Weirdhouse Cinema: Devil's Express

of alternate trailers for it. I guess you see this a lot with with with films that came came out, especially back in the in the nineteen seventies, where it comes out, maybe it doesn't play as well, or maybe something else happens in the zeitgeist and you want to you want a second shot at it, so you just retitle it and put it out there again and see if you catch any any viewers. So the claim that I came across, uh, we should maybe it's best to

start with the elevator pitch. The elevator pitch here is that when an ancient Chinese demon is released the subway tunnels of New York, a saintly master of the martial arts named Luke Curtis must summon all his courage to defeat the Underground Evil. So it is a martial arts demon horror movie, but it also has elements of like

gang fighting in the streets. And according to a write up by Code Red, which I think did the Blu ray rerelease of this movie, that they said that when The Warriors was released theatrically, which I think would have been in nineteen seventy nine, so three years after this movie came out, they say, the distributor of Devil's Express re titled it Gang Wars essentially to make it look

like a Warrior's type movie. Of course, if you haven't seen The Warriors, that's just it's a movie about all these weird, different little gangs in New York that have their their own interesting costumes and quirks, and they're running around fighting each other and all that. And I think they wanted to cash in on that that Warriors magic. Yeah, I mean, The Warriors is is a fabulously weird film in its own right, because when we say weird gangs, we mean if you haven't seen it, it's like there's

a baseball gang, there's the Baseball Furies. That's right. The first time I saw that, that was the funniest thing about it. To me, they were wearing baseball uniforms and they have bats, I think. Yeah, so it's like it's it's as if it's said in an alternate reality where you just have a bunch of wacky, wacky gangs with all these wacky themes. Uh. So it's definitely worth worth checking out superior movie to what we're talking about here today.

But the one we're talking about here today, Devil's Express, is just a wonderful mash up of of different genres, uh that they all kind of slammed together awkwardly, uh you know, uh, scraping up against each other sometimes jack knifing around each other in a way that that is ultimately quite entertaining. Yeah. So they retitled at Gang Morris and there are gangs in this movie, and the gangs do fight, but this movie really has more to do with its star Warhawk ten Zania down a demon to

fight in the subway tunnels. Yes, and you know, we can we can introduce war Hawk Tanzania all day and and we're going to get into war Hawk Tanzania in a minute. But why don't we go ahead and listen to the trailer. The original TV trailer for the film because you really need a narrator's voice to introduce Warhawk Tanzania to the world. To take a ride on the

Devil's Expressed. What happens when two thousand years of evil strike a city see Warhawk Tanzania match blows which the Devil and those the Devil has possessed to Ford monsoon take a ride on the Devil's Express. It may be your last star rated R. See now, are aren't you completely on board with Warhawk Tanzania the either the next big thing or the cur big thing based on the salesmanship in this uh, in this particular trailer. One thing about the trailer is the trailer really plays it up

as a horror movie. I think, what do you think about that? They definitely stressed the monster movie aspects of this, which I think is I mean, that's what brought me to it. I realized, Oh, this is not just a New York City martial arts gang war movie. No, there's also some sort of a subway monster in it. There's a demon and um and I'm a sucker for any any film that that puts monsters in a subway, especially the New York subway system. Um. I'm just instantly enthralled. Oh,

of course there. But stylistically this film has a lot of things in common with a lot of these sort of crime exploitation movies of the nineteen seventies. I've seen a lot of people online uh saying that it has elements similar to black exploitation films, which are a a genre that has has a very complicated legacy. Of course, these were films that came out in the early seventies, especially they're they're often said to have been inspired by

a couple of seminal works. One was Melvin Van Peeble's Sweet Sweet Backs Badass Song, which I think came out in nineteen seventy one, and another big one was Gordon Parks movie Shaft. And it's debatable whether those are whether those should actually be thought of as black exploitation movies themselves, but they certainly are are thought to have inspired this genre of films that had sort of larger than life black heroes, but that also tended to deal with themes

of of crime. And we're often said in New York City and have this complicated legacy because on one hand that they had these larger than life black heroes. I've read about some scholars talking about how you know, finally you could have like a black hero on the level of James Bond, that kind of like superhuman nous uh in a movie starring in a movie of his own.

But then also like the term black exploitation actually was coined by a member of the Double a c P who is very against the genre, who because basically, I think he thought that it perpetuated negative stereotypes about the black communities in America. Yeah, because these were often movies about crime, so that you know, you had you had gangs in them, they had they had would feature uh,

prostitution or drugs and violence. Um. And and if you just if you're just watching these films of this genre, you know, it makes you think like this is all there is, this is all there is to um to two black culture into black life in America at the time.

And in a similar way, of course, you also have kung fu exploitation films, and this is also the kung fu exploitation film where if you watch films of this caliber, you see um, basically Asian characters, Asian cultures, and certainly uh in this case like Asian American life as being just martial arts like, this is a movie that features several different Asian actors, or at least Asian stuntman and Asian martial artists, but there's not a single Asian character

of any depth. I like, I do not know any of the Asian characters names in this film. I don't know that they're given names. Yeah, that's right. And of course this movie would not be the only one that sort of mashed up the the seventies martial arts exploitation style movie with black exploitation aesthetics. These two things had collided in other films as well, but in this case it also brings in horror, which is a very interesting third element here, third rail. It's the third rail that

drives the train, you could say that. So of course this is a This is a grimy seventies grindhouse film, but it also borders on one of our favorite genres that we've discussed before. Of course, this other genre we've talked about was the supernatural wrestling movie, such as the film starring El Santo, where the noble luchador hero must confront a mummy or a dracula. The one we talked about on the show was Santo and the Treasure of Dracula,

which it was a really fun movie to talk about. Uh. Here, this is not exactly the same thing, but it's kind of close. Because this is essentially a supernatural martial arts movie. Like Warhawk, Tanzania must confront not just corrupt cops and rival gangs on the gritty streets of nineteen seventies New York, but the denizens of hell itself. Absolutely. Yeah, and I mean, and it's ultimately it's it's a Baowolf and Grendel story.

