it. Ranken and Best. Okay, who else we got
Speaker 1: in this? Alright? So we have some The next one
Speaker 1: I want to mention because it's it's a weird uh credit.
Speaker 1: On the the cast for this, there's somebody that is
Speaker 1: referred to as um Uh Skagi Tanzania or as uh
Speaker 1: Tissagy Iron Prist Tanzania. And I'm not sure if that's
Speaker 1: supposed to be priest or if it's priest misspelled, like
Speaker 1: maybe it's uh uh Sakaki Iron Priest Tanzania. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know which character this is. I don't know
Speaker 1: why they also have the last name Tanzania. It's a
Speaker 1: total mystery to me. It just adds to the allure
Speaker 1: of the film. Though. Yeah, we have a We have
Speaker 1: an actor by the name of Aki along in this
Speaker 1: who plays a Chinese businessman. He was born in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty four Asian actor, born in Trinidad and Tobago. He
Speaker 1: has a bit this is a bit part. It's not
Speaker 1: really much to but it's memorable. We'll get to it.
Speaker 1: But he has a number of parts in a lot
Speaker 1: of films. Over the years. He did some acting and directing.
Speaker 1: He was in two episodes of the original Outer Limits.
Speaker 1: He was on the As the World Turns, He was
Speaker 1: in The General Hospital, Jake and the Fat Man Babylon five,
Speaker 1: and he was also in Dragging the Bruce Lee story. Okay,
Speaker 1: we have a character actor show up as well. Uh,
Speaker 1: and this is another one where I don't think he
Speaker 1: really does much in this film, but the actor Teddy Wilson,
Speaker 1: but he has some brief but minoral interactions because you
Speaker 1: can in he's one of these actors where you know,
Speaker 1: war Hawks great in this, but war Hawk doesn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of nuance to his performance. But Teddy Wilson,
Speaker 1: you can tell like this is a guy who who
Speaker 1: gets some of the the intricacies of acting in ways
Speaker 1: that the martial artists maybe do not. It's always an
Speaker 1: interesting dynamic in martial arts films where the main cast
Speaker 1: is full of martial artists, people who you could say
Speaker 1: are martial artists first, an actors second, and then they
Speaker 1: will often try to round it out just by filling
Speaker 1: in like great character actors, to bring in that kind
Speaker 1: of personality and texture that's not always there in people
Speaker 1: who's whose first thing is martial arts. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, Teddy Teddy Wilson definitely stands out talented actor.
Speaker 1: He lived through Um he played Sweet Daddy Williams on
Speaker 1: Good Times, and he did a lot of additional TV
Speaker 1: work popping up on big TV shows from that era, including,
Speaker 1: but not limited to, by any means, All in the Family,
Speaker 1: Sanford and Son, The Bionic Woman, The Jefferson's, the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties Twilight Zone series l a Law, Alien Nation, family Matters,
Speaker 1: and even Tales from the Crypt. He was in the
Speaker 1: episode Fitting Punishment. I don't know if you remember this one,
Speaker 1: but this uh, this had a uh it involved a
Speaker 1: black funeral home and you had the wonderful actor Moses
Speaker 1: Gunn playing this tyrannical funeral director there like being being
Speaker 1: just like a just really hard on his nephew. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think I've seen it. It's it's a good
Speaker 1: It's not like Top Shelf, uh, Tales from the Crypt,
Speaker 1: but it's it's pretty good. And Teddy Wilson shows up
Speaker 1: in it. Um. But yeah, Teddy Wilson was He isn't
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff. He was in films by John
Speaker 1: Cassavetti's Blake Edwards, and he was in the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen movie The Hunter. Alright. Some other names of
Speaker 1: note and also names that are barely worth noting. There's
Speaker 1: an actor by the name of Stephen DeFazio, who plays
Speaker 1: Sam the lugheaded cop Um a memorable character in the film,
Speaker 1: but this is his only film role. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's pretty fun as a lugheaded conspiracy theory spreading
Speaker 1: a police officer. Wait, is he supposed to be a lughead?
Speaker 1: I get that he's like the butt of jokes, but
Speaker 1: I thought the whole point was that he's kind of
Speaker 1: like Harley Stone's new partner. He's like the he's I've
Speaker 1: got a criminology degree. He's, you know, bringing this kind
Speaker 1: of like smooth academic sensibility that's actually stupid. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe that's what they were going for. I got more
Speaker 1: lugheaded conspiracy theory spreader. Uh. He he is the guy
Speaker 1: who keeps saying that the murders caused by the demon
Speaker 1: and the subway tunnels are actually caused by mutant cats. Okay,
Speaker 1: but but he's fine. Clearly the they ended up like
Speaker 1: ending on a note from him with the film, so
Speaker 1: that they clearly like the character once they got it
Speaker 1: on the screen. All right. Uncredited, but Ron Becks is
Speaker 1: in this as a martial arts student. Uncredited in this picture,
Speaker 1: but he went on to direct, produce, and star in
Speaker 1: several low budget movies. I think is still making low
Speaker 1: budget movies. Um, starring in pictures that he directed opposite
Speaker 1: such names as One Time Bond, George Lasenby, and even
Speaker 1: Eric Roberts. And you know Eric Roberts won't just appear
Speaker 1: in anything. Um. Here's another one of note. Paul Glickmana
Speaker 1: was the director of photography on this. He was also
Speaker 1: a cinematographer on some other famous seventies genre films, including
Speaker 1: The Stuff and God Told Me To Now, as far
Speaker 1: as music goes on this film, I don't think it
Speaker 1: really has a score per se, but they do feature
Speaker 1: a number of different musical bits, and it features several
Speaker 1: tracks from a music group called Rising Sun like Son
Speaker 1: and Daughter Rising Sun, which which didn't mean anything to
Speaker 1: me until I started looking into it a little bit.
