Tao da liang da xian shen wei (1988)

... aka: 桃太郎大顯神威

... aka: 新桃太郎２

... aka: 驅魔童

... aka: Child of Peach 2

... aka: Magic of Spell

... aka: Magic of Stell

... aka: Momotaro Shows Off His Power

... aka: Qu mo tong

... aka: Shin Momotaro 2

... aka: Tao tai lang da xian shen wei

... aka: Xin dai tao liang

Directed by:

Chung-Hsing Chao

Usually sequels are a marked downgrade from the original, but this sequel to the previous year's CHILD OF PEACH (1987) is thankfully about on par and every bit as bizarre, entertaining and fun! Peach Boy (again played by young actress Hsiao-Lao Lin) has managed to stamp out most of the evil in the world and now merrily spends his days feeding orphaned baby birds, saving bunnies from hunters and rescuing children with lazy mothers who are unwilling to wade into 20 feet of water to save their drowning offspring. However, a small group of evil survivors are congregating in a castle called The Devil's Palace, where they plot to find a way to "control the human beings." Led by a powerful, old white-haired devil-sorcerer (Shan Chang), who spends much of his time lounging in a giant bubbling blood bath hoping to regenerate himself and has no issue zapping his own followers with his laser finger when they piss him off, the group have their sights set on terminating Peach Boy, who's the only one currently getting in their way of world domination.

We then meet a well-intentioned idiot (Pao-Ming Ku) who is not named in the English subs but is apparently called Yat-Tuan in the original version so that's what I'm calling him. Despite having a rough childhood, constantly getting bullied and being a societal outcast, he appears blessed with at least some good dumb luck. After making his way through the woods to a graveyard, Yat-Tuan somehow manages to defeat two zombies and a walking skeleton in such an accidental manner that he doesn't realize two zombies and a walking skeleton were even ever around him. The orphaned Yat-Tuan basically worships Peach Boy and, despite being quite a bit older and with only experience as a puppeteer, is desperate for his hero to become his new master so he can teach him how to be brave and fight back.

Yat-Tuan finally tracks Peach and her now-widowed elderly mother (Mei Fang Yu, also returning from the first film) down, and does everything in his power to kiss up to them: running baths, cleaning, serving, massaging, etc. They take him into their home, though he'll have to overcome his cowardice and build up his self-esteem in order to prove himself, which, oddly enough, he never actually does!

Meanwhile, the old sorcerer is getting impatient because his daily blood baths have not been restoring his youth. His black magician assistant (Ching-Wei Shen) suggests they instead try "1000 virgin's blood and a magic stuff" to restore him, so the sorcerer sends his army out to slaughter villagers and kidnap their children. And, in case that fails, the magician picks up a few pointers from the locals, who use pinwheels around a cave to attract the legendary, thousand-year-old Ginseng Boy, who pops out of the ground after it's shot by a yellow beam from the moon (?!) The magician hopes that adding the dancing ginseng root will restore his master's youth.

Parents start showing up at Peach Boy's home begging for him to help find their kids, though seeing how they're never mentioned again or seen after this scene, we can safely assume they ended up in the blood bath! Either way, Peach Boy is dragged back into the action, which becomes personal after they attack his home, kill his mother and leave him and Yat-Tuan for dead; who are only spared from death because Peach Boy's large magical peach pops out of the well to make a surprise and very-well-timed cameo. The two are able to recuperate from their injuries and are later joined by Peach Boy's monkey (Yu-Ta Tsu), doggy (Chi-Chiang Chen) and chicken (Yu-jiu Yang) friends, who are never shown in full animal form this time out but still have a few tricks up their sleeve.

The sorcerer (who is just called “Devil” or “Elder” in the English subtitles) has four main minions who do most of his dirty work. Aside from the aforementioned magician, there's also a green, ogre-looking dude who has a mini-bazooka that blows stuff up, a muscleman called Stone (Hsiung Yang), who uses a boulder as a weapon and is able to transform into a red-eyed rock monster with razor teeth and Miss White (Li-Chang Peng); an ugly, white-haired, white-faced ghost / witch.

If this is harmed by anything, it's recycling too many plot points / gags from the earlier film, including having Peach Boy yet again trying to get revenge after his parents are killed and Yat-Tuan basically being a copycat of the previous Knight Melon character right down to attracting the attention of the ugly witch, who's again played by a man in drag. This also does retain some of the toilet humor and childish slapstick (like crotch hits and an ass getting set on fire) from the first film. Despite that, this feels much darker in tone, which is probably hard to avoid considering the main baddie spends half his screen-time lounging in a giant pool of children's blood!