You know. It's the story of the hero who must travel down into the depths, into the dark realm where the monster lives, in order to defeat it. Uh and uh and you know that's exactly what happens in this film. Speaking of which, is this our first martial arts film on Weirdhouse Cinema? Have we done another pure martial arts film? Uh? So many movies have elements of martial arts in them. I would find it hard to believe we haven't touched on anything there. But this might be the closest thing

to a pure martial arts movie. Yeah. All right, Well, let's go ahead and talk about the people who made this possible. There's a there's some several fun connections in this film. Um At first glance, it might look like a you know, with these z pictures from a casting standpoint, where where nobody goes on to to do anything else or has any kind of interesting connections for the rest of the world. But that is not the case. Let's start at the top with the director and also one

of the screenwriters, Barry rosen bore N six. He only directed a couple of pictures, but he was a producer on the nineteen seventy five film Black Force, where he apparently met some of the stars of that that he would utilize in Devil's Express And as a producer, he went on to work on some at least a couple of really fun projects, including Highway to Hell in he was line producer on that. This is the the Wonderful Hell Cop Movie, starring Patrick Bergen and the entire Stiller family.

Like Ben Stiller's in it, Ben Stellar's mom is in it, Ben Stellar's dad is in it. Yeah, weird, so weird. It is a weird film. Gilbert Godfrey shows up playing Hitler uh because it's hell Uh. There's all these bizarre elements in it, So that's that's definitely. Um. I haven't seen it in a while, but that was one I finally remember catching on like USA Network back in the day. Okay, and then Rosen also produced twenty two episodes of Highlander,

the series, so uh, kudos on that. I can just see him sending the dailies back being like no, no, gotta have more juice in these quickening scenes. Now I mentioned that Rosen was one of the writers on Devil's Express. There are four other screenwriters that are credited, so this is basically Rosen at all. Um. I'll list their names quickly here, but but they didn't really I don't think any of them really went on to do much else. But uh, still, the people that made this possible Nicky Patton, Uh,

Pascal Vacuire, Ceotis Robinson, and Bobby Saberstein. These are the screenwriters. Moving on, let's get to the main event here. Let's get to our to our star, the man who and this plays Luke. But it's hard to imagine anybody with a name like this just playing someone with a name like Luke. But we're talking about war Hawk Tanzania. You know. I read some reviews saying like, uh, sort of deriding the film for trying to rely on the what they claimed was non existent star power of war Hawk Tanzania.

But I kind of disagree. I mean, war Hawk Tanzania is clearly not a not a super experienced actor, but I do kind of think he has star power. Yeah, I think he absolutely has star power. I mean, he he has the looks, he has this, this this really righteous afro hairstyle. This, he's he's got this cool mustache. He's he's lean, he's mean, he can throw some kicks

and punches. And yes, he only has I think two different delivery styles for his dialogue, but you feel it when he delivers those those lines like he's still he's still connecting with you. But but yeah, to think about the trailer, especially a couple of trailers that I watched for this, is that they really do sell war Hawk Tanzania as if he is either the you know, the the current big thing or the next big thing in martial arts cinema. Like he is exploding. The war Hawk

Tanzania train is about to leave the station. Are you going to get on board? Yes? I'm on board. Yes, I have my tickets right here, first class. Because I mean, if nothing else. It's also just an amazing name. War Hawk Tanzania just undeniably cool, and we see that in his character too, Like I feel we call him Luke, but I feel like the characters war Hawk Tanzania as well. I should also stress war Hawk Tanzania had one, I think one film credit prior to this and no film

credits after this. Uh. He was in that that exploitation film Black Force that I mentioned earlier that came before this, and then he he just does not appear in anything else. Um. And I don't think anything is really publicly known about the man. I would say that it probably went one

of two ways though. Either after this film he has decided that he was just going to live a private life and be a private citizen, and if so, you know, more power to him, or war Hawk Tanzania has spent the decades since this movie battling actual demons and monsters around the world, taking the fight to the forces of evil as only war Hawk Tanzania can. He is a he is a martial arts exorcist of your mass transit systems. Yes, he's a fighter. He's a lover. Uh, he's a demon hunter,

He's a peace broker. He brings it all to the table. Totally agree and believe it or not, there are other actors in this film. I mean it seems like like maybe they at first they thought we we'll just cast war Hawk. We don't need anybody else. War Hawk Tanzania is enough to fill up an entire film. But then they as well, we have to catch all these other roles too. Uh huh, Well, I don't know if I

know anybody's name except Rodan. Well, first there's uh, we'll get to well, let's go ahead and hit Rodan, because Rodan's his but Rodan's is his his companion. They're on the same course, they're on the you know that they seem to have the same mission in life, but it becomes clear as we'll discuss that they do have different agendas going on. There there's some conflict between them. Oh yeah,

there's totally conflict. But I mean, so Rodan is Luke's student in the movie, his student of martial arts, because Luke is a martial arts master. But whereas Luke is you could argue pretty much lawful good. You know, he's in many ways sort of a paladin or presented as such, viewed as such by the creators of the film. Rodan I would say is more in the sort of chaotic

neutral territory. Yeah, yeah, he's you know, he'll he'll be good, especially if he's there with Luke, if you know, he has that that war hawk energy keeping him in line. But if he's off on his own, uh, you know, he's he's running games all over town. As we find out now. Rodan is played by the actor and martial artists Wilfredo roll Dan, who lived I think nine through so he did pass away last last year. Um Lower East Side resident and apparently like regional at least regional

martial arts legend. Uh. He was born in Puerto Rico, and he moved to the continental United States at a young age. His acting career seems to have consist of two different periods. He did some exploitation films when he was very young, including this one, and then some other film work later in his life after he retired from a career as a as a pe teacher for the for the New York City Board of Education. He you can look him up there in his their websites about

him and memorials to him. He apparently sang he was a much beloved uh master, I think a grand master of a particular system of martial arts. Uh that he did not I don't think he did not found this. The school of Martial Arts was founded by a guy in the name of Frank Ruez. But yeah, he was an accomplished martial artist and like sort of a regional celebrity.