Speaker 1: And these songs were written by Harlem disco legend Patrick Adams. Now,
Speaker 1: if you haven't heard of Patrick Adams, you'r you can
Speaker 1: be forgiven for that. Apparently he's he's often um forgotten
Speaker 1: or not recognized outside of the genre, but is what
Speaker 1: is is very well respected within the disco genre and
Speaker 1: in DJ circles. Uh. There was a two thousand seventeen
Speaker 1: Guardian profile about him that described him as quote the
Speaker 1: underground disco super producer whom DJ is still at doore. Okay,
Speaker 1: So even if you don't know the name Patrick Adams
Speaker 1: off the top of your your head, you've you've probably
Speaker 1: heard some of the songs that he worked on. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some some of these songs were prominently featured in other movies,
Speaker 1: including Uh, Touched Me All Night Long performed by Fonda
Speaker 1: Ray and the band Wish from four, which is a
Speaker 1: minor hit on its own, but then it went on
Speaker 1: to be featured in A Nightmare on Elm Street to
Speaker 1: Freddie's Revenge. I know that movie well. Other tracks that
Speaker 1: he had a hand in include Dance Dance Dance by
Speaker 1: Martin Acuna, in the Bush by Music, Keep On Jumping
Speaker 1: by Music. Um that's also the name of the seventy
Speaker 1: eight album and you can look that up in Spotify.
Speaker 1: It's it's great stuff, just wonderful seventies disco vibe. Also
Speaker 1: Till You Surrender by Rainbow Brown and many others. So, uh,
Speaker 1: this ended up. At first, I thought there wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: be anything special with the music on this picture, but
Speaker 1: it turns out it was very special. So if you
Speaker 1: if you're not familiar with the work of Patrick Adams,
Speaker 1: look it up. Uh, you've heard it before, you said,
Speaker 1: didn't realize you've heard it before. But yeah, he had
Speaker 1: his hand in so many great tracks, and I think
Speaker 1: he's still making music today. I also really enjoyed the
Speaker 1: soundtrack on this, and one of the things I liked
Speaker 1: was the sudden transitions between like really great uh pulsing
Speaker 1: U disco or or funk music immediately cutting to like
Speaker 1: throbbing deep sea sound effects when it was trying to
Speaker 1: get the demon in your mind. Yeah, all right, well
Speaker 1: let's get the demon in mind on this episode. Let's
Speaker 1: jump into the plot of Devil's Express. Alrighty well, the
Speaker 1: very first thing we see we get a little title.
Speaker 1: It says China two Where in China? Just somewhere in China,
Speaker 1: Though it quickly becomes a parent that any scene in
Speaker 1: this film that's supposed to take place in China is
Speaker 1: clearly still New York. Specifically, I think they shot this
Speaker 1: at Harriman State Park, Bear Mountain. Uh so, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's very obviously not China, but it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1: What do you think the scene of the plane landing
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong. You think that was real stock footage.
Speaker 1: I think it was real stock footage all the way
Speaker 1: now here at Harriman State Park in in China, we
Speaker 1: have some monks who are disposing of some kind of
Speaker 1: fearful artifact. That's the first thing you see him in
Speaker 1: a train sort of not a train, like a locomotive.
Speaker 1: That they are walking in a row carrying this big
Speaker 1: box like a sarcophagus almost, or like they're carrying the
Speaker 1: ark of the covenant. And uh, they are also there.
Speaker 1: They're being watched over by this kind of head priest guy,
Speaker 1: and they have in their possession a mirrored amulet, and
Speaker 1: they take this big box and the mirrored amulet deep
Speaker 1: into a cave in the forest, and they deposit the
Speaker 1: amulet in the box in the cave, and then I
Speaker 1: guess it's Quentin time. And once it's quit In time,
Speaker 1: they are all beheaded. I think this is presumably so
Speaker 1: they take the secret of the amulet to the grave
Speaker 1: with them. So their their leader, after beheading each of
Speaker 1: them in a row, he cuts his own throat. And
Speaker 1: so one would assume that the secret evil of whatever
Speaker 1: is in that boxes is now safe forever or is it? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't count on meddling more martial artists from the
Speaker 1: United States coming to China and the twentieth century. One
Speaker 1: thing I like in this movie is that, at least
Speaker 1: in this opening scene. I think this was actually less
Speaker 1: true in some of the later scenes, but in this
Speaker 1: opening it has some really way over the line sound effects.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where somebody swings a sword
Speaker 1: and hits nothing, just swings it in the air, but
Speaker 1: it produces this extremely loud steel cable kind of sound.
