Bruka Queen Of Horror (1975)

1975 – Bruka (Emperor Films International)

[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

HORROR/KUNG FU

*alternate spelling on the Hong Kong Movie Database

Review by Andrew Leavold

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]

Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore (1965)

 

*1965 - Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore (Shaw Brothers) 

[Hong Kong production also partly filmed in the Philippines and Singapore, Hong Kong release date 15th September 1965. Released in the Philippines on 18th June 1967 by Asia Film Exchange as “Manila, Hongkong, Singapore”] 

Director/Screenplay Ching Doe** [=Doe Ching***] Producer Run Run Shaw Cinematography Shao-Yung Tung [=Charles Tung Shao-Yung] Music Eddie Wang [=Eddie H. Wang Chi-Ren] Composer: Theme Music Joseph Koo [=Joseph Koo Ka-Fai] Lyricist Hua Shen Editor Hsing-Lung Chiang [=Chiang Hsing-Lung] Sound Recordist Yung-Hua Wang [=Wang Yonghua] Art Director Johnson Tsao [=Johnson Tsao Chuang-Sheng] Assistant Director Shih-Ling Wen [=William Wen Shi-Ling] Makeup Artist Yuen Fang [=Fong Yuen] Credits Designer Ching Ou [=Au Ching] 

Cast [listed in opening credits] Peter Chan Ho/Peter Chen Hou** [= Peter Chen Ho] (Peter, aka Chen Pi Te), Landi Chang (Shirley), Angela Yu Chien (Yeh Feng), Maggie de la Riva (Lilia Ramos), Alfonso Carvajal (Lilia's Father, Mr Ramos), Chin Han/Han Chin** (Dana's Boyfriend), Chiang Kwang-Cho/Kuang-Chao Chiang** [=Chiang Kuang-Chao] (Shirley's Brother 7 Sha), Chao Sin-Yen/Hsin-Yen Chao** [=Chiu Sam-Yin] (Feng Hsiu Lan), Violet Pan Ying-Zi/Pan Yin-Tze/Yin-Tze Pan** (Stewardess Dana), [listed on IMDB and HKDB] Ming Chao (Shirley's brother 8), Feng Chin [= Chin Feng] (Chang Pao Lo), Yi Feng (Shirley's Brother 3), Li-Jen Ho [=Hao Li-Jen] (Shirley's 2nd Uncle), Fa-Hei Ka (Lilia's Father?), Ying Lee [=Li Ying] (Shirley's Father; HKMDB lists him as Shirley’s Uncle), Ming Lei [=Lui Ming] (Shirley's Brother 5; HKMDB lists character as “Shirley’s Uncle”), Kun Li (Shirley's Brother 12), Yunzhong Li [=Lee Wan-Chung] (Doctor), Ma Chi Lu [=Lui Ma-Kei] (Li Sha-Au), Xiaonong Ma (Shirley's Sister 2), Sha-Fei Ouyang (Shirley's Sister 6), Chin Pai (Wang Ting Li), Yu Pai (Yeh Feng's Maid), Lydia Shum [=Lydia Shum Tin-Ha] (Shirley's Sister 13; HKMDB lists character as “Shirley’s Aunt”), Feng Tien [=Tien Feng] (Shirley's Brother 1; HKMDB lists him as Shirley’s Father), Wei Wu (Shirley's Sister 4), Pak Kam (Wang Ting Li), Ng Wai (Shirley's Aunt), Lee Kwan (Shirley's Uncle), Fung Ngai (Shirley's Uncle), [listed on the Filipino ad but not elsewhere] Nestor de Villa, Eddie Mesa 

MUSICAL/ROMANTIC COMEDY 

*mp4 file [in Mandarin with no subtitles; credits are also in Mandarin, so these credits have been compiled from the IMDB and HKMDB]

**Anglicized spelling from the IMDB 

***Anglicized spellings in square brackets from the HKMDB]  

Manila A La Mod: The Pan-Asian Pop Pourrie of Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore by Andrew Leavold 