You know, you'd hear to talk about like New York City people, you know, uh, the sort of characters that that fill up the city that might not necessarily be no own by people who are not themselves New Yorkers. What seems like Wilfredo was one of those individuals. And he's a he's he's pretty good in this movie. You see him that I was throwing some amazing kicks and

he's he's not bad. As an actor. I feel like he's got as a sort of a natural chrisma as well, but also a kind of uh something you don't trust about him. He's got a meanness to him, and of course that comes out in the character as well. Now there's another martial arts really partial martial artist character that shows up earlier on and that's a cop character by the name of Chris and Chris was played by Larry Fleischman. Uh, this is another like Warhawk age unknown. Don't know when

this guy was born. Um, presumably still alive. British born actor. He popped up in nine Johnny Got His Gun. He was on All My Children, Law and Order, a couple of video games. He's perfectly fine in this. Now another really interesting and weird actor that shows up in this film. Not very much like he basically shows up for two scenes, almost as if you wander into the shot and they decided to pay him. Um. But a wonderful, wonderful actor that many people probably know by his his stage name,

his performance name. Talking about brother Theodore. Oh, his scene in this movie was one of the best parts of the whole thing. Yeah, um, I think is it two scenes? Is he also? Is there a scene where he's looking at a dead body in a subway with some police officers for no real reason. Uh? If so, I missed, don't recall that one. I remember the one where he's preaching to the crowd, and we'll get to that later. Yeah. He mainly just has a ranting scene. So yeah. Brother

Theodore also known as Theodore Gottlieb. He was born in nineteen o six, died in two thousand and one, and I read, I've read that he improved all of his lines in this as well. Um, he was a German American actor who performed a kind of stream of consciousness stand up and he has a fascinating life. I was reading the New York Times, Oh bit for him by Douglas Martin, and the whole thing's worth reading. Fascinating character. But I want to read just these, these, these two

snippets from it quote. Born to great wealth in Germany, he ended up in Dachau, only to be released when he signed over the family's great fortune for a single mark. Einstein, said by some of Mr Gottlieb's friends to have been his mother's lover, helped him get to the United States. And then we also here, always an aristocrat, he suddenly found himself working as a janitor at Stanford University, where

he managed to defeat thirty professors at chess simultaneously. So I don't know, Okay, I don't know anything about this guy. So I admit I'm coming from a place of ignorance. But I feel incredulous at reading these sentences the thirty I mean also knowing that he is very much a performer and um uh and and kind of a professional weirdo. I mean, I don't doubt him on the on the core backstory here, but the chess thing raises my suspicion.

Maybe he really was a brilliant chess uh player? And and which is you know, wiped up the matt with a bunch of Stanford University professors. But I don't know either way. I like them the myth building though, because he seems this is one of those weird characters you see show up in some stuff and um, yeah, it seems like it's hard to tell where the mythology ends in the real life begins with him. But anyway, he he ended up in the United States eventually got into

acting in comedy. He had a small part in Orson Wells The Stranger in nineteen forty six, which was his first role, and many of our listeners probably know him from his final picture. He shows up in nine the Bourbs. Do you remember the Bourbs? Joe? Um? Is that the one with Tom Hanks. I'm not sure that I've seen it. It's it's one I saw when I was a kids. I haven't seen it as an adult. But you have a number of of weird character actors playing weird neighbors

in that. I think Bruce Dern is in it as well a couple other people that you know, people would viewers would recognize. But yeah, but yeah, Brother Theodore, isn't it playing one of the neighborhood weirdos and it's pretty pretty good. I'm sorry, does they have vampires? I don't think it has vampires. I think it's just weirdos. It's got while since I've seen it. I don't remember what the payoff was, but there was a lot of like creepy goings on and like suburban basements. May be confusing

the bourbs with the money pit. Yeah, different movie, but some very similar era, I think now. Brother Theodore has two excellent voice actor performances on his um filmography from the animated films of Drunken and Bass. So he uh he played Have you ever seen two? Is the Last Unicorn? Joe No, I haven't Okay? Fabulous film score by America, wonderful,

wonderful vocal of voice acting performances throughout. But Brother Theodore places character Rock Uh Hunchback who attends the witch Mommy Fortuna, who runs this, uh, this I Joe of of magical creatures and monsters, and so he's this, uh, he's this really fun character and not a not a huge character in the film, but a memorable one. Another character you played in the Ranking and Bess animated films. He voiced Gollum in nineteen seventy seven The Hobbit and in nineteen

eighties The Return of the King. Both great roles, both great performances. Um, I have to say, I've i've I've fallen back in love with the original animated Hobbit in the last couple of years, and I think i'm I can without a doubt. I can say, brother Theodore is my Gollum. Can you sing the songs? No? I can't sing sing the song, but has good songs in it too. Seven The Hobbit also one movie. It's it's it's brilliant. They managed to fit that that entire short book into

one short film. I don't think you could do it in less than for six hour movies. Yeah, somehow they did it. Ranken and Best. Okay, who else we got in this? Alright? So we have some The next one I want to mention because it's it's a weird uh credit. On the the cast for this, there's somebody that is referred to as um Uh Skagi Tanzania or as uh Tissagy Iron Prist Tanzania. And I'm not sure if that's supposed to be priest or if it's priest misspelled, like

maybe it's uh uh Sakaki Iron Priest Tanzania. I don't know. I don't know which character this is. I don't know why they also have the last name Tanzania. It's a total mystery to me. It just adds to the allure of the film. Though. Yeah, we have a We have an actor by the name of Aki along in this who plays a Chinese businessman. He was born in nineteen thirty four Asian actor, born in Trinidad and Tobago. He has a bit this is a bit part. It's not really much to but it's memorable. We'll get to it.