Speaker 1: And then after that we get to one of these
Speaker 1: great editing montages I was talking about earlier, which is
Speaker 1: really funny because it's cutting during the opening credits. It's
Speaker 1: cutting between a subway tunnel with these spooky, deep chirping
Speaker 1: sounds and no music, and then immediately back to crowded
Speaker 1: streets in New York City with feel good music at
Speaker 1: full volume. And then we meet our hero. We meet
Speaker 1: Warhawk Tanzania playing this guy named Luke Curtis, and Luke
Speaker 1: is teaching martial arts in his studio. He's sparring with
Speaker 1: this Christian slatery kind of guy who is weird to
Speaker 1: find out is the police detective. And apparently there's a
Speaker 1: relationship where this guy is Luke's student and he keeps
Speaker 1: trying to recruit Luke to become a cop. I think,
Speaker 1: is that how you understood it? Yeah. By the way,
Speaker 1: some of the synopsis you will find of this movie
Speaker 1: online say that Luke is a cop, and that is
Speaker 1: absolutely not correct. Luke is not a cop. He does
Speaker 1: not appreciate, uh, this guy's attempts to recruit him to
Speaker 1: be a cop, and he says something he says, next
Speaker 1: time you try to recruit me to that pig pin
Speaker 1: of yours, I stopped pulling my punches and ice you. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, not definitely not a cop. Um. But but
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean he can't train with the cop I
Speaker 1: think one of the key messages of this film is
Speaker 1: that martial arts is a unifier and he can unify um,
Speaker 1: you know, different gangs, different races, different cultures, and and
Speaker 1: also it can it can unify you know, you can
Speaker 1: even throw the police in there and everybody could get
Speaker 1: along if they are practicing martial arts and sweating profusely.
Speaker 1: If they're practicing martial arts with the right state of mind,
Speaker 1: that seems to be Luke's ethos that martial arts is
Speaker 1: not just about fighting, it also involves some kind of
Speaker 1: higher wisdom and and h and an orientation toward peace. Yes.
Speaker 1: Now Luke's student Rodan comes in and again this is
Speaker 1: the guy played by Wilfredo Roldan, and uh, they start
Speaker 1: talking with the cops student here, and we find out
Speaker 1: that Luke and Rodan are about to travel to what
Speaker 1: Luke says is fabulous downtown Hong Kong, and then they're
Speaker 1: going to go for a week of self improvement, which
Speaker 1: we find it later they're going to like a monastery
Speaker 1: of some kind to to to train to the level
Speaker 1: of perfection like they've they've clearly both Luke and Rodana
Speaker 1: are performing at such a high level the only way
Speaker 1: they can improve is to is to go on journeys
Speaker 1: like this. So after the student leaves, we we sort
Speaker 1: of get a picture that Luke and Rodan are hope
Speaker 1: would you I would say that it seems like they
Speaker 1: are adjacent to the criminal underworld, but Luke at the
Speaker 1: same time as a sort of do good or who
Speaker 1: fights for justice. Rodan, meanwhile, not so much. He comes
Speaker 1: off as mean, course selfish, and shortsighted. And so so
Speaker 1: if Luke is somewhere in the lawful good zone, or
Speaker 1: at least neutral good, he's kind of a night of
Speaker 1: the fist. Rodan is somewhere more like chaotic neutral, he
Speaker 1: will get into trouble. He's a rogue. Yes. And we
Speaker 1: also learned from this interaction that, let's see, we learned
Speaker 1: that there are gangs, and they talk about the gangs,
Speaker 1: and we learned that they have disdained for cops and
Speaker 1: for the man. Now they immediately go to Hong Kong
Speaker 1: uh And in the Hong Kong segments, I wondered if
Speaker 1: in the version of the movie you watched, was there
Speaker 1: some dialogue audio that was missing here, Like there are
Speaker 1: parts where they arrive and the master of this place
Speaker 1: speaks to them, speaks to our heroes, but he's got
Speaker 1: his back turned, and I heard nothing. Yeah. There they
Speaker 1: were a couple of scenes in this where it maybe
Speaker 1: it made me wonder if they didn't get the sound
Speaker 1: quality they wanted, or they or they later decided that
Speaker 1: the actual dialogue was unnecessary or perhaps dumb um. There's
Speaker 1: a later scene that I particularly remember, where characters are
Speaker 1: having a prolonged conversation and there's nothing really visually interesting
Speaker 1: going on, but we have music playing over it. So
Speaker 1: it really felt like, well, maybe they didn't get the
Speaker 1: sound they needed on this particular scene, so they're just
Speaker 1: gonna roll some some fabulous disco music on top of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no complaints, but Luke has complaints. Luke has complaints about
Speaker 1: Rodan's attitude because at this monastery, it's clear that Luke
Speaker 1: is fully committed to attaining the highest level of martial
Speaker 1: arts mastery. He's he's on the ball, but Rodan, he
Speaker 1: is distracted. His head is elsewhere. His head is all
Speaker 1: clogged up with the lingering frustrations of New York and
Speaker 1: UH and sort of stresses and maybe desires for vengeance.
Speaker 1: And so after he reached is the highest level of
Speaker 1: physical prowess, Luke has to bring his mind to the
Speaker 1: same level of transcendence, which they say is achieved by
Speaker 1: sending him off to meditate in a special place in
Speaker 1: the wilderness while his specially chosen favorite keeps guard over him.
