[Philippines release date 25th December 1987; released in West Germany as “Crazy Platoon”, in Spain as "Porky's 13 En Vietnam" and in Poland as “Akcji Nie Brakuje”]
Director Angel Labra Story Woodrow Serafin, Roy Vera Cruz Screenplay Apollo Arellano Producer Dolphy [as Rodolfo V. Quizon] Cinematography Amado De Guzman [Jr] Music Dominic Song “And I Love Her” sung by Dolphy Editor Efren Jarlego Sound Supervision Gaudencio Barredo Sound Effects Rodel Capule Field Soundman Silver Alaga General Manager Manny “Boy” Quizon Production Manager Rey Flores Production Designer Joey Luna Assistant Directors Fred Esplana, Danny Hernandez Special Effects Joel Alcampado, Guy Nelgas Fight Instructors Fred Esplana, Jay Grama, Manny Samson Makeup Artist Ligaya Quince Property Masters Maning Cabides, Jojo Quince Set Director Phol Cruz Setmen Efren Cruz, Ben Maray Assistant Cameraman Lito Lapara 2nd Unit Cameraman Arnold Alvaro 2nd Unit Assistant Cameraman Manuel Leonardo Gaffer Rey Trinidad Assistant Production Designers Rolly Carino, Raymond Montealegre Talent Coordinator Butz Peralta Vietnamese Interpreter Ngieung Minh Hien Assistant Editors Rico Salas, Tony Acurin Titles Animation Eddie Contreras Titles Assistant Billy Contreras Stillman Narciso Ocampo Layout Artist Nonong de Andres Production Comptroller Paquito Bautista Sales Manager Rene Pascual
Cast Dolphy (Adonis Candereta), Paquito Diaz (Sargeant Bugnot), Carlos "Sonny" Padilla [Jr] (Lieutenant Padilla), Manny “Boy” Quizon (Platoon Member), Freddie Quizon (Platoon Member), Edgar Quizon (Platoon Member), Rommel Valdez (Platoon Member), Dick Israel (Platoon Member), Renato del Prado (Prado, Platoon Member), Max Vera (Platoon Member), Francis Magalona (Platoon Member), Ricky Brown (RJ Longshot), Pebbles [de] Asis (Village Woman), Che Che Sta. Ana (Young Village Girl), Atong Redillas (Jai-In, Young Village Boy), Tsing Tong Tsai (Viet-Cong Colonel), Nick Nicholson (UN Colonel), Big Boy Gomez (Viet-Cong Guard), Romy Nario (Platoon Member), Tony Concepcion, Manny Samson, Rod Francisco, Jett Sahara, Nonong de Andres, Jay Grama (Prisoner), Er “Canton” Salazar, Richard Zamora, Jennifer Lim, Leo Padilla, Danny Hernandez, Pete de Castro, Msgr. Ramon R. Vera
COMEDY/ACTION
The full Tagalog version with no subtitles
Do you know how many films from the 250-plus filmography of Dolphy, the Philippines’ King of Comedy, made it into the global marketplace? Precisely one. This one. And exactly how a Vietnam War parody referencing both Oliver Stone AND Chuck Norris titles came to sit on the shelf in a Polish video store is one of those strange twists of fate. It all began with one man from Hong Kong named David Hung and a dream of building a pan-Asian film empire, like his mentor Bobby A. Suarez before him. In the late Seventies he was line producer for the Hong Kong shoot of Bobby’s They Call Her Cleopatra Wong (1977); a few years later he was doing the same for Dolphy in the Hong Kong-lensed Dancing Master 2: The Kowloon Connection (1982). By 1987 he was based in both Manila and Hong Kong and had formed Davian International (after “David” and his wife “Ann”), with Dolphy’s nephew Andy Andico and his wife Vivian Villahermosa taking care of the Filipino end of the business. At first Davian purchased Tagalog (and a few Thai) action films, dubbed them into English and released them internationally, before moving into co-productions with companies such as Dolphy’s RVQ Productions, and finally from 1989 into Davian’s own fully-authored productions. And with the connections Hung had built up over a decade in the international marketplace, he was even able to take a Filipino goon comedy like Action Is Not Missing: Crack Platoon (1987) and sell it to the world.