But he has a number of parts in a lot of films. Over the years. He did some acting and directing. He was in two episodes of the original Outer Limits. He was on the As the World Turns, He was in The General Hospital, Jake and the Fat Man Babylon five, and he was also in Dragging the Bruce Lee story. Okay,

we have a character actor show up as well. Uh, and this is another one where I don't think he really does much in this film, but the actor Teddy Wilson, but he has some brief but minoral interactions because you can in he's one of these actors where you know, war Hawks great in this, but war Hawk doesn't have a lot of nuance to his performance. But Teddy Wilson, you can tell like this is a guy who who gets some of the the intricacies of acting in ways

that the martial artists maybe do not. It's always an interesting dynamic in martial arts films where the main cast is full of martial artists, people who you could say are martial artists first, an actors second, and then they will often try to round it out just by filling in like great character actors, to bring in that kind of personality and texture that's not always there in people

who's whose first thing is martial arts. Yeah, yeah, and so yeah, Teddy Teddy Wilson definitely stands out talented actor. He lived through Um he played Sweet Daddy Williams on Good Times, and he did a lot of additional TV work popping up on big TV shows from that era, including, but not limited to, by any means, All in the Family, Sanford and Son, The Bionic Woman, The Jefferson's, the nineteen eighties Twilight Zone series l a Law, Alien Nation, family Matters,

and even Tales from the Crypt. He was in the episode Fitting Punishment. I don't know if you remember this one, but this uh, this had a uh it involved a black funeral home and you had the wonderful actor Moses Gunn playing this tyrannical funeral director there like being being just like a just really hard on his nephew. No, I don't think I've seen it. It's it's a good It's not like Top Shelf, uh, Tales from the Crypt, but it's it's pretty good. And Teddy Wilson shows up

in it. Um. But yeah, Teddy Wilson was He isn't a bunch of stuff. He was in films by John Cassavetti's Blake Edwards, and he was in the nineteen eighties Steve McQueen movie The Hunter. Alright. Some other names of note and also names that are barely worth noting. There's an actor by the name of Stephen DeFazio, who plays Sam the lugheaded cop Um a memorable character in the film, but this is his only film role. Um. But yeah, he's he's pretty fun as a lugheaded conspiracy theory spreading

a police officer. Wait, is he supposed to be a lughead? I get that he's like the butt of jokes, but I thought the whole point was that he's kind of like Harley Stone's new partner. He's like the he's I've got a criminology degree. He's, you know, bringing this kind of like smooth academic sensibility that's actually stupid. I mean, maybe that's what they were going for. I got more lugheaded conspiracy theory spreader. Uh. He he is the guy who keeps saying that the murders caused by the demon

and the subway tunnels are actually caused by mutant cats. Okay, but but he's fine. Clearly the they ended up like ending on a note from him with the film, so that they clearly like the character once they got it on the screen. All right. Uncredited, but Ron Becks is in this as a martial arts student. Uncredited in this picture, but he went on to direct, produce, and star in several low budget movies. I think is still making low

budget movies. Um, starring in pictures that he directed opposite such names as One Time Bond, George Lasenby, and even Eric Roberts. And you know Eric Roberts won't just appear in anything. Um. Here's another one of note. Paul Glickmana

was the director of photography on this. He was also a cinematographer on some other famous seventies genre films, including The Stuff and God Told Me To Now, as far as music goes on this film, I don't think it really has a score per se, but they do feature a number of different musical bits, and it features several tracks from a music group called Rising Sun like Son and Daughter Rising Sun, which which didn't mean anything to me until I started looking into it a little bit.

And these songs were written by Harlem disco legend Patrick Adams. Now, if you haven't heard of Patrick Adams, you'r you can be forgiven for that. Apparently he's he's often um forgotten or not recognized outside of the genre, but is what is is very well respected within the disco genre and in DJ circles. Uh. There was a two thousand seventeen Guardian profile about him that described him as quote the

underground disco super producer whom DJ is still at doore. Okay, So even if you don't know the name Patrick Adams off the top of your your head, you've you've probably heard some of the songs that he worked on. Uh. Some some of these songs were prominently featured in other movies, including Uh, Touched Me All Night Long performed by Fonda Ray and the band Wish from four, which is a minor hit on its own, but then it went on to be featured in A Nightmare on Elm Street to

Freddie's Revenge. I know that movie well. Other tracks that he had a hand in include Dance Dance Dance by Martin Acuna, in the Bush by Music, Keep On Jumping by Music. Um that's also the name of the seventy eight album and you can look that up in Spotify. It's it's great stuff, just wonderful seventies disco vibe. Also Till You Surrender by Rainbow Brown and many others. So, uh, this ended up. At first, I thought there wasn't gonna be anything special with the music on this picture, but

it turns out it was very special. So if you if you're not familiar with the work of Patrick Adams, look it up. Uh, you've heard it before, you said, didn't realize you've heard it before. But yeah, he had his hand in so many great tracks, and I think

he's still making music today. I also really enjoyed the soundtrack on this, and one of the things I liked was the sudden transitions between like really great uh pulsing U disco or or funk music immediately cutting to like throbbing deep sea sound effects when it was trying to get the demon in your mind. Yeah, all right, well let's get the demon in mind on this episode. Let's jump into the plot of Devil's Express. Alrighty well, the very first thing we see we get a little title.

It says China two Where in China? Just somewhere in China, Though it quickly becomes a parent that any scene in this film that's supposed to take place in China is clearly still New York. Specifically, I think they shot this at Harriman State Park, Bear Mountain. Uh so, yeah, it's it's very obviously not China, but it's supposed to be. What do you think the scene of the plane landing in Hong Kong. You think that was real stock footage.

I think it was real stock footage all the way now here at Harriman State Park in in China, we have some monks who are disposing of some kind of fearful artifact. That's the first thing you see him in a train sort of not a train, like a locomotive. That they are walking in a row carrying this big box like a sarcophagus almost, or like they're carrying the ark of the covenant. And uh, they are also there.