Speaker 1: And he chooses Rodan, and that does not seem like
Speaker 1: a good choice. So while Luke is in a trance
Speaker 1: achieving higher levels of spirituality, Rodan being Rodan, wanders off
Speaker 1: and gets into trouble instead. And so what he does
Speaker 1: is he wanders into a cave and oh no, it's
Speaker 1: a cave of forgotten demons, it's the cave from the
Speaker 1: beginning of the movie. And he finds a secret amulet,
Speaker 1: snatches it, runs off, and then it's pretty much back
Speaker 1: to New York. Yeah, yeah, right back into They fly
Speaker 1: back and they've they've got they've got business to take
Speaker 1: care of, and they're out to do it. But we
Speaker 1: we immediately see the evil that seeps from this ancient
Speaker 1: sarcophagus in the cave now that it's not being contained
Speaker 1: by the power of the amulet, because the removal of
Speaker 1: the amulet has of course released to the monster from
Speaker 1: the cage, and we we get a montage where the
Speaker 1: demon now travels to New York. I was wondering at first, like, wait,
Speaker 1: why does the demon travel to New York? But maybe
Speaker 1: he's he's after the amulet? Is that how you so
Speaker 1: he will he must want the ammulet, like maybe he
Speaker 1: thinks he can destroy the amulet. The film doesn't quite
Speaker 1: explain it, but it's it's what's happening. But the demon
Speaker 1: travels by. So first he's got he does appear to
Speaker 1: have like a bodily form. He's not just like a ghost,
Speaker 1: because you see he's got these hands with claws as
Speaker 1: he's crawling up out of the water. But then he
Speaker 1: possesses somebody and doesn't have a body anymore. He just
Speaker 1: possesses a guy's body, and it's his boat passenger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just a Chinese businessman who seems to be out doing
Speaker 1: his own thing, and now the demon is inside him.
Speaker 1: And now it's time for the demon to take this
Speaker 1: fleshly vessel, get on another vessel and travel to New
Speaker 1: York as well. Right, So maybe he picked this guy
Speaker 1: because this guy had a ticket to travel to New
Speaker 1: York by boat. Yeah, which is traveling to New yor
Speaker 1: work by both. That's a long trip. Yeah. Oh. But
Speaker 1: also when the man becomes possessed by the demon, the
Speaker 1: way they signal that is it gives him these huge,
Speaker 1: wild white eyes with tiny pupils. It looks kind of
Speaker 1: to me like they cut out wedges of ping pong
Speaker 1: balls and and taped them over the actor's eyes. Do
Speaker 1: you think that's what they're doing here. It's either that
Speaker 1: or they had him click keep his eyes closed, and
Speaker 1: they painted his lids white and put the black peoples
Speaker 1: on them. Um, both of these are ridiculous directions to
Speaker 1: go in and it looks somewhat goofy, but also, I
Speaker 1: don't know, somewhat effective within the context of this particular film. Yes,
Speaker 1: and so when they get to when the Demon gets
Speaker 1: to New York, the guy immediately scrambles down into the
Speaker 1: subway tunnels. This is where his home is now and
Speaker 1: it's where he will remain for the rest of the film. Now,
Speaker 1: back with our characters like Luke and Rodan, we see
Speaker 1: we see Rodan getting into more and more trouble. He's
Speaker 1: getting mixed up with double dealings, with drugs, with money
Speaker 1: and gangs. And Rodan ends up with a thirst for
Speaker 1: vengeance after he is robbed by one of the Chinese gangs. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: they have they talk about it and Luke chides him
Speaker 1: for basically for messing around with this low life stuff.
Speaker 1: He's very clear, Luke is like, this is not what
Speaker 1: martial arts is about. Yeah, and so the movie is
Speaker 1: projecting this sort of Jedi Sith vision of martial arts.
Speaker 1: You can be like a you can be a good
Speaker 1: martial artist. You can be a bad martial artist. And
Speaker 1: if you're bad, that's not real martial arts. It's no
Speaker 1: true scotsman about martial arts. Yeah, Luke Is is practicing
Speaker 1: martial arts almost um, just for itself. You know, He's
Speaker 1: he's practicing it because martial arts is like the path
Speaker 1: to enlighten it, whereas Rodan he sees it as the
Speaker 1: as a means of of kicking butt and advancing in
Speaker 1: whatever criminal pursuit he's he's wandering into petty vengeance, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Right now, in the meantime, we get a demon transformation
Speaker 1: scene that I had high hopes for this. It was okay,
Speaker 1: it wasn't it wasn't crazy good. I thought it exceeded expectations. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean do you work for me. I mean it's
Speaker 1: poorly lit. It's in the subway, and his body just
Speaker 1: goes super gross and starts sort of crumbling and rotting
Speaker 1: and he becomes this this rotten, gooey skeleton man in
Speaker 1: the subways. Yeah, so he bleeds. He first he bleeds
Speaker 1: red blood, then he bleeds green blood. Then he tears
Speaker 1: holes in his own torso, and then the transformation takes
Speaker 1: I wonder if the demon had higher hopes for for
Speaker 1: New York City, you know, like he moved to New
Speaker 1: York in the form of a businessman. He thought he
Speaker 1: was gonna ascend in the world. He was gonna rise up,
Speaker 1: He's gonna be living in one of those skyscrapers making
Speaker 1: big deals. But it just didn't work out that way,
Speaker 1: and instead here he is rotting in the subway. That's
Speaker 1: he goes down to the tunnels. He's like, all right,
Speaker 1: ready for deals, and then he's looking around. He's like,
Speaker 1: where are the deals. He's trying to make deals with rats,
Speaker 1: He's trying to make deals with discarded you know, coffee cups,
Speaker 1: and it's not working out. So he's like, oh, to
Speaker 1: hell with this and just transforms. Yeah, He's like, I
Speaker 1: guess I'll just do more killings. Now Here, we get
Speaker 1: into a part of the movie where there are some
Speaker 1: street fight scenes where Rodan and his friends confront a
Speaker 1: rival gang in an alley, and uh, this New York
Speaker 1: City street fight does involve swords, which is good choice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the swords, but also also some just really
Speaker 1: impressive kicks, Like I don't know that I would really
Speaker 1: hold this up as an example of great martial arts choreography.
