The Bamboo Gods Project: Raider Platoon (1988)

Sunday, November 8, 2026

Raider Platoon (1988)

1988 – Raider Platoon (Ticar Films**)

[Philippines release date 7th July 1988, full title "Philippine Marines: Raider Platoon"; export version released in 1989 by Davian International Ltd, sometimes referred to as “Raiders Platoon”]

Director Francis "Jhun" Posadas [sometimes listed as "Jhun Ortega"] Cinematography Zosimo Corpus, Edmund Cupcupin Editor Monico Conrado

Cast Jess Lapid Jr (Lieutenant Joseph Spinoza*), Philip Gamboa (Sergeant Stanley*), Amanda Amore (Spinoza's Wife), Lezette Cordero (Girl Rebel), Ernie Ortega (Commander Malik*), Robert Miller (Rebel)

FICTITIOUS EXPORT CREDITS Director Federick A. Moses Story/Screenplay Lieutenant Alfredo Medusa Producer Dickson Alberto Executive Producer Francis L. Gordon Cinematography Larry E. Cohen Music Augusto Fair Editor Jeremy Bach Production Designer Mandinga Watts

Cast Jerome Leo, Frannkie Catas, Doris Mann, Albert Terence, Jimmy Cage, Timothy Thomson, Lloyd Ajantre, David Gordon Jr, Nancy Jefferson

ACTION

*according to the English dubbing

**Davian International's fake credits list SQ Films as the production company

Review by Andrew Leavold

Dating from those glorious post-Platoon years when literally hundreds of these jungle war films (and especially any titles with "Platoon" in them) littered the shelves of mom-and-pop video stores comes, the Philippines-lensed Raider Platoon. It's not as easy tape to find, mind you: a title so obscure that I can only find a single VHS release in Greece, a dumping ground for many cheapie Filipino exports throughout the Eighties, and in Raider Platoon's case, just in time for the tail-end of the Namsploitation craze. Just ignore most of the Anglicized credits, designed by exporter Davian International to throw you off the scent: it's really another predictable, formulaic Pinoy actioner, one of literally hundreds throughout the Eighties, with Jess Lapid Jr and Philip Gamboa leading a platoon of faceless goons deep into the Muslim south - reportedly Patian island in the Sulu archipelago - to defeat the Muslim Commander Malik (Ernie Ortega) and his equally anonymous rebels (read: bandits and rapist scumbags), and rescue the two kidnapped children of a military commander and his wife hacked to pieces by Malik's henchmen.

It's hard to imagine precisely what's missing in the export version, shorn of around a third of its Tagalog release's running length to mostly combat sequences and exploding huts. I'm assuming there's more character development given Gamboa's Sergeant "Stanley" and the other twelve members of Raider Platoon - at least you hope so, since we know so little about these anonymous soldiers that when they die, and a few die horribly, one feels absolutely zero emotion. Nada. At least Jess Lapid Jr's Lieutenant "Spinoza" is given a back story, and access to one of the film's two female characters who generate genuine interest. Before heading on his mission, Spinoza drops into a bar where his ex-wife (Amanda Amores) works as a waitress carrying trays of San Miguel beer for drunken off-duty soldiers. She reluctantly invites him back home where their child is sleeping upstairs, slips into bed for a quick topless scene, then goes ballistic when he's called into action. Amores (real name Geralyn Amores Lozano) was somewhat of a muse for Posadas, a director equally at home in action and sex films, who directed her in four erotic "bold" dramas [1] before Raider Platoon. A second actress of interest, Lezette Cordero, plays one of Malik's bandits who undergoes a change of allegiance after witnessing her smiling sadist of a comrade (Robert Miller) use his hunting knife to mutilate the corpse of the children's mother. Sadly for Cordero, Raider Platoon remains her sole shot at cinema infamy.

At just 81 minutes it's still tedious, and despite some over-the-top gore (head shots, intestines pulled out of torso), Raider Platoon is basically a loud, dumb, lazily-executed nod-fest stitched together with footage of real-life Marine manoeuvres. Posadas is not a terrible director, but not a terribly good one, and for a filmmaker essentially handed the entire Philippine armed forces to create his action extravaganza, he chooses the contents of his frame SO unimaginatively, you'll be screaming, "Just give me the camera, Francis!" Exhibit A: Raider Platoon is in a grass plain shooting at rebels from the left; rebels die on the right - in the same coconut grove from several scenes before. Thank the Film Gods for the obligatory Exploding Hut shots, of which there are many, as they never get boring. Ever. Which, sadly, you can't say for the rest of Raider Platoon. All the thunder and bluster of actual tanks, troops, choppers and landing craft is just window dressing for a bankrupt department store. The result is less of an entertainment than an exercise in pro-Marcos propaganda. Take that, rebel scum!

[1] Desperada (1986), Apoy, Ulan Init At Hamog and Tag-init...Nagpuputik Ang Langit (all 1987)