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| David Hung on the set of They Call Her Cleopatra Wong (1978) |
The action genre had been a fertile hunting ground since the Sixties for parodists such as Dolphy and Chiquito, Ramon Zamora in the Seventies, and more recently Redford White and Palito, the toothpick-thin Rambuto or “Rambone”. Each crashing wave of jungle action flicks brought with it a successive ripple of comic imitations: The Wild Geese begat The Wild Grease; First Blood became High Blood, then No Blood No Surrender, and so forth, often with Action Is Not Missing’s Angel Labra in the director’s chair. So when Oliver Stone’s Platoon had a napalm-like effect on the Vietnam War (or ‘Namsploitation) genre, the Filipino jungles were on fire with exploding guard towers scattering stuntmen dressed as black pajama-clad Viet-Cong. In fact, those stuntmen, stunt directors, set designers, armourors, and the entire industry built on recreating Vietnam in the Philippines and then destroying it, sure knew how to shoot (in both senses of the word!) but weren’t precisely sure where the comedy ended and where the real action began. And that’s precisely what makes Action Is Not Missing: Crack Platoon – which you can really pinpoint as Dolphy’s version of Stripes (1981) - such a surreal experience for us wide-eyed devils, and at times a superior film than many of the Philippines’ honest-to-goodness ‘Namsploitation actioners.
Like Stripes and a thousand service comedies before and since, Action Is Not Missing begins with Dolphy and his fellow platoon grunts undergoing Basic Training under officer Longshot (Ricky Brown) and his bullying Drill Sergeant Bugnot (a vein-popping Paquito Diaz). It’s a motley crew – Dolphy and the “nice guy” lunatics and misfits (his real-life sons Manny, Freddie and Edgar Quizon) on one side of the parade ground, and the mean-spirited meathead goons Rommel Valdez, Dick Israel, Renato del Prado etc on Team Asshole. Dolphy does his customary variations on training exercises, firing machine gun rounds into a target to spell out “Bugnot” and, best of all, emerging from a tube with an attractive woman – naturally Bugnot and the rest of the men try to crawl into back into the tube all at the same time!
But, as the title card reminds us, this is “Saigon, 1963” and there’s a war on, which presumably means the Philippines is involved, and before you can crawl down another pipe, the American commander Longshot (“long shot” because he’s famous Filipino basketball player Ricky Brown!) is sending his crack Filipino platoon on its first mission: to rescue an Engineering Company lost behind enemy lines. Along the way they skirmish with Viet-Cong patrols - even sleep in the same patch of jungle as them! – and enter a village to find the entire population massacred except for a young mother (Pebbles de Asis) and her son (Atong Redillas). In another village full of dead Vietnamese, they rescue a second child (Che Che Sta. Ana), and find the captured Engineer’s Lieutenant Padilla (Carlos “Sonny” Padilla Jr) in a hut spreadeagled and strung up by his wrists… which leads a suddenly-pious Dolphy to mistake him for Jesus. “You’re from San Juan? We’re neighbours!” Then comes the topical reference – “I saw you referee once…” (as well as acting, Sonny was also a celebrity boxing referee, most famously at Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier’s 1975 “Thrilla In Manila” match).
THEATRICAL
PAKISTAN – as “Action Is Not Missing”, distributor unknown
VIDEO
WEST GERMANY – VHS as “Crazy Platoon” via Spectra [dubbed into German with no subtitles]
SPAIN – VHS as “Porky’s 13 En Vietnam” via EBC [dubbed in Spanish with no subtitles]
POLAND – VHS as “Akcji Nie Brakuje” via Video Rondo [dubbed into English with Polish commentary, no subtitles]
mp4 file [dubbed into English with Polish commentary recorded on the top]
mp4 file [dubbed into Spanish with no subtitles; includes trailer]
mp4 file [original Tagalog version with no subtitles]
mp4 file [English-language trailer]
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