Speaker 1: But it it looks pretty good. There's some really high kicks,
Speaker 1: I mean rolled In and and Warhawk Tanzania. They can
Speaker 1: they can really do it. Yeah. Now, at some point
Speaker 1: in the middle of the fight the rival gang, they
Speaker 1: see that Rodan has this amulet he's hanging on a
Speaker 1: necklace around his neck, and one of the guys sees
Speaker 1: that and then they're just like oh no, and they bolt.
Speaker 1: And I guess this suggests they are aware of its
Speaker 1: association with the indescribable evil that will turn your blood green. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems to be the case. I also wonder if
Speaker 1: if the Demon's arrival in New York, if it has
Speaker 1: somehow had this effect on the surface world here, like
Speaker 1: there's more conflict because the demon is present, you know,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, getting into a vego of the Carpathian situation again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe it's kind of a Ghostbusters thing going on, Yeah,
Speaker 1: making everybody mean Yeah. But here we reached the part
Speaker 1: of the movie where it's cop time. So remember the
Speaker 1: cop who was training with Luke earlier, Well, it seems
Speaker 1: like he is a He is a grimy, chain smoking detective.
Speaker 1: I think his first lines or some one of the
Speaker 1: first things he says when we meet him again later
Speaker 1: in the movie is something about how he's like drowning
Speaker 1: in alimony payments and and what do you know, He's
Speaker 1: got a new partner. He has a new partner who
Speaker 1: the guy you called a lug heead. But I could
Speaker 1: be wrong, but I think the way you're supposed to
Speaker 1: read him is he is a nerdy, sort of by
Speaker 1: the book academic criminology type who doesn't know anything about
Speaker 1: the real world. Okay, it could it could could be
Speaker 1: the game. Okay, but I got say, Officer Christopher is
Speaker 1: Noah Harley Stone. Uh. But he does end up taking
Speaker 1: it too personal, though I guess not as personal as
Speaker 1: as the ultimate hero of the film, who of course
Speaker 1: is Luke. But so they're called into solve a murder.
Speaker 1: There has been a gruesome killing in the subway tunnels.
Speaker 1: They say, oh, it looks like he got caught in
Speaker 1: a meat grinder, and there's immediately a reporter on the
Speaker 1: case trying to pride details out of Christopher Christopher, and
Speaker 1: Christopher insists that he has a theory about who the
Speaker 1: killer is, which is not true at all, and he
Speaker 1: admits to his partner when the reporter leaves. But after
Speaker 1: this we get a sense of the demons m O.
Speaker 1: Because we watch him kill a guy. So there's a
Speaker 1: guy who wanders down into the subway tunnels wearing a
Speaker 1: plaid blazer, and then the demon, in a monotone voice, says,
Speaker 1: helped me. It's dark in here, I'm stuck. And the
Speaker 1: guy in the plaid blazers like, oh, someone needs help,
Speaker 1: and he wanders off into the tunnel help them, and
Speaker 1: then munch. Yeah, so we were learning that our demon
Speaker 1: here isn't just a monster that grabs people or a
Speaker 1: monster that possesses people. He's also a master of illusion.
Speaker 1: Perhaps he's a deceiver. His his illusions at the climax
Speaker 1: of the film are much better than the illusion here.
Speaker 1: This is just a monotone voice saying things in a
Speaker 1: way that sounds totally implausible, saying help me, I am trapped.
Speaker 1: Later in the movie, he can fully transform into other people. Yeah, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: maybe he's still growing in power at this point. You know,
Speaker 1: he's still absorbing the the the energy of New York
Speaker 1: City and transforming it into his own evil. Right. So
Speaker 1: immediately there is a second subway victim. The detectives are
Speaker 1: back on the case. The new partner is is vomiting
Speaker 1: at the side of the carnage on the tracks. But
Speaker 1: this was the part we're talking about with the conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: The new partner he's got, he's got something to share
Speaker 1: with the reporter, and it's this, basically, all the animals
Speaker 1: that live in the sewers, including cat, rats, dogs, maybe alligators,
Speaker 1: have mutated and come up into the subway tunnels to
Speaker 1: attack and eat people. And this seems to be an
Speaker 1: obsession of this characters of Doctor Criminology here because in
Speaker 1: multiple later scenes in the movie, he's explaining about how
Speaker 1: the sewers have alligators that are twice the size of
Speaker 1: normal alligators with fangs that will chop a man's leg
Speaker 1: right off, and they're they're cats and dogs and rats
Speaker 1: that survived by cannibalism down there, and it's just yet
Speaker 1: fastered into this unnatural subworld environment and that's what's eating people.
Speaker 1: He's like regaling the all the people hanging out at
Speaker 1: the bar where where Luke and Rodan hang out with
Speaker 1: with these theories later in the movie, and they seem
Speaker 1: quite entertained. You know. I will say the middle third
Speaker 1: of the movie does not have enough war Hawk Tanzania
Speaker 1: in it. It's all it's mostly Rodan doing his gang
Speaker 1: fights and then the cops investigating murders. Now, did we
Speaker 1: mention the long scene? It just shows like a day
Speaker 1: in the life and love of war Hock Tanzania's character, Luke. Oh,
Speaker 1: we didn't. But it's very sweet. It's got a good soundtrack,
Speaker 1: and it's just showing him I guess with his his
Speaker 1: wife or I'm not quite sure who she was, his
Speaker 1: wife or his girlfriend. Um, and it just shows them
Speaker 1: like eating together and hanging out and it's it seems great.
