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| Image courtesy of Simon Santos' Video 48 blog |
[Release date 21st April 1968]
Directors Bert Balilla, Anthony Ocampo Story Bert Balilla Sr Screenplay Pepe Mesina Producers Roberto Gonzalez, Nena Gonzalez Music Demetrio Velasquez
Cast Magna Gonzales, Jing Abalos, Ronaldo Valdez, Tony Villar, Rocco Montalban, Ernie White, Eddie Gallegos, Nonong Palomar, Rod Francisco, Jun Santos, Norma Blancaflor, Jose Garcia, Danny Rojo, Raquel Gordon, Elmer Imperial, Protacio Dee
KARATE/ACTION
THE LOST MOVIE PROJECT: Piecing together the fragments of the Philippines' vanished cinema
NOTE by Andrew Leavold: One of the rare starring vehicles of Magda Gonzalez, daughter of Valentino "Latino" H. Gonzales, aka "The Father of Filipino Karate", and sister of action stars Roberto and Rolando Gonzalez. Like most of the family's films from the Sixties, Lady Untouchable has long been relegated to landfill, but thankfully we have this remarkably detailed recollection on Melchor's CinePlex blog:
“Lady Untouchable” was a Filipino action movie released in the 1960s during the popularity of movies about secret agents and masked crime fighters around the world. The title role was played by Magna Gonzalez who is a karate expert in real life. The other cast of characters of the movie were Jing Abalos, Ronaldo Valdez, Jose Garcia, Tony Villar, Danny Rojo, Rocco Montalban and Ernie White among others.
A trio of enemies of the state in trench coat outfits and in dark eye glasses (Villar, Rojo and Montalban) sent a message to the head (Garcia) of an intelligence agency called “Philippine Bureau of Investigation” by attacking his home when he attended a party one night with his daughter (Gonzalez).The said attack killed his sick wife (Norma Blancaflor in a special appearance). The private nurse was almost killed, but before she lost consciousness, she was able to take a look at the face of one of the trio: Villar. She identified him in a photograph shown by a PBI agent (Abalos) to her. With this as lead, Magna decided to look for him personally. She thought that she could handle this task well because of the lessons she learned as a Criminology student. However, she did not tell this to her father because the latter will not approve it because he knew that revenge is on her mind.
The trio take their orders from an unseen superior. The latter’s voice was only heard by the former and their other comrades. During one of their meetings, their superior asked Rojo’s character to stay behind. He was ordered to kill Villar’s character. Rojo was shocked to hear this because Villar is his brother. However, for the sake of their organization, he killed him by shooting him with a rifle with telescope in a party at the penthouse of a building. Magna also aimed her own rifle at Villar, but she was beaten to the draw by Rojo. A team of agents led by Abalos was also at the scene because someone gave them a tip and chased the shooter. Abalos went to the direction where she went and thought that the lady she loves was the killer (he was one of her suitors, the other was the character played by Valdez who became her boyfriend). She told him that he was wrong and she will explain at a latter time why she was carrying a gun.
It was later revealed that she applied and was accepted as an undercover agent of another intelligence agency and set aside her revenge for the death of her mother. This surprised her father and Abalos. However, she kept this secret from Valdez so that her cover would not be compromised. She, her father and Abalos later learned that the dead body of Villar was not found at the crime scene after he was shot.
With her official appointment as an agent, a series of encounters happened between her as “Lady Untouchable” and the target lawless elements where the three mentioned in the second paragraph of this post belongs. The latter found out the real identity of their masked adversary and sent Montalban’s character to kill her. He failed and was killed by her.
In retaliation, the enemies of the state kidnapped Valdez who did not know that her lady love is an undercover agent. He was brought to their secret headquarters where he was taken as a prisoner and killed later. His dead body was brought to her home and placed it in a sitting position as if he was taking dinner. It was in this position that Magna saw him when she arrived home.
In a later scene, her father was kidnapped by a group of men led by Rojo’s character in the locker room of a sports club when he was about to change his clothes after a badminton game which Magna and their family driver (White) watched earlier. She relayed this to Abalos who in turn talked to his fellow agents the day after if their sources have information on the whereabouts of their director. At first, they faced a blank wall. But an information from a source told them that agency head was brought to an island. Magna also received this information from her sources and went there ahead of Abalos.
When she arrived at her destination, she met her informer and told him that she will look quickly for her father. However, she fell into a trap door which led her to the secret headquarters of the men who took her father. This is where Valdez was brought and killed. She was taken to a cell where her father was held prisoner.
The mysterious leader of the group wanted to get a set of secret documents from the director of the PBI and with daughter Magna to be executed with the use of a certain device for torture, he will be forced to gave these to them. He requested them (the leader has access to the device’s button) to let go of her and told them that he will give to them what they want. This turned out to be a trick made by the director and told her about this when they were returned to their cell. The reason was these documents have been turned over already to the highest official of the nation.
The bars of their prison cell are charged with high voltage electric volts, so escape is impossible. However, Magna hid a bullet like device in her outfit which she used in creating power interruption in the place by throwing it an electric outlet. It caused chaos in the enemy’s headquarters and the father and daughter were able to escape from their cell. But the emergency generator was activated which brought back power and they had to fight their way out. A secret was revealed to the part of the characters of Magna, Abalos and Rojo separately which surprised them: Villar’s character is alive and is the actual leader of the group.
The lady agent tried to chase the leader, but Rojo stood in her way to protect his brother and fought with her in a hand to hand combat. Rojo was killed.
Villar killed Abalos by bullets which came from the armchair (which doubles as a machine gun when needed) where the former always sits. But before the latter expired, he was able to shoot the former with a hail of bullets from his gun which killed Villar and destroyed the major facilities in the secret headquarters which eventually led to its destruction. Magna and her father were informed of the agent’s death by their family driver (served as a back-up who will call for help in case of trouble) who was in an alert mode when Magna went to rescue her father and saw for themselves the explosion of the area where they came from.
