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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :- The latest weapon in the drug wars: fashion models., 26 October 2009 Author: Scott LeBrun from Winnipeg, Canada
A bevy of gorgeous fashion model babes travel to South America for a location shoot, and get caught up in a big drug deal between local drug lord Cesar Santiago (hulking Paul L. Smith) and American mobster Vito Mastranga (John Vernon).That's the amusing gist of this decent bit of escapist entertainment. More to the point, it's trash, but it's lively, nasty, colorful trash. It doles out the bloody violence throughout, with director Ernst R. von Theumer and company going all out for a very entertaining climax. Be prepared for a man impaled on a jungle trap, a juicy decapitation that comes as an actual shock, and plenty of squibs used as one bad guy after another gets mowed down. Now, granted, fans of exploitative B action flicks may not be totally satisfied: it's not as exploitative as they may want. There are still some highlights, such as Cesars' henchmen helping themselves to the girls, and Sybil Danning (if admittedly not used all that well) adds a little bit of spice as Cesars' half sister (!) who's a real sadist. And there are some brief bits of nudity and bare breasts, so it's still pretty good. The exotic locale is a big help (the film was actually shot in Mexico).The film has the very much ideal B movie cast. Striking blonde beauty Nina van Pallandt proves to be a good action babe in the lead; she has the right amount of gutsy determination. Alex Cord is good as Vitos' concerned nephew Nick. Woody Strode, still a fine physical specimen in his 70's, oozes an impressive amount of cool as a henchman. Kai Wulff is fine as the rugged pilot who stands up to the drug lords. Marjoe Gortner is fun as always as the photographer who in a moment of humility admits that he's a professional bull*beep*er and later tries to redeem himself by becoming Mr. Action Hero. And the solid Dana Elcar and always delightful (if too briefly seen) Louisa Moritz round out the familiar faces.It's always fun to watch sexy ladies in action roles, and this film doesn't disappoint in that regard. Even if it doesn't quite have as much punch as it could have had, that may only be because the version I watched was probably edited to some degree. In any event, it gets really exciting by the end of the film, and Smith is a superb heavy, the kind of guy who can get stabbed and shot without being slowed down. Overall, "Jungle Warriors" is an enjoyable 92 minutes of B level entertainment.7/10
Pedestrian action film, 28 March 2009 Author: gridoon2009
I admit that I might have had a higher opinion of "Jungle Warriors" if I had been able to see it in its full form; the Region 2 DVD version features many painfully obvious cuts that make the film more of a jumble than it already is (it would struggle to get a PG-13 in this form). What's left of "Jungle Warriors" is not that good, anyway: it only gets interesting when the girls are machine gunning down the bad guys, but that doesn't happen often enough (actually, most of the bad guys just kill each other off). Admittedly, casting Paul L. Smith and Sybil Danning as kinky half-siblings was an inspired exploitation idea, but Danning is actually kind of wasted in this film. *1/2 out of 4.
2 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :- Through the jungle in high heels, interesting cast, 16 March 2006 Author: manuel-pestalozzi from Zurich, Switzerland
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
I like jungle movies. Usually some people are cast away in the virgin forest and have to find their way out of it – often they are very ill equipped, wear a nightgown (see Ann Sheridan in Jacques Tourneur's Appointment in Honduras) or high heels, like in this flick. The story is very simple, but effective. Some babes and another team of bad dudes have appointments in an exotic country, the first for a shooting session with a fashion photographer, the second for some drug trade. The groups meet and clash and there is a lot of barrel melting gun action.As I said, it works and delivers good and insightful entertainment. I found the cast very interesting. There are some good character actors. Marjoe Gortner (Earthquake, The Nelson Marcus Murders-Kojak pilot) plays the fashion photographer as an overexcited, bossy, fussy mother hen, it looks like he thinks it is the biggest part of his career. Don Siegel regular John Vernon (was also Cuban thug in Hitchcock's Topaz) is the Mafioso who doesn't seem to have a worry in the world although the whole atmosphere is very tense. He is always laughing without any apparent reason (I suspect he was drunk during the whole shoot). Woody Stroude appears too, as a mixture of guerrilla and bodyguard. He seems to have a good time and displays much unexpected charm.That's not all. The movie also boasts two iconic female leads: Nina Van Pallandt (Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye) is the leader of the fashion shooting crew. She gets a lot of screen time and is surprisingly effective in a role that would have been tailor made for Pam Grier. Muscular, wispy haired sex symbol Sybil Danning (kind of Austrian women's answer to Arnold Schwarzenegger) plays the sister of the drug lord (a Broderick Crawford lookalike, is also good and convincing).MINOR SPOILER The story goes as those stories go. There is a good climactic scene towards the end: The drug lord and his entourage have dinner with the mafioso and his team on an open air terrace under the trees. Everybody is friendly, but it's clear that they all distrust each other. At the same time the captured babes manage to free themselves inside the drug lord's palace, of which the party is not aware. The women try to get away, they shoot at a guard. As soon as it rings out, hell breaks loose on the terrace, everybody overturning tables and reaching for a firearm. It's really well done.A last word about the location. Almost all of the action takes place in the drug lord's castle, an old, venerable, architectonically interesting Mexican fortress that is put to good use by the film makers. I could bet on it they used exactly the same place for the Harrison Ford starrer Clear and Present Danger (as a Colombian drug lord's lair).
4 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :- Commando models in green exploitation hell!, 8 January 2003 Author: Sorsimus from Kaarina, Finland
A seemingly ordinary jungle action fare, this one benefits from a couple of notable twists, the main one being the group of heroines consisting of models! Although this probably helps to make this film utterly unbelievable, that is in turn heightened by good villanous casting, giving us no less than four major "bad guys", including the seldom disappointing Woody Strode and never disappointing Sybil Danning.Add to this mixture the total lack of any concern for realism, and you get what I call an entertaining little picture. OK, it's not a masterpiece on any level, but it is good at what it wants to be.Released on video in Finland in the early eighties.
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