They're being watched over by this kind of head priest guy, and they have in their possession a mirrored amulet, and they take this big box and the mirrored amulet deep into a cave in the forest, and they deposit the amulet in the box in the cave, and then I guess it's Quentin time. And once it's quit In time, they are all beheaded. I think this is presumably so they take the secret of the amulet to the grave with them. So their their leader, after beheading each of

them in a row, he cuts his own throat. And so one would assume that the secret evil of whatever is in that boxes is now safe forever or is it? Well, yeah, they don't count on meddling more martial artists from the United States coming to China and the twentieth century. One thing I like in this movie is that, at least in this opening scene. I think this was actually less true in some of the later scenes, but in this opening it has some really way over the line sound effects.

It's one of those things where somebody swings a sword and hits nothing, just swings it in the air, but it produces this extremely loud steel cable kind of sound. And then after that we get to one of these great editing montages I was talking about earlier, which is

really funny because it's cutting during the opening credits. It's cutting between a subway tunnel with these spooky, deep chirping sounds and no music, and then immediately back to crowded streets in New York City with feel good music at full volume. And then we meet our hero. We meet Warhawk Tanzania playing this guy named Luke Curtis, and Luke is teaching martial arts in his studio. He's sparring with this Christian slatery kind of guy who is weird to

find out is the police detective. And apparently there's a relationship where this guy is Luke's student and he keeps trying to recruit Luke to become a cop. I think, is that how you understood it? Yeah. By the way, some of the synopsis you will find of this movie online say that Luke is a cop, and that is

absolutely not correct. Luke is not a cop. He does not appreciate, uh, this guy's attempts to recruit him to be a cop, and he says something he says, next time you try to recruit me to that pig pin of yours, I stopped pulling my punches and ice you. Yeah. Yeah,

so yeah, not definitely not a cop. Um. But but that doesn't mean he can't train with the cop I think one of the key messages of this film is that martial arts is a unifier and he can unify um, you know, different gangs, different races, different cultures, and and also it can it can unify you know, you can even throw the police in there and everybody could get along if they are practicing martial arts and sweating profusely.

If they're practicing martial arts with the right state of mind, that seems to be Luke's ethos that martial arts is not just about fighting, it also involves some kind of higher wisdom and and h and an orientation toward peace. Yes.

Now Luke's student Rodan comes in and again this is the guy played by Wilfredo Roldan, and uh, they start talking with the cops student here, and we find out that Luke and Rodan are about to travel to what Luke says is fabulous downtown Hong Kong, and then they're going to go for a week of self improvement, which we find it later they're going to like a monastery of some kind to to to train to the level of perfection like they've they've clearly both Luke and Rodana

are performing at such a high level the only way they can improve is to is to go on journeys like this. So after the student leaves, we we sort of get a picture that Luke and Rodan are hope would you I would say that it seems like they are adjacent to the criminal underworld, but Luke at the same time as a sort of do good or who fights for justice. Rodan, meanwhile, not so much. He comes

off as mean, course selfish, and shortsighted. And so so if Luke is somewhere in the lawful good zone, or at least neutral good, he's kind of a night of the fist. Rodan is somewhere more like chaotic neutral, he will get into trouble. He's a rogue. Yes. And we also learned from this interaction that, let's see, we learned that there are gangs, and they talk about the gangs, and we learned that they have disdained for cops and

for the man. Now they immediately go to Hong Kong uh And in the Hong Kong segments, I wondered if in the version of the movie you watched, was there some dialogue audio that was missing here, Like there are parts where they arrive and the master of this place speaks to them, speaks to our heroes, but he's got

his back turned, and I heard nothing. Yeah. There they were a couple of scenes in this where it maybe it made me wonder if they didn't get the sound quality they wanted, or they or they later decided that the actual dialogue was unnecessary or perhaps dumb um. There's a later scene that I particularly remember, where characters are having a prolonged conversation and there's nothing really visually interesting

going on, but we have music playing over it. So it really felt like, well, maybe they didn't get the sound they needed on this particular scene, so they're just gonna roll some some fabulous disco music on top of it. Yeah, no complaints, but Luke has complaints. Luke has complaints about Rodan's attitude because at this monastery, it's clear that Luke is fully committed to attaining the highest level of martial arts mastery. He's he's on the ball, but Rodan, he

is distracted. His head is elsewhere. His head is all clogged up with the lingering frustrations of New York and UH and sort of stresses and maybe desires for vengeance. And so after he reached is the highest level of physical prowess, Luke has to bring his mind to the same level of transcendence, which they say is achieved by sending him off to meditate in a special place in the wilderness while his specially chosen favorite keeps guard over him.

And he chooses Rodan, and that does not seem like a good choice. So while Luke is in a trance achieving higher levels of spirituality, Rodan being Rodan, wanders off and gets into trouble instead. And so what he does is he wanders into a cave and oh no, it's a cave of forgotten demons, it's the cave from the beginning of the movie. And he finds a secret amulet, snatches it, runs off, and then it's pretty much back

to New York. Yeah, yeah, right back into They fly back and they've they've got they've got business to take care of, and they're out to do it. But we we immediately see the evil that seeps from this ancient sarcophagus in the cave now that it's not being contained by the power of the amulet, because the removal of the amulet has of course released to the monster from the cage, and we we get a montage where the demon now travels to New York. I was wondering at first, like, wait,

why does the demon travel to New York? But maybe he's he's after the amulet? Is that how you so he will he must want the ammulet, like maybe he thinks he can destroy the amulet. The film doesn't quite explain it, but it's it's what's happening. But the demon travels by. So first he's got he does appear to have like a bodily form. He's not just like a ghost, because you see he's got these hands with claws as he's crawling up out of the water. But then he

possesses somebody and doesn't have a body anymore. He just possesses a guy's body, and it's his boat passenger. Yeah, just a Chinese businessman who seems to be out doing his own thing, and now the demon is inside him. And now it's time for the demon to take this fleshly vessel, get on another vessel and travel to New York as well. Right, So maybe he picked this guy because this guy had a ticket to travel to New York by boat. Yeah, which is traveling to New yor

