Jungle Heat

JUNGLE HEAT (1985)

Directed by: Jobic Wong
Screenplay: Jobic Wong, Bobby Ming
Starring: Sam Jones, Christopher Doyle, Bobby Ming

Wow, just wow! That's all that can be said really. One hasn't experienced violent, nasty, barmy, insane, incoherent and often hilarious action exploitation trash until one has sat through Jungle Heat.

All the things that are wrong, disturbing, nasty, don't make sense and are outright weird about Jungle Heat:

- an incredibly strange and cruel form of torture performed on some captured soldiers involving a rat being set on fire and running round setting the tied up captives on fire why onlookers take bets to see you will last the longest.

- said rat in the scene above appears to be real (at least in the first part of the scene) meaning a real rat was actually set on fire: yep, nasty animal cruelty here folks.

- the main character(s) seem to chop and change at will meaning it's never clear who is who, which group of soldiers we are following, and the who the hell anybody is come the violent finale.

- one of said main character's mustache disappears and reappears between scenes to hilarious effect and is quite simply brilliant.

- the above mentioned rat on fire scene isn't actually the most horrific scene in the movie: that would be the scene where a captive buried in the ground up to his neck has his head shaved, then sliced opened only to have acid poured into the cut which then bizarrely melts his whole body and allows him to break free: this scene really has to be seen to be believed. See Here to believe.

- several out-of-nowhere sequences of the soldiers completely forgetting about their mission to take part in some kind of insane motorcycle stunt game to raise money (for what, I really don't know).

- an insanely gory action packed finale which features a poor guy having his stomach sawed open in graphic detail, another poor dude being subjected to some kind of water torture which grossly inflates his stomach and a rather memorable beheading which manages to be both shocking and hilarious at the same time.

- one of the main characters (at least I think he was) graphically tearing the skin from his hands in order to escape (or something).

- that after about an hour or so of complete madness, the film virtually stops for some female character to get all dramatic in a long monologue about wanting a better life (or something).

- that Sam (Flash Gordon) Jones is somehow in this film but does absolutely nothing (except for some bizarre soldier training methods involving driving jeeps nowhere - and this scene going on for ages), takes part in hardly any of the mission action and looks even more bemused than us viewers.

- that the film starts off quite innocently and boring before switching to complete weirdness and nastiness around the 30 minute mark.

- that not at any time during the film, anything makes any sense at all, ever.

All the things that are AWESOME about Jungle Heat:

- see all of the above.

Seriously, Jungle Heat is a true what-the-fuck experience and Philippine shot action exploitation at its strangest and nastiest and therefore, best. Words can't describe it. It's recommended you watch it on a Sunday morning after several nights with little sleep and after watching many similar trashy but nowhere near as gross and insane films (like I did). There is a cool bit of action towards the end but that isn't what Jungle Heat is gonna be remembered for and it also features quite possibly the best drunken and drugged up bar fights of any action film. And by that I mean they are shit, weird, make no sense and feature some drugged up dude dancing and picking fights for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Other than that it is awesome.

Wow.