Verdict
Summary
Severin brings these two films together in a two-disc combo pack entitled Jess Franco, From Bangkok With Bullets, and the films are nicely presented in high definition in widescreen, but only in subtitled versions, which is fine. Interviews are included on the discs, as well as the next installment of Severin’s “In the Land of Franco” series.
Bangkok, Date With Death (1985) Plot:
A kidnapped woman is held for ransom, and a seasoned mercenary is called in to rescue her.
Review:
The grown daughter of a millionaire is kidnapped by white slavers (pirates by another name) and held captive in a cargo hold of a ship, awaiting her turn to be ransomed by her wealthy father. Charged with watching her is a buxom woman (played by Lina Romay), who enjoys jazzercising on her off time. Meanwhile, the girl’s father prowls around the seedier areas of Bangkok to hire a mercenary to help rescue his daughter so that he doesn’t have to pay the ransom, and he comes upon Panama Joe (Bork Gordon with the most incredible name of all time, and this was his only movie), a has-been hero who gets his bar tabs paid by anyone willing to shell out a fortune in bahts just to hear him tell a tale or two of his exploits. When Panama Joe takes the gig, he’s an unstoppable force with a handgun, and he gets to blasting his way through some pirates … and the jazzercising babe whom he shoots a bunch of times in the back. Go, Panama Joe!
A vague script (if there was one) framed around a handful of on-location Thai tourist card shots from exploitation maestro Jess Franco, Bangkok, Date With Death is a barely-there movie without much action or even the usual sex/nudity stuff Franco was best known for. It’s a shoestring plot with lots of lounging around, a dance scene with Romay (whose voluptuous breasts bounce around and sneak out of her leotard), and some murky atmosphere that give the movie an odd, off-kilter sense of time and place. It’s not much of a film, but Franco-philes will need to see it anyway.
Trip to Bangkok, Coffin Included (1985) Plot:
A British secret service agent travels to Bangkok to track down the source of a cult, which has performed an assassination of an Ambassador.
Review:
A British ambassador is assassinated, and his killer lands in a hospital, on the cusp of death. A British secret service agent, on the verge of retirement, a surly and cantankerous old coot named Blimp (Howard Vernon) shows up to question the assassin and finds that the man is blind! Tracking his movements before the assassination, he travels to Bangkok where he meets a sexy blonde (Helena Garret) who might’ve known the assassin, and he forces her to lead him to the source of all evil in the area: a cult operating out of a building where worshippers of a blind prophet come and go, receiving orders to do as he commands!
A goofy, but palatable action / thriller with the most unlikely of heroes in Agent Blimp, who seems to belong in another movie altogether, Trip to Bangkok, Coffin Included is an expectedly light on the bone effort from Jess Franco. The film has a plotline that is mostly easy to follow, with a very attractive co-star in the usually nude or barely clad Garret, who walks around either in a red bikini or in the nude through all her scenes. What’s to complain about? Jess Franco, this film’s director, appears in a cameo.
Severin brings these two films together in a two-disc combo pack entitled Jess Franco, From Bangkok With Bullets, and the films are nicely presented in high definition in widescreen, but only in subtitled versions, which is fine. Interviews are included on the discs, as well as the next installment of Severin’s “In the Land of Franco” series.
