Malaysia's mysterious HVD Entertainment TV films

 

Phillip Ko (left)

 

NOTES by Andrew Leavold: Some of the most mysterious films involving the Philippines in the Nineties is a series of made-for-TV movies funded by Malaysian consortium HVD Entertainment - a comprehensive overview of the company can be found HERE - and overseen by Hong Kong actor/director Phillip Ko, with much of the writing credited to Mike Cassey, a UK expat living in the Philippines at the time. 

To date I haven't found any trace of the films other than brief cast and crew credits on the IMDB. If anyone can please help out with more information or, even better, copies of the movies, I'd be immensely grateful!

Mike shared with me his scant memories of doing (he estimated) nine films back-to-back in Malaysia around 1996 - his comments are below. 

1996 - Bad Blood (HVD Entertainment)

Director Phillip Ko Writer Mike Cassey Executive Producer Choo Leomg Meng Cinematography Eduardo "Baby" Cabrales Assistant Director Mike Cassey 

Cast Rando Almanzor (Danny), Mike Cassey (Photographer)

THRILLER

1997 - Desperate Hours (HVD Entertainment)

Director Phillip Ko Writer Mike Cassey Executive Producer Choo Leomg Meng Cinematography Eduardo "Baby" Cabrales Assistant Director Mike Cassey 

Cast Heather Van Vleet (Girl Waiting), Zoren Legaspi (Max)

THRILLER

1997 - Nightmare Honeymoon (HVD Entertainment)

Director Phillip Ko Writer Mike Cassey Executive Producer Choo Leomg Meng Assistant Director Mike Cassey

Cast Rando Almanzor (Eddie)

THRILLER

1998 - The Resort Murders (HVD Entertainment)

Director Teddy Chiu Writer Mike Cassey Cinematography Eduardo "Baby" Cabrales Production Manager Max Paglinawan Assistant Director Mike Cassey

Cast Zoren Legaspi   

THRILLER     

1998 - Murder On The Menu (HVD Entertainment)

Director Teddy Chiu Cinematography Eduardo "Baby" Cabrales Production Manager Max Paglinawan Assistant Director Mike Cassey

Cast Mike Cassey (Resort Manager), Dan Fernandez (Danny)

THRILLER/COMEDY

Mike Cassey on the HVD films (interview with Andrew Leavold, 2009 - the full interview can be found HERE)

Andrew: I'm fascinated in the series of video features you scripted in the late 90s directed by Teddy Chiu and Philip Ko for what looks like a Malay company? The Resort Murders, for instance.

Mike Cassey: That was all through Philip Ko, who was wheeling and dealing to get movies projects from all over Asia. Because of Philip's "unique" style of directing (he would often change actors and locations in the middle of the shoot!) I scripted most of those "on the fly" rewriting the stories, scenes and characters on a yellow pad on the set during the shooting. No time to type them up!

These are between '96 and '98 - where are the markets he's selling to at the time?

We often had a mixture of Chinese actors, Korean actors, Malaysian actors, Western actors...all speaking their own languages! Pure bedlam! But a great way to improve my writing skills. No writer's block on those movies! Philip was trying to cover and sell to all the Asian markets. Some were shown theatrically in some countries, some only on TV and some direct-to-video. I think most of them made money...for someone!

Not to the West, at this stage?

Philip's style meant that he could never really break into the mainstream and so his market was always "B". that also meant low-budgets, short shooting schedules...and lots of confusion. I was never in on the marketing schemes to most of these productions, so don't know much about their back-end deals. I'm sure some of them wound up on in Western video stores. Most of the post-production was done in the countries that financed them, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia...we just provided the raw footage. So I never saw the final cut of these movies...or even knew their release titles!

Do you remember the name of the company? I've found "HVD Entertainment" listed.

Yes...I think that was a Malaysian company. We never met the producers at all, just the actors. Philip released several of them under his "One Take" company in Hong Kong.

So you don't remember much about the individual films...

Sorry I can't be much more help. We shot around nine movies back-to-back and I was writing, acting and Assistant Directing (with Teddy) on all them so it's all pretty much of a blur! And I usually had to baby-sit the actors that didn't speak Cantonese...you know, take them to restaurants, sight-seeing, etc. Whew!