[Philippines release date 18th July 1975; a Hong Kong-Filipino co-production, export title “Bruka Queen Of Evil”]
Director Albert Yu [Yu Chik-Lim*] [local credits also list Felix Villar] Producer Jimmy L. Pascual [Hong Kong Movie Database also credits Jimmy with Screenplay] Dialogue Yuen Shiao Po Cameraman Leung Kwok Kuen [Frank Leung Kwok-Kuen*] Music Chow Fu Liang Editor Lee Yam Hai In Charge of Production Fely Pascual Production Manager Vic Kwong Martial Arts Intructors [not listed in credits but credited on the Hong Kong Movie Database] Brandy Yuen Jan-Yeung, Yuen Bun, Corey Yuen Kwai Assistant Director David Yau [Yau Ming*] Interpreter Teddy Chiu [as Tedmund Chiu] Special Effects Michael Fung Makeup Artist Soledad Mauricio Wardrobe Romana Tablate Setting Maurio Carmona Props Ng Chau Lights Chui Kwok Kuen Electrician Tiburcio Pacia Stills Wong Tit Huang
Cast Alex Lung [Alex Lung Ji-Fei*] (Hong Pin), Rosemarie Gil (Manda), Etang Discher [as "Etang Ditched"] (Carol Pak, aka Bruka), Sandra de Veyra (Louisa), Yukio Someno (Jungle Fighter), Anthony Lee [Anthony Lee Miu-Hung*] (Hermit?), Michael Kwan [Kwan Wai-Lun*], Charlie Davao (Manda's First Victim), Connie Angeles (Sacrificial Virgin), Darius Razon (Young Man With Guitar), Tintoy (Waiter), Matimtiman Cruz (Bar Owner), Roldan Rodrigo, Bruno Punzalan (Drunk Bald Thug), Greg Lozano, Ramon D’Salva (Monk), Pedro Faustino, Alfonso Carvajal (Mr Tong), Eileen Montinola, Ben Manalo, Michael de Mesa (Restaurant Patron), Rocco Montalban (Mr Tong's Guard), Kristina Kasten, Sancho Tesalona (Bald Restaurant Thug), Eddie Nicart, Jimmy Cruz, Gigi Vellasenor
Back in 1974, a Filipino producer named Jimmy L. Pascual ended his two-year run of Hong Kong-based kung fu productions and brought his film outfit to the Philippines to make a film called Devil Woman. Essentially a chop-sockey cashing in on the kung fu craze like Pascual’s previous films (The Bloody Fists [1972], The Awaken Punch [1973] amongst others), Devil Woman is a rudimentary revenge saga with fantastic elements and snake motif, a familiar ingredient in Asian horror. Despite the regulation atrocious dubbing and wooden dialogue, Rosemarie Gil is positively regal as the snake-haired queen seeking revenge on the townsfolk for burning her parents alive, and the film was a minor hit, even receiving a theatrical run in the US, and has retained a small fanatical cult following thanks to Quentin Tarantino’s regular screenings.
For years, fans of Devil Woman saw posters for a film called Bruka Queen Of Evil featuring Rosemarie Gil’s distinctive coiffure and assumed it was one of Devil Woman’s numerous export titles. When a trailer finally appeared, the Devil Woman herself, Manda the Snakewoman, was indeed in the film – but with entirely different footage of bats, walking trees, and an army of Little People. Was this the Filipino cut of Devil Woman for the local market merely redubbed and resold, or an entirely different film? Alas, no version of Bruka could be found, even amongst the most intrepid of Asian collectors.
Imagine my surprise, then, to discover a copy of Bruka Queen Of Evil last month [NOTE: I originally wrote this way back in May 2011] in my post box. Ten minutes later, I can confirm Bruka is no Devil Woman. Although made by the same production team and with many of the original’s cast, its immediate sequel Bruka is an entirely different creature. A quantum improvement on Devil Woman, the film throws open Manda’s own personal narrative, giving her both a legacy and a destiny, and adds a new protagonist’s magical quest against a seemingly improbable array of oddities.
Bruka begins as Devil Woman ends, with Manda engulfed in flames as she falls over a cliff. Miraculously she survives and wakes in a cave next to a white-haired hag and a cadre of predatory and aggressively sexual dwarves. “I’m your grandmother,” the hag Bruka declares, and to prove the point, unfurls her fifteen-foot snake body. She then shows Manda flashbacks to her birth in a crystal ball, revealing Manda’s mother to have chosen a mortal husband over her reptilian heritage. Manda’s so happy at the family reunion, she literally dances for joy! Surrounding her is a brand-new arsenal for her protection: bats, rock creatures, tree-men, and shape-shifting dwarves into snakes. Veteran contrabida Charlie Davao is the test case, a poor villager who sees a figure under a sheet in his yard. It turns out to be a wooden cross covered in reptiles who almost drown him in venom. And with that, the Devil Woman sequel has already shape-shifted itself to the next level of weirdness.
Grandma Bruka now gives her granddaughter a special gift – a black stone which turns her head full of angry snakes into human hair for as long as she keeps the stone in her mouth. To test the theory, she goes for a jungle stroll and kisses the first unfortunate hippie with a guitar (singer Darius Razon) who stumbles upon her. Spitting out the stone, the snakes pounce. Exssssscellent! In Bruka, Manda is no longer killing simply for revenge, and is instead awakening her true inner evil, and exploiting her outward normalcy to indulge her more primal, destructive instincts. In short: Evil has a new Mestiza and gloriously patrician Queen.