work by both. That's a long trip. Yeah. Oh. But also when the man becomes possessed by the demon, the way they signal that is it gives him these huge, wild white eyes with tiny pupils. It looks kind of to me like they cut out wedges of ping pong balls and and taped them over the actor's eyes. Do you think that's what they're doing here. It's either that or they had him click keep his eyes closed, and they painted his lids white and put the black peoples

on them. Um, both of these are ridiculous directions to go in and it looks somewhat goofy, but also, I don't know, somewhat effective within the context of this particular film. Yes, and so when they get to when the Demon gets to New York, the guy immediately scrambles down into the subway tunnels. This is where his home is now and it's where he will remain for the rest of the film. Now, back with our characters like Luke and Rodan, we see

we see Rodan getting into more and more trouble. He's getting mixed up with double dealings, with drugs, with money and gangs. And Rodan ends up with a thirst for vengeance after he is robbed by one of the Chinese gangs. Meanwhile, they have they talk about it and Luke chides him for basically for messing around with this low life stuff. He's very clear, Luke is like, this is not what martial arts is about. Yeah, and so the movie is projecting this sort of Jedi Sith vision of martial arts.

You can be like a you can be a good martial artist. You can be a bad martial artist. And if you're bad, that's not real martial arts. It's no true scotsman about martial arts. Yeah, Luke Is is practicing martial arts almost um, just for itself. You know, He's he's practicing it because martial arts is like the path to enlighten it, whereas Rodan he sees it as the as a means of of kicking butt and advancing in whatever criminal pursuit he's he's wandering into petty vengeance, etcetera.

Right now, in the meantime, we get a demon transformation scene that I had high hopes for this. It was okay, it wasn't it wasn't crazy good. I thought it exceeded expectations. Okay, okay, I mean do you work for me. I mean it's poorly lit. It's in the subway, and his body just goes super gross and starts sort of crumbling and rotting and he becomes this this rotten, gooey skeleton man in the subways. Yeah, so he bleeds. He first he bleeds

red blood, then he bleeds green blood. Then he tears holes in his own torso, and then the transformation takes I wonder if the demon had higher hopes for for New York City, you know, like he moved to New York in the form of a businessman. He thought he was gonna ascend in the world. He was gonna rise up, He's gonna be living in one of those skyscrapers making big deals. But it just didn't work out that way, and instead here he is rotting in the subway. That's

he goes down to the tunnels. He's like, all right, ready for deals, and then he's looking around. He's like, where are the deals. He's trying to make deals with rats, He's trying to make deals with discarded you know, coffee cups, and it's not working out. So he's like, oh, to hell with this and just transforms. Yeah, He's like, I

guess I'll just do more killings. Now Here, we get into a part of the movie where there are some street fight scenes where Rodan and his friends confront a rival gang in an alley, and uh, this New York City street fight does involve swords, which is good choice. Yeah, I mean the swords, but also also some just really impressive kicks, Like I don't know that I would really hold this up as an example of great martial arts choreography. But it it looks pretty good. There's some really high kicks,

I mean rolled In and and Warhawk Tanzania. They can they can really do it. Yeah. Now, at some point in the middle of the fight the rival gang, they see that Rodan has this amulet he's hanging on a necklace around his neck, and one of the guys sees that and then they're just like oh no, and they bolt. And I guess this suggests they are aware of its association with the indescribable evil that will turn your blood green. Yeah,

it seems to be the case. I also wonder if if the Demon's arrival in New York, if it has somehow had this effect on the surface world here, like there's more conflict because the demon is present, you know, oh yeah, getting into a vego of the Carpathian situation again. Yeah, maybe it's kind of a Ghostbusters thing going on, Yeah, making everybody mean Yeah. But here we reached the part

of the movie where it's cop time. So remember the cop who was training with Luke earlier, Well, it seems like he is a He is a grimy, chain smoking detective. I think his first lines or some one of the first things he says when we meet him again later in the movie is something about how he's like drowning in alimony payments and and what do you know, He's got a new partner. He has a new partner who

the guy you called a lug heead. But I could be wrong, but I think the way you're supposed to read him is he is a nerdy, sort of by the book academic criminology type who doesn't know anything about the real world. Okay, it could it could could be the game. Okay, but I got say, Officer Christopher is Noah Harley Stone. Uh. But he does end up taking it too personal, though I guess not as personal as as the ultimate hero of the film, who of course is Luke. But so they're called into solve a murder.

There has been a gruesome killing in the subway tunnels. They say, oh, it looks like he got caught in a meat grinder, and there's immediately a reporter on the case trying to pride details out of Christopher Christopher, and Christopher insists that he has a theory about who the killer is, which is not true at all, and he admits to his partner when the reporter leaves. But after this we get a sense of the demons m O.

Because we watch him kill a guy. So there's a guy who wanders down into the subway tunnels wearing a plaid blazer, and then the demon, in a monotone voice, says, helped me. It's dark in here, I'm stuck. And the guy in the plaid blazers like, oh, someone needs help, and he wanders off into the tunnel help them, and then munch. Yeah, so we were learning that our demon here isn't just a monster that grabs people or a monster that possesses people. He's also a master of illusion.

Perhaps he's a deceiver. His his illusions at the climax of the film are much better than the illusion here. This is just a monotone voice saying things in a way that sounds totally implausible, saying help me, I am trapped. Later in the movie, he can fully transform into other people. Yeah, yeah, well, maybe he's still growing in power at this point. You know, he's still absorbing the the the energy of New York City and transforming it into his own evil. Right. So

immediately there is a second subway victim. The detectives are back on the case. The new partner is is vomiting at the side of the carnage on the tracks. But this was the part we're talking about with the conspiracy theories. The new partner he's got, he's got something to share with the reporter, and it's this, basically, all the animals that live in the sewers, including cat, rats, dogs, maybe alligators, have mutated and come up into the subway tunnels to

attack and eat people. And this seems to be an obsession of this characters of Doctor Criminology here because in multiple later scenes in the movie, he's explaining about how the sewers have alligators that are twice the size of normal alligators with fangs that will chop a man's leg right off, and they're they're cats and dogs and rats that survived by cannibalism down there, and it's just yet fastered into this unnatural subworld environment and that's what's eating people.