It took a long time to track down Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore (1965) but it was worth the effort. For me it was a missing piece in the story of the Philippines’ relationship with the rest of Asian film, as well as a fascinating artifact from the Golden Age of Pan-Asian cinema in general: a time when the Shaw Brothers owned theatres all over East Asia, were transporting their centre of production from their studios in Singapore to Hong Kong as well as beginning their move into cinemas in Hawaii and mainland USA, and were more synonymous with bright, breezy Technicolor musicals and romantic comedies than their later sword and martial arts extravaganzas. Films like Les Belles (1961) The Dancing Millionairess (1963) and The Lark (1964) were massive hits all over Asia, reflecting a colourful collision between Asian tradition and global monoculture.  

The Shaw Brothers were no strangers to the Philippines either. As far back at the late Fifties the Shaws, then based primarily in Singapore, were regularly using Filipino directors such as Lamberto V. Avellana, Ramon A. Estella and Rolf Bayer on their Malay productions, as they considered them amongst the greatest filmmakers in Asia. By the mid-Sixties, however, the over-all quality of Philippine films had slipped; the dominance of the Big Three studios (LVN, Sampaguita Pictures and Premiere Productions) was on the wane, their superior factory-crafted productions to be replaced with an avalanche of derivative spy films and westerns from hungry independent producers. Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore (or HKMS) finds both the Shaws and the Philippines at a crossroad: for the former, between the musical romances of the early Sixties, and action-centric films after the phenomenal success of their Come Drink With Me (1966); for the latter, in the midst of a kind of Dark Age before its cinematic Renaissance in the Seventies. And perhaps more than the Shaws’ other films, and certainly mirroring the company’s cross-border and cross-cultural inclinations, HKMS also sees the Hong Kong powerhouse at its most cosmopolitan.   

Cultural purists were still catered to by the Shaws with a large slate of period dramas and operas, untainted by the rest of the world’s decadent preoccupation with British rock’n’roll, American sports cars and European modular furniture. But those with a taste for the international and the hip, happening sights and sounds of NOW (followed by several exclamation marks!!!), there are those bright and bubbly musical comedies, of which HKMS is just one.  Directed by Ching Doe, one of the genre’s undisputed specialists, it features his regular Peter Chen Ho, Shaw’s gangly, endearingly awkward leading man in most of their musicals, as a Cathay Pacific pilot with a jet set version of “a girl in every port”. He leaves his tearful Filipina sweetheart Lilia (Maggie de la Riva) at Manila International Airport and flies into Hong Kong, to be greeted by his local squeeze Angela Yu Chien (previously opposite Peter in Ching Doe’s The Dancing Millionairess). Then he’s onto Singapore, and into the welcoming arms of Shirley (Landi Chang – also in The Dancing Millionairess), a singer in a rock group. Suddenly Lilia turns up in Hong Kong, as does Shirley, and all three women are at his door expecting a sparkly rock on their fingers.  

Most of the film’s at-times frantic, other times painfully thin farce is centred on Peter, with the help of his conspiratorial co-pilot Pao (Chin Feng), trying to keep the three women apart. There are some genuinely brilliant comedic moments from Peter being paraded in front of Shirley’s extended family, and dealing with Lilia’s millionaire father (Alfonso Carvajal) - the expression on Peter’s face after he shows him 8mm footage of a plane crash is priceless! But with all the running from one apartment room to another, not to mention one bed and one dolly bird to another, HKMS resembles an Oriental version of the Jerry Lewis-Tony Curtis comedy Boeing Boeing (released later in 1965), which gets a little tiring for everyone, and you start looking forward to the next musical number which, sadly, are few and far between. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not out to denigrate HKMS. Being one of the Shaw Brothers’ mid-shelf contemporary musicals it’s brimming with all of the things that went “pop!’ in 1965. We’re talking bouffant hair, the dresses, the stunning mid-Sixties furniture and fittings, the ultra-modish bar and restaurant sets, the zippy jazz and Beatles-inspired beats alongside traditional Hong Kong love songs, as well as an animated credit sequence straight out of a Blake Edwards comedy, and the cumulative effect is a mildly intoxicating cocktail of East and West. It just needs more. More glimpses of the three countries’ scenery – the Philippines, for instance, is reduced to a few exterior shots of Manila International Airport, with the rest of the “Filipino” scenes filmed at Shaw Brother Studios – and most definitely more than its two musical numbers to liven up the single-minded (and simple-minded!) bedroom farce.