As Bruka unfolds, Manda faces a new antagonist in the shape of poor and intensely angry Chinese Hong Pin (Pascual’s kung fu kicking regular Alex Lung). He loses his bar job after saving a bumbling waiter (comedian Tintoy) from a beating from some brawling thugs (led by an old SOS Daredevil, Sancho Tesalona); desperate to look after his ailing mother and younger sister, he takes on the dangerous task of rescuing Louisa (Sandra de Veyra), the daughter of rich gangster Mr Tong (Alfonso Carvajal), from Manda's clutches. In an eerily effective sequence he walks into a village obliterated by Manda’s snake scourge, bodies strewn everywhere covered in flies and bite marks, and he helps bury the bodies alongside a priest (Ramon D’Salva) and his hunchbacked assistant. The forest is full of peril, warns the hunchback, and Hong Pin must seek a hermit’s help. And as if on cue, Bruka’s dwarves burst into the church, dissolve into snakes and cover the priest and cripple. With the hermit’s favourite rope-belt-turned-into-a-pole trick, Hong Pin makes his way through hostile territory, through all manner of creatures - and those include knocking out Yukio Someno and his mutant pig-man, and kicking a rock monster right in the stones! - to the cave containing Louisa and her virginal companions, all ready to be sacrificed to the Snake Queens’ insidious blood cult.
As with Devil Woman, where Rosemarie Gil's daughter Cherie makes her first screen appearance as Manda's daughter, her son Michael de Mesa - youngest boy to her rocker husband Eddie Mesa - appears in the restaurant scene trying at first to seduce her, before tucking into a plate of live snakes. Another first is the earliest known screen credit for future director "Teddy Page"/"Irvin Johnson" etc under his real name Tedmund Chiu.
Pascual’s immediate Philippines output for his Emperor Films International included another starring role for Lung, Dragons Never Die (1974), released in the US on a double bill with Devil Woman, and three Tagalog horror films released in 1975 alone for the local market (Isinumpa, Pagsapit Ng Dilim and Pandemonium: Lupa, Langit At Impiyerno). But if there was ever destined to be Filipino Lords Of The Rings with evil, fondling, River-Dancing hobbits, Batmen with huge bat wings and nasty bat claws, and bleeding trees, this is the one film to rule them all. Those with a snake phobia, BEWARE; those with eyebrows ready to be raised and a keenly-honed appreciation of the absurd, enjoy, and I’ll see you at Ermita’s all-dwarf bar Hobbit House for after-movie rum cocktails.
A rare contemporary newspaper review (and, as predicted, not very complimentary)...
The Grand Rapids Press, 3rd October 1978, p.20
Review from The Bloody Pit Of Horror blog: "While it's occasionally bogged down by the kung fu scenes, the pacing is a lot brisker, it manages to weave the plot threads together in a more streamlined and cohesive manner and it's filled with memorably insane bits and cheap-o monster creations to boggle your mind."
Review from the Cool Ass Cinema blog: "The kung foolery continues in BRUKA, QUEEN OF EVIL, the infinitely entertaining, unjustly obscure HK-Filipino co-pro sequel to DEVIL WOMAN. Doubling up on the snakes and piling up as many demented ideas as its near 100 minutes will allow, BRUKA throws that film's serious tone right in the garbage. In its place is this tale of vengeful Ophidio-females that embraces pure nuttiness with its menagerie of majestically rock-bottom creatures including giant stone monsters; angry midgets; a walking killer tree you could've made in your backyard; and a bat man that looks like a stunt guy in thermal underwear with kites glued to his arms. Yes, staples of the best bad cinema has to offer are all present and accounted for. Fans of wacky Asian cinema will be riveted; all others--especially Ophidiophobics--will be repelled. Fangs for the good time, nonetheless."
Alex Lung (Hong Pin)
Rosemarie Gil (Manda)
Etang Discher (Carol Pak, aka Bruka)
Sandra de Veyra (Louisa)
Yukio Someno (Jungle Fighter)
Anthony Lee (Hermit?)
Michael Kwan
Charlie Davao (Manda's First Victim)
Connie Angeles (left - Sacrificial Virgin)
Darius Razon (Young Man With Guitar)
Tintoy (Waiter)
Matimtiman Cruz (Bar Owner)
Roldan Rodrigo
Bruno Punzalan (far left - Drunk Bald Thug)
Greg Lozano
Ramon D’Salva (Monk)
Pedro Faustino
Alfonso Carvajal (Mr Tong)
Eileen Montinola
Ben Manalo
Michael de Mesa (Restaurant Patron)
Rocco Montalban (Mr Tong's Guard)
Kristina Kasten
Sancho Tesalona (Bald Restaurant Thug)
Eddie Nicart
Jimmy Cruz
Gigi Vellasenor
THEATRICAL
HONG KONG - released worldwide by producer Jimmy Pasquale's Emperor Films International; Hong Kong release date 18th June 1975 [according to the Hong Kong Movie Database]
USA - screens around the country from July 1976.
HAWAII - premieres at the Hawaii and Kaimuki theatres on 25th August 1976, then screens around the islands as part of kung fu double bills until at least 1981.
GUAM - screened at the Johnston Theatre in Agana from May 1st to 7th 1977.
CAMBODIA - mentioned screening in the countryside as early as February 1975.
- mp4s [feature in Mandarin with English subtitles, trailer dubbed into English]
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