Speaker 1: There's one scene I think they're eating scrambled eggs with chopsticks.
Speaker 1: Yes they are. Yeah, that's great. So you can reflect
Speaker 1: on this sequence when you're stuck in the part of
Speaker 1: the movie where there's little to no war, right, that's true.
Speaker 1: But eventually we get back on track when Detective Christopher
Speaker 1: Christopher concludes that the murders may have something to do
Speaker 1: with Luke's school uh and when he approaches him about
Speaker 1: the idea and about working together, Luke does not want
Speaker 1: anything to do with it, again, re establishing this theme,
Speaker 1: this dynamic that Luke from the movie's point of view,
Speaker 1: Luke is clearly lawful, good, but he also wants nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the police there. You know, they're they're
Speaker 1: portrayed as a dirty, corrupt organization. Yeah, yeah, there's there's
Speaker 1: at least one line there where they're the characters are
Speaker 1: concerned that the heat's gonna come down and that the
Speaker 1: police are just gonna come in indiscriminately with shotguns. You know.
Speaker 1: So I think Luke has legitimate concerns here. He doesn't
Speaker 1: want any part of that world. Right. So meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: subway Monster mallings and the rod In gang fights continue.
Speaker 1: These two plot lines converge when Rodin becomes outnumbered in
Speaker 1: a gang fight, runs down a subway tunnel to escape,
Speaker 1: and there the demon kills him by shoving his face
Speaker 1: into some kind of electrical panel, which fries him. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, Rodin has been really thrown down with some
Speaker 1: amazing kicks, uh, you know, taken on multiple guys at once.
Speaker 1: But the Monster just gets the drop on him and
Speaker 1: just fries his face. But it's a great sequence though,
Speaker 1: because you see him like grab his throat, you see
Speaker 1: his face twist into this this strange expression. And then
Speaker 1: later when we see his corpse. We we see like
Speaker 1: a like fried Rodin, like they did some sort of
Speaker 1: a crude but effective makeup job. Oh yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: really do show him cooked. So when Luke sees this,
Speaker 1: he is enraged and he thinks it was the work
Speaker 1: of the Red Dragon Gang and he goes on a
Speaker 1: martial arts rampage to meet their leader and find out
Speaker 1: what happens. So there's another street fight scene. Uh, this
Speaker 1: fight scene where he goes and he fights some of
Speaker 1: the members of the gang. The opponents are mostly wearing
Speaker 1: jeans and T shirts. But I gotta point out in
Speaker 1: this scene, Warhawk Tanzania is dressed awesomely. He's wearing these
Speaker 1: amazing like shiny gold pants with flared legs. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: Now is this the costume that he also wears into
Speaker 1: the final fight. I was actually wondering about that. In
Speaker 1: the final fight when he goes to confront the demon,
Speaker 1: he's not wearing a shirt. He's just wearing gold suspenders.
Speaker 1: And they might they're the same kind of color as
Speaker 1: the ones in the scene, but they might be different.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. At anyway, he's he's always dressed fabulously. Uh.
Speaker 1: He goes into a fight knowing that he needs to
Speaker 1: you know, he needs to hit hard physically but also
Speaker 1: from a fashion standpoint. So after he goes to fight
Speaker 1: the Red Dragons, they explained to him that they did
Speaker 1: not in fact kill Rodan, and they take Luke to
Speaker 1: a wise old man who will explain to the to
Speaker 1: him the truth about the amulet and the demon. And uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know that. It was hard to tell, but
Speaker 1: this wise old man either has some major makeup on
Speaker 1: his face or it's a person in a mask. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was left wondering if this was in fact
Speaker 1: the mysterious Iron Priest Tanzania. Then we encountered. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but in any right, Yeah, this is the scene where
Speaker 1: the wise old man explains what's happening to our our
Speaker 1: heroes and sets them on the course towards the defeat
Speaker 1: of evil. So it goes like this. The old man says,
Speaker 1: two thousand years ago, the sorcerer Master Longtime would allow
Speaker 1: some men to be possessed by demons, and these he
Speaker 1: would use to terrorize villages in cities. Master Cheong Dao
Speaker 1: produced the amulet in which he trapped the spirit of
Speaker 1: the demon. And this is the amulet your friend took
Speaker 1: this monster is released into the world. As long as
Speaker 1: the Amulet exists, the demon is deprived of most of
Speaker 1: his power. Even though he is still strong, he is
Speaker 1: unable to tolerate And I think what he says here
Speaker 1: is light. But for the longest time, I thought he
Speaker 1: said flight, and I was I was just baffled, trying
Speaker 1: to understand that that's the boat. Yeah, but I mean
Speaker 1: it made sense because he took the boat and he's
Speaker 1: unable to tolerate flight. And then he goes on to say,
Speaker 1: that is why your subways are a perfect place for
Speaker 1: him to hide. But he's got a mean light, right,
Speaker 1: I think that is what he says. Yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: tolerate the tolerate the light. That's why he's in the subways.
