Murder In The Orient Ron Marchini & Leo Fong, and Forgotten Warrior Ron Marchini

1974 · KonCategoryIII

Murder in the Orient 1974 R 1h 13m During World War II, When the Japanese were fighting in the Philippines, they buried a stash of gold. They decided to abandon the traditional "treasure map", deciding instead to engrave directions to the loot on two separate samurai swords. Now, in the swingin' seventies, the nefarious Golden Cobra Gang has one of the swords. They desperately want the other one. Gustavo, a higher-up in the organization, really wants to please the head boss, King Cobra, so he pulls out all the stops to get the missing sword: he brings in Kang the Butcher, a ruthless assassin, and of course Turko. But he makes a fatal error in his quest. He kills the sister of Lao Tsu (Leo Fong). Now Tsu, a peaceful Hong Kong martial arts instructor, must travel to Manila to get revenge. On top of that, the American Paul Martelli (Ron Marchini) is caught up in the madness because he was involved with Tsu's sister. The film debut of both Leo Fong and Ron Marchini, a cinematic milestone unlikely to celebrated anywhere outside of Marty McKee’s living room, this Philippines production initially looks like it will be about the quest to find two halves of a treasure map engraved on samurai swords. However, that falls by the wayside in favor of a basic revenge scenario in which Marchini helps Fong find his sister's killer. The script is terrible (that is, when you can even make out what anyone is saying), the action mediocre, and the technical credits abysmal. Good for a few chuckles, and surprisingly gory in the final few minutes, but a tough sit even at 73 minutes. The Forgotten Warrior (1986) The Forgotten Warrior stars Ronald L. Marchini as a POW in Vietnam who, along with two fellow soldiers (Mike Monty and Quincy "Quin" Frazier), makes a daring escape. Things get wild though when Frazier kills Monty, and then tries to kill Marchini to cover up the first killing, leaving him for dead at the bottom of a river. Marchini is nursed back to health by a kind villager, whom he marries and has a kid with, only to have Frazier come back to the jungle to finish Marchini off, but killing the wife instead. Bad move Frazier, as Marchini and his yellow shirt are now unleashed, and you're going down. This might be one of those ones that's more fun than good, but I'll take that any day over just plain bad. Marchini delivers the action--in a bright yellow shirt that might as well be hunter safety orange--as he's wont to do, and at a cool 76 minutes, we seldom see any real lag time. We also see a lot of the usual standards, like the white soldier training the villagers to fight, which, in a film like this we'll manage when it's so fun, but in this case also comes with a bit of commentary because the white men, even Marchini, really only bring death and destruction to the locals. Fun 'Namsploitation with a side of nuance and commentary all in a 76-minute package? Sign me up. This is the second Marchini film we've done here, the other being Omega Cop , and as I said in that review, all of the seven I watched for the pod episode on Comeuppance were fun. For a DTV action star, that's a string of success that I don't think we've ever seen. Usually there's a dud in there somewhere. I think to that extent Marchini understood what worked: shorter runtimes, action throughout, and heroes you can root for and baddies you want to see defeated. If it's that simple, why do we see so many instances of it not working? The phenomenon of 'Namsploitation in the 80s and 90s was a trend the likes of which we may never see again in film. I think it starts with filmmakers wanting to remake Rambo , but then you add in the cheap production costs of the Philippines, and you have yourself a cinematic movement. From there you could just throw in whatever you want, whether it's Marchini with a bright yellow shirt and a samurai sword, or a screaming Reb Brown, or a shirtless Richard Norton; sprinkle in some exploding huts, massive machine gunfire, and one or more of Mike Monty, Vic Diaz, Jim Gaines, or Joe Mari Avellana, and you've got yourself a hit everywhere in the world except the US--though there is a good amount of us here who appreciate this kind of thing too. We should get back to the yellow shirt, because it will be Marchini's hallmark in the next few films. I grew up in Maine with my dad and his friends who hunted, and they had a lot of hunter safety orange hats and coats so they wouldn't shoot each other while they were trying to kill deer. That's the idea in that scenario, "I want you to see me so you don't shoot me, because you're not hunting me." Here though, Marchini's character is the one under attack, so you'd think camouflage of some sort would be the way to go, but instead, it's bright yellow. In that sense it's almost like he's saying "I don't need no stinkin' camouflage to beat you guys." It would be like Reb Brown screaming to announce that he was in the area to the baddies looking for him. As we're wont to do here at the DTVC, it's ti