He's like regaling the all the people hanging out at the bar where where Luke and Rodan hang out with with these theories later in the movie, and they seem quite entertained. You know. I will say the middle third of the movie does not have enough war Hawk Tanzania in it. It's all it's mostly Rodan doing his gang fights and then the cops investigating murders. Now, did we mention the long scene? It just shows like a day in the life and love of war Hock Tanzania's character, Luke. Oh,

we didn't. But it's very sweet. It's got a good soundtrack, and it's just showing him I guess with his his wife or I'm not quite sure who she was, his wife or his girlfriend. Um, and it just shows them like eating together and hanging out and it's it seems great. There's one scene I think they're eating scrambled eggs with chopsticks.

Yes they are. Yeah, that's great. So you can reflect on this sequence when you're stuck in the part of the movie where there's little to no war, right, that's true.

But eventually we get back on track when Detective Christopher Christopher concludes that the murders may have something to do with Luke's school uh and when he approaches him about the idea and about working together, Luke does not want anything to do with it, again, re establishing this theme, this dynamic that Luke from the movie's point of view, Luke is clearly lawful, good, but he also wants nothing to do with the police there. You know, they're they're

portrayed as a dirty, corrupt organization. Yeah, yeah, there's there's at least one line there where they're the characters are concerned that the heat's gonna come down and that the police are just gonna come in indiscriminately with shotguns. You know. So I think Luke has legitimate concerns here. He doesn't want any part of that world. Right. So meanwhile, the subway Monster mallings and the rod In gang fights continue.

These two plot lines converge when Rodin becomes outnumbered in a gang fight, runs down a subway tunnel to escape, and there the demon kills him by shoving his face into some kind of electrical panel, which fries him. Yeah. I mean, Rodin has been really thrown down with some amazing kicks, uh, you know, taken on multiple guys at once. But the Monster just gets the drop on him and just fries his face. But it's a great sequence though, because you see him like grab his throat, you see

his face twist into this this strange expression. And then later when we see his corpse. We we see like a like fried Rodin, like they did some sort of a crude but effective makeup job. Oh yeah, yeah, they really do show him cooked. So when Luke sees this, he is enraged and he thinks it was the work of the Red Dragon Gang and he goes on a martial arts rampage to meet their leader and find out

what happens. So there's another street fight scene. Uh, this fight scene where he goes and he fights some of the members of the gang. The opponents are mostly wearing jeans and T shirts. But I gotta point out in this scene, Warhawk Tanzania is dressed awesomely. He's wearing these amazing like shiny gold pants with flared legs. Yeah yeah, Now is this the costume that he also wears into the final fight. I was actually wondering about that. In the final fight when he goes to confront the demon,

he's not wearing a shirt. He's just wearing gold suspenders. And they might they're the same kind of color as the ones in the scene, but they might be different. I'm not sure. At anyway, he's he's always dressed fabulously. Uh. He goes into a fight knowing that he needs to you know, he needs to hit hard physically but also

from a fashion standpoint. So after he goes to fight the Red Dragons, they explained to him that they did not in fact kill Rodan, and they take Luke to a wise old man who will explain to the to him the truth about the amulet and the demon. And uh, I don't know that. It was hard to tell, but this wise old man either has some major makeup on his face or it's a person in a mask. Yeah, and I was left wondering if this was in fact

the mysterious Iron Priest Tanzania. Then we encountered. I'm not sure, but in any right, Yeah, this is the scene where the wise old man explains what's happening to our our heroes and sets them on the course towards the defeat of evil. So it goes like this. The old man says, two thousand years ago, the sorcerer Master Longtime would allow some men to be possessed by demons, and these he

would use to terrorize villages in cities. Master Cheong Dao produced the amulet in which he trapped the spirit of the demon. And this is the amulet your friend took this monster is released into the world. As long as the Amulet exists, the demon is deprived of most of his power. Even though he is still strong, he is unable to tolerate And I think what he says here is light. But for the longest time, I thought he said flight, and I was I was just baffled, trying

to understand that that's the boat. Yeah, but I mean it made sense because he took the boat and he's unable to tolerate flight. And then he goes on to say, that is why your subways are a perfect place for him to hide. But he's got a mean light, right, I think that is what he says. Yeah, I can't tolerate the tolerate the light. That's why he's in the subways. But all this with the Amulet makes sense now. He followed the Amulet to the United States because he wants

to destroy the Annual. Its the only way that he can achieve his maximum power. Huh. And when he finishes the explanation, Luke reacts, he says, in my head, story is fantastic, But in my heart, I know you're speaking the truth. So I think we're also to understand that Luke has Luke has powerful intuitions, right, he did an intuition check on that story, and yeah, he nailed it. What kind of check is that? Is that insight he rolled the wisdom wisdom modifier? Yeah, yeah, that would be

that would be inside. So we learned from the old Man that the demon will stop at nothing to regain this amulet. By destroying it, he will be free, forever, immortal and indestructible. Whoa uh so, Luke. Luke immediately admits that he feels personally responsible for unleashing the demon in the world because he took Rodan with him on the trip, and Rodan was the one who stole the amulet. And so there's only one way to fix it. It's got

to be a one on one showdown. Luke must defeat the demon in single combat, and if he loses, the demon will eat his soul. Do you think the demon ate the souls of the other people are just killed them. It's a good question. Unless he's a fast eater. I think maybe he skipped on eating some of the souls. I don't know, but I'm not sure exactly how this demon consumes the souls. It's say, maybe it's just an

automatic effect that takes place whenever he murders somebody. So Luke has warned that the demon is going to try to attack his mind, assuming the forms of those he loves most and those he fears most. He will use every trick in the book, the old Man says, And he says that while Luke is fighting, he will uh, he will help Luke by he says, I will place my mind with yours. Perhaps together we will be stronger

than one. Yeah, so this is so we're setting up the ultimate battle here, good versus evil warhawk Tanzania against an ancient demon in New York City subway tunnels. Um, it's this is what we've been working for. This is what the trailer promised us, right, And so the next scene is very funny. This is when we alluded to earlier. It's it. On one hand, you've got the foreground action, which is Luke is arguing with Officer Christopher that he has to go down into the subway and fight the

demon and uh, and Christopher disagrees. Meanwhile, right next to them, I think this is theater Gottli, Right. So he's out preaching a street sermon about how all your gods are dead and the rats are shrieking. Yeah, it's pretty great because he's I think he's saying something like like Jesus Christ is dead, Buddha is dead, and then he ends with something I think he says, and I'm not feeling so great myself. How did that connect to the thing about the rats shrieking? I don't know, I don't know.