Speaker 1: But all this with the Amulet makes sense now. He
Speaker 1: followed the Amulet to the United States because he wants
Speaker 1: to destroy the Annual. Its the only way that he
Speaker 1: can achieve his maximum power. Huh. And when he finishes
Speaker 1: the explanation, Luke reacts, he says, in my head, story
Speaker 1: is fantastic, But in my heart, I know you're speaking
Speaker 1: the truth. So I think we're also to understand that
Speaker 1: Luke has Luke has powerful intuitions, right, he did an
Speaker 1: intuition check on that story, and yeah, he nailed it.
Speaker 1: What kind of check is that? Is that insight he
Speaker 1: rolled the wisdom wisdom modifier? Yeah, yeah, that would be
Speaker 1: that would be inside. So we learned from the old
Speaker 1: Man that the demon will stop at nothing to regain
Speaker 1: this amulet. By destroying it, he will be free, forever,
Speaker 1: immortal and indestructible. Whoa uh so, Luke. Luke immediately admits
Speaker 1: that he feels personally responsible for unleashing the demon in
Speaker 1: the world because he took Rodan with him on the trip,
Speaker 1: and Rodan was the one who stole the amulet. And
Speaker 1: so there's only one way to fix it. It's got
Speaker 1: to be a one on one showdown. Luke must defeat
Speaker 1: the demon in single combat, and if he loses, the
Speaker 1: demon will eat his soul. Do you think the demon
Speaker 1: ate the souls of the other people are just killed them.
Speaker 1: It's a good question. Unless he's a fast eater. I
Speaker 1: think maybe he skipped on eating some of the souls.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I'm not sure exactly how this
Speaker 1: demon consumes the souls. It's say, maybe it's just an
Speaker 1: automatic effect that takes place whenever he murders somebody. So
Speaker 1: Luke has warned that the demon is going to try
Speaker 1: to attack his mind, assuming the forms of those he
Speaker 1: loves most and those he fears most. He will use
Speaker 1: every trick in the book, the old Man says, And
Speaker 1: he says that while Luke is fighting, he will uh,
Speaker 1: he will help Luke by he says, I will place
Speaker 1: my mind with yours. Perhaps together we will be stronger
Speaker 1: than one. Yeah, so this is so we're setting up
Speaker 1: the ultimate battle here, good versus evil warhawk Tanzania against
Speaker 1: an ancient demon in New York City subway tunnels. Um,
Speaker 1: it's this is what we've been working for. This is
Speaker 1: what the trailer promised us, right, And so the next
Speaker 1: scene is very funny. This is when we alluded to earlier.
Speaker 1: It's it. On one hand, you've got the foreground action,
Speaker 1: which is Luke is arguing with Officer Christopher that he
Speaker 1: has to go down into the subway and fight the
Speaker 1: demon and uh, and Christopher disagrees. Meanwhile, right next to them,
Speaker 1: I think this is theater Gottli, Right. So he's out
Speaker 1: preaching a street sermon about how all your gods are
Speaker 1: dead and the rats are shrieking. Yeah, it's pretty great
Speaker 1: because he's I think he's saying something like like Jesus
Speaker 1: Christ is dead, Buddha is dead, and then he ends
Speaker 1: with something I think he says, and I'm not feeling
Speaker 1: so great myself. How did that connect to the thing
Speaker 1: about the rats shrieking? I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's it's his presence in this film is so weird
Speaker 1: because it makes you wonder how it came together, how
Speaker 1: they how they got him for this, what they told
Speaker 1: him to do, Like it totally works, improved, it does
Speaker 1: seem improved, and it's it adds to just the overall weird.
Speaker 1: It seems right that there should be somebody in the film,
Speaker 1: uh like, ranting about what's going on below, Like it
Speaker 1: seems it feels appropriately New York, you know, like this
Speaker 1: is this is some some well injected New York weirdness
Speaker 1: into this motion picture that would be a good bumper sticker.
Speaker 1: Though all your gods are dead and the rats are shrieking.
Speaker 1: The poetry of this movie. Yeah, so I think while
Speaker 1: Christopher is distracted, Luke defies the police order goes on
Speaker 1: down anyway, because you know, he doesn't obey a man's law.
Speaker 1: And he goes on down carrying the amulet, and the
Speaker 1: confrontation of the Demon happens. And it's kind of like
Speaker 1: at the end of the first Mortal Kombat game, you know,
Speaker 1: where the boss is transforming into all the other fighters
Speaker 1: you fought along the way. The Demon takes the but
Speaker 1: also the Demon takes the form of people he loves.
Speaker 1: So the Demon appears in the form of his wife,
Speaker 1: in the form of the police, in the form of Rodan,
Speaker 1: and in the form of a train. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: It is kind of like the ye the Battle of
Speaker 1: San Sung at the end of the first Mortal Combat.
Speaker 1: Creatures taken on all these forms and and I, depending
Speaker 1: on the shot, looks pretty good. I think in some
Speaker 1: of these these scenes, like the it's your costume. Clearly
Speaker 1: this was not it's not a Tom Tom Savini joint
Speaker 1: here or anything, but you get it into an actual
Speaker 1: New York City subway tunnel, and I feel like you're
Speaker 1: lighting limitations probably do some of the work for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when we see him in full form, the Demon is
Speaker 1: a kind of skull beast from the Black Lagoon. He
Speaker 1: has uh sort of a skull outside of his skull,
Speaker 1: would you say, Yeah, he's kind of like imagine a
Speaker 1: a skeleton made entirely of cartilage that then was swollen
Speaker 1: with the corruption and evil. Uh you know this very
Speaker 1: um you know nerdalsome kind of body to him. Yeah. Yeah, uh.