The Shaws certainly chose their Filipino cast well: Miss Manila, Maggie de la Riva, was a popular mestiza leading lady in Tagalog films from the early Sixties, and she certainly holds her own against the other two Hong Kong beauties. Sadly her career was tragically derailed in 1967 when she was abducted and raped by four rich kids. They were eventually executed in 1972, but only after an intense press campaign laying bare every sordid detail of the crime AND of Maggie’s life. She was finally dragged out of retirement by Carlo J. Caparas, a specialist in lurid tabloid biopics, after he directed The Maggie de la Riva Story: God...Why Me? (1994) and paraded in front of his cameras in another tasteless rape-recreation from the Sixties, The Anabelle Huggins- Ruben Ablaza Story Tragedy: Mea Culpa (also 1995). The Pinoy actor playing her father, Alfonso Carvajal, was also a recognizable character actor, perhaps best known outside the Philippines for his role as tribal chieftan in the Eddie Romero shocker Beast Of Blood (1970). Local box office giants Eddie Mesa and Nestor de Villa are also listed on the Filipino ad, which suggests its distributor Asia Film Exchange shot extra scenes for the Philippines only. If a print of “Manila, Hongkong, Singapore” is ever unearthed, I’m sure this mutant Filipino twin will be a revelation! 

Meanwhile its Mandarin counterpart, unlike most of its Sixties’ contemporaries, has yet to receive a physical release on either DVD or Blu-Ray, and only appeared once without English subtitles on a Shaw Brothers hard drive of its lesser-known titles. It must have been a reasonable success to inspire a virtual remake in 1968 called Three Swinging Girls, with Chin Feng (Peter’s co-pilot in HKMS) as the booby in the middle. But until the time that Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore is dusted off the shelf and given the deluxe treatment by the Shaws’ new owners Celestial Pictures, it will remain a minor but by no means substandard sparkler.  

Peter Chan Ho/Peter Chen Hou** [= Peter Chen Ho] (Peter, aka Chen Pi Te)

Landi Chang (Shirley)

Angela Yu Chien (Yeh Feng)

Maggie de la Riva (Lilia Ramos)

Alfonso Carvajal (Lilia's Father, Mr Ramos)

Chin Han/Han Chin** (Dana's Boyfriend)

Chiang Kwang-Cho/Kuang-Chao Chiang** [=Chiang Kuang-Chao] (Shirley's Brother 7 Sha)

Chao Sin-Yen/Hsin-Yen Chao** [=Chiu Sam-Yin] (Feng Hsiu Lan)

Feng Chin [= Chin Feng] (Chang Pao Lo)

Ying Lee [=Li Ying, seated] (Shirley's Father; HKMDB lists him as Shirley’s Uncle)

Yunzhong Li [=Lee Wan-Chung] (Doctor)

Yu Pai (Yeh Feng's Maid)

Feng Tien [=Tien Feng, left] (Shirley's Brother 1; HKMDB lists him as Shirley’s Father)

Violet Pan Ying-Zi [right] (Stewardess Dana) 

 

THEATRICAL

HONG KONG – released into Shaw-owned theatres from 15th September 1965 

TAIWAN – IMDB reports a Taiwan release on 31st December 1966 

PHILIPPINES – released as “Manila Hongkong Singapore”, possibly with extra Philippine-lensed footage, by Asia Film Exchange on 18th June 1967 [image courtesy of Video 48 blog]

HAWAII – released into the Shaw-owned American Theatre in Honolulu on 14th August 1968 

DIGITAL 

HONG KONG - released on a hard drive of vintage Shaw Brothers titles by Celestial Films around 2010 

 

- mp4 file [in Mandarin with no subtitles]