It's it's his presence in this film is so weird because it makes you wonder how it came together, how they how they got him for this, what they told him to do, Like it totally works, improved, it does seem improved, and it's it adds to just the overall weird.

It seems right that there should be somebody in the film, uh like, ranting about what's going on below, Like it seems it feels appropriately New York, you know, like this is this is some some well injected New York weirdness into this motion picture that would be a good bumper sticker. Though all your gods are dead and the rats are shrieking.

The poetry of this movie. Yeah, so I think while Christopher is distracted, Luke defies the police order goes on down anyway, because you know, he doesn't obey a man's law. And he goes on down carrying the amulet, and the confrontation of the Demon happens. And it's kind of like at the end of the first Mortal Kombat game, you know, where the boss is transforming into all the other fighters you fought along the way. The Demon takes the but also the Demon takes the form of people he loves.

So the Demon appears in the form of his wife, in the form of the police, in the form of Rodan, and in the form of a train. Yeah, it is. It is kind of like the ye the Battle of San Sung at the end of the first Mortal Combat. Creatures taken on all these forms and and I, depending on the shot, looks pretty good. I think in some

of these these scenes, like the it's your costume. Clearly this was not it's not a Tom Tom Savini joint here or anything, but you get it into an actual New York City subway tunnel, and I feel like you're lighting limitations probably do some of the work for you. Yeah, when we see him in full form, the Demon is

a kind of skull beast from the Black Lagoon. He has uh sort of a skull outside of his skull, would you say, Yeah, he's kind of like imagine a a skeleton made entirely of cartilage that then was swollen with the corruption and evil. Uh you know this very um you know nerdalsome kind of body to him. Yeah. Yeah, uh. Now we'll leave it up to you to guess whether Warholck Tanzani is is victorious and defeating the demon or not.

But one thing that happens after this is we after the final fight, we I think, go to the hospital and they're in the hospital. There's a scene that I think is meant to convey a sort of like harmony has been achieved between or the factions and gangs that have been ang at each other earlier. It is such a sweet, dumb ending because yeah, you have you have the police hanging out, you have Warhawk Tanzania, You've got

members of both gangs. Everybody has come together. The supernatural evil has been defeated and and everyone has been able to unify. Martial arts has brought people together, and it's going to be a new dawn in New York City. I like it. And then over the end of credits, you see the old man from earlier taking the amulet out to see he goes on a boat. I'm not sure what he's gonna do with it. Is the implication that he'll he'll like throw it in the ocean or something.

I thought maybe he was taking it back to China. Oh, that would make sense to put it back in the cave where it came from, I guess, and hopefully, but we're hopefully hide it somewhere better. Otherwise another road roadan is going to show up and just wander into the cave and make off with it. That cave was way too close to the monastery. Yeah, and sadly we're not.

I was hoping they would tell us at the end, Warhawk Tanzania will return in Warhawk Tanzania, you know, like like I wanted more the promise of more war Hack Tanzania at the end, or that you know, at least that Luke would be back. But uh, sadly it did not come to pass. Don't be sad that it's over. Be glad that it happened. Yeah. Yeah, in a way,

like the stars aligned perfectly on this um Uh. The the the interview that I read with will Fredo, one of the things that he pointed out, is that he was in some of these films and then he realized that it was just gonna be a real struggle to make any money, to make a living doing this, and that's why he got He became a teacher, you know, both in the New York school system, but then also

as a as a martial arts instructor. And so you know, one imagines that that that's probably something like that happened with war Hock Tanzania as well. The man behind the myth uh, you know, moved on to something more mundane and maybe something more satisfying um or again, Warhock Tanzania continued the battle and it's still battling today, fighting all the various demons in the world and their various subworld layers and uh and and protecting the surf this world

from absolute chaos. Well, wherever he is, I hope he's doing great. If you're listening, email us. Yeah, I mean, you know, no joking, he was. He's terrific in this I I love war Hawk Tanzania. Uh really delivers in this film. Alright, So you're probably wondering where can I get some war Hawk Tanzania. Where can I watch Devil's Express. Well, I think the first place I saw this film, like we're first caught my attention that I saw it on Amazon Prime. I think it's still on Prime. You might

have to like rent it through Prime. But the full film is also widely available on YouTube. You can find it on to Be as well. And then also we mentioned the Blu ray from Code Red. Uh, there's a blu ray of the film that's that's available. It's that he uses a two thousand, sixteen two K scan of the original negative. So that's pretty cool. Viewer discretion is advised. Yes, definitely, definitely. All right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and a close close the book on this one. We're gonna go ahead

and and restore the Amulet to its subterranean crypt. But if you would like to listen to other episodes of Weird House Cinema, you will find them in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. Uh, we have Weird House Cinema on Fridays, but our normal science episodes are Core episodes are on Tuesdays and Thursday's Listener Mail on

Monday's and on an episode of the Artifact on Wednesdays. Uh. You can find the podcast feed wherever you get your podcast, but you can also go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com that will shoot you over to the I Heart listing for this page, and if you look around on that page, there's also a store button. Uh. And indeed, if you go to the store now as of this recording, you can get a sticker or a magnet with the Weird House Cinema logo on it. And I hope very soon that there will be a T

shirt available as well. They're having to do something else with the logo file to make it work, but by the time this episode airs, maybe maybe there'll be a shirt, but there at least will be a sticker or a magnet you can get. Huge thanks as always to our ex slim audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at

contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.