Speaker 1: Now we'll leave it up to you to guess whether
Speaker 1: Warholck Tanzani is is victorious and defeating the demon or not.
Speaker 1: But one thing that happens after this is we after
Speaker 1: the final fight, we I think, go to the hospital
Speaker 1: and they're in the hospital. There's a scene that I
Speaker 1: think is meant to convey a sort of like harmony
Speaker 1: has been achieved between or the factions and gangs that
Speaker 1: have been ang at each other earlier. It is such
Speaker 1: a sweet, dumb ending because yeah, you have you have
Speaker 1: the police hanging out, you have Warhawk Tanzania, You've got
Speaker 1: members of both gangs. Everybody has come together. The supernatural
Speaker 1: evil has been defeated and and everyone has been able
Speaker 1: to unify. Martial arts has brought people together, and it's
Speaker 1: going to be a new dawn in New York City.
Speaker 1: I like it. And then over the end of credits,
Speaker 1: you see the old man from earlier taking the amulet
Speaker 1: out to see he goes on a boat. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what he's gonna do with it. Is the implication
Speaker 1: that he'll he'll like throw it in the ocean or something.
Speaker 1: I thought maybe he was taking it back to China. Oh,
Speaker 1: that would make sense to put it back in the
Speaker 1: cave where it came from, I guess, and hopefully, but
Speaker 1: we're hopefully hide it somewhere better. Otherwise another road roadan
Speaker 1: is going to show up and just wander into the
Speaker 1: cave and make off with it. That cave was way
Speaker 1: too close to the monastery. Yeah, and sadly we're not.
Speaker 1: I was hoping they would tell us at the end,
Speaker 1: Warhawk Tanzania will return in Warhawk Tanzania, you know, like
Speaker 1: like I wanted more the promise of more war Hack
Speaker 1: Tanzania at the end, or that you know, at least
Speaker 1: that Luke would be back. But uh, sadly it did
Speaker 1: not come to pass. Don't be sad that it's over.
Speaker 1: Be glad that it happened. Yeah. Yeah, in a way,
Speaker 1: like the stars aligned perfectly on this um Uh. The
Speaker 1: the the interview that I read with will Fredo, one
Speaker 1: of the things that he pointed out, is that he
Speaker 1: was in some of these films and then he realized
Speaker 1: that it was just gonna be a real struggle to
Speaker 1: make any money, to make a living doing this, and
Speaker 1: that's why he got He became a teacher, you know,
Speaker 1: both in the New York school system, but then also
Speaker 1: as a as a martial arts instructor. And so you know,
Speaker 1: one imagines that that that's probably something like that happened
Speaker 1: with war Hock Tanzania as well. The man behind the
Speaker 1: myth uh, you know, moved on to something more mundane
Speaker 1: and maybe something more satisfying um or again, Warhock Tanzania
Speaker 1: continued the battle and it's still battling today, fighting all
Speaker 1: the various demons in the world and their various subworld
Speaker 1: layers and uh and and protecting the surf this world
Speaker 1: from absolute chaos. Well, wherever he is, I hope he's
Speaker 1: doing great. If you're listening, email us. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, no joking, he was. He's terrific in this
Speaker 1: I I love war Hawk Tanzania. Uh really delivers in
Speaker 1: this film. Alright, So you're probably wondering where can I
Speaker 1: get some war Hawk Tanzania. Where can I watch Devil's Express. Well,
Speaker 1: I think the first place I saw this film, like
Speaker 1: we're first caught my attention that I saw it on
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime. I think it's still on Prime. You might
Speaker 1: have to like rent it through Prime. But the full
Speaker 1: film is also widely available on YouTube. You can find
Speaker 1: it on to Be as well. And then also we
Speaker 1: mentioned the Blu ray from Code Red. Uh, there's a
Speaker 1: blu ray of the film that's that's available. It's that
Speaker 1: he uses a two thousand, sixteen two K scan of
Speaker 1: the original negative. So that's pretty cool. Viewer discretion is advised. Yes, definitely, definitely.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and a close
Speaker 1: close the book on this one. We're gonna go ahead
Speaker 1: and and restore the Amulet to its subterranean crypt. But
Speaker 1: if you would like to listen to other episodes of
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema, you will find them in the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind podcast feed. Uh, we have Weird
Speaker 1: House Cinema on Fridays, but our normal science episodes are
Speaker 1: Core episodes are on Tuesdays and Thursday's Listener Mail on
Speaker 1: Monday's and on an episode of the Artifact on Wednesdays. Uh.
Speaker 1: You can find the podcast feed wherever you get your podcast,
Speaker 1: but you can also go to stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com that will shoot you over to the
Speaker 1: I Heart listing for this page, and if you look
Speaker 1: around on that page, there's also a store button. Uh.
Speaker 1: And indeed, if you go to the store now as
Speaker 1: of this recording, you can get a sticker or a
Speaker 1: magnet with the Weird House Cinema logo on it. And
Speaker 1: I hope very soon that there will be a T
Speaker 1: shirt available as well. They're having to do something else
Speaker 1: with the logo file to make it work, but by
Speaker 1: the time this episode airs, maybe maybe there'll be a shirt,
Speaker 1: but there at least will be a sticker or a
Speaker 1: magnet you can get. Huge thanks as always to our
Speaker 1: ex slim audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on
Speaker 1: this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future,
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.
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