This also dishes out an extraordinary amount of punishment to the hero, who gets the absolutely snot beaten out of him numerous times yet still emerges victorious during the truly spectacular final 20 minutes. It features well-choreographed and clever fight scenes, impressive acrobatics, wacky special effects heavy on the lasers and a surprising amount of gore for a kids movie, including an eye gouging, ears ripped off and a sword shoved down a throat. While this whole scene takes place on just one set, there's also some nice outdoor scenery thrown in earlier on.

When I was writing this review, I noticed that I kept referring to Peach Boy by female pronouns since he's played by actress Lin. Despite attempts to "butch her up," Lin looks much more like a young adult female than the preteen boy she's playing but it hardly even matters. She's basically impossible to dislike in the role; skilled at action scenes, extremely charming and very good when they give her more dramatic moments. Mei Fang Yu, as the mother, is also a delight while she's around, and most of the rest of the cast are extremely enthusiastic about what they're doing. The only person I wasn't too enamored with was Ku in the more blatantly comedic role, though that's not really the actor's fault. It's just that the mugging oaf has already been done to death in these kind of films and too much time is wasted setting this character up for a redemption / growth arc that never comes.

Considering the popularity of these titles in certain areas of Asia, it's quite surprising this has yet to receive any kind of legit, remastered DVD or Blu-ray release. There were however plenty of VHS and VCD releases (including a widescreen print with English subtitles) for it, though none here in America. While technically a part of the series, the Lin vehicle Feng huang wang zi / Magic Warriors (1989) was released as Child of Peach 3, or Shin Momotaro 3 as it's called in Japan).

★★★

Krai Thong 2 (1985)

... aka: ไกรทอง 2

... aka: Kraithong 2

Directed by:

Neramit

Sompote Saengduenchai

Krai Thong is a famous Thai folk tale dating back to the early 1800s and has been the subject of numerous books and film and TV adaptations over the years. The story basically involves a crocodile lord (who can go from human to large crocodile form) called Chalawan, who resides in an opulent underwater cavern and frequently terrorizes villagers. He falls in love with, and then kidnaps, a beautiful human girl, whose wealthy father then calls on the services of master crocodile hunter Krai Thong to rescue her. Fantasy elements aside, the character of Krai Thong was apparently based on an actual historical figure of the same name, who was also renowned for his bravery and crocodile hunting skills in his day. The real Krai Thong had a temple built in his honor and there's also a special Krai Thong Garden at the Muang Boran Museum in Thailand; which is the world's largest outdoor museum.

The first known film adaptation was made way back in 1958, but, like most other early Thai films, it's missing, was probably destroyed and is most likely gone forever. And then came a second adaptation called Chalawan (1972), which was also made by Saengduenchai but currently m.i.a. itself. And that brings us to the same director's second stab at the story: 1980's KRAI THONG (aka Legend of the Crocodile), which is one of the only 80s Thai genre films that was ever released with English subtitles. This sequel, which may have actually been made and released prior to the usually-given 1985 release date, features the same stars, same sets, same props and same model crocodile as the first film. Though this is going to be considered pure schlock pretty much everywhere else, this was considered a major production in Thailand at the time and the cast features the countries biggest stars.

While Krai Thong, the 1980 version, was never given a legit U. S. release (the English subbed version was made for the Hong Kong market), this sequel did. Well, sort of. Instead of being released as is, it fell into the hands of Tomas Tang and his Filmark International company, who had the film chopped to ribbons and English dubbed plus had new scenes added to it by Godfrey Ho, which tossed an evil, claw-handed sorceress, some jianshi (hopping vampires) and other unrelated things into the works. That version was released on VHS in a number of countries (France, Greece...) under the new title CROCODILE FURY in 1988. Later on, this same Filmark version was released on DVD on the Cult Action label.

The opening credits begin as all movies should: with a series of random crocodile attacks. It's shown swimming around with screaming victims in its mouth and then making a quick snack of a guy brushing his teeth. We then cut to a busy waterfront village where some kind of celebration is taking place and everyone's singing and dancing. Yes, folks, it's a musical number; only this one isn't so bad. That's not because the music is great, or because two angry / jealous women get pissed off and suddenly start pelting people with melons, but because it ends in a crocodile chomping down on one of the men. Legendary hunter Krai Thong (Sorapong Chatree) hops into the water, goes all crocodile whisperer and manages to sweet talk the croc into letting go of its prey. Even though I couldn't make out the dialogue, I imagine he said something along the lines of, "Why eat this puny human when there's a delicious fat water buffalo right over there?"

The crocodile then turns into a human woman; Wimala (Aranya Namwong). In the previous film, Krai Thong and Wimala had fallen in love, but the two were unable to be together because, well, he's human and she's partially crocodile and it just wasn't meant to be. Also, Wimala has some anger issues she needs to work on. Instead, Krai Thong was "gifted" brides in the form of the two pretty but spoiled daughters; Tapao-Thong (Supansa Nuengpirom) and Tapao-Kaew (Ampha Phusit), of a wealthy man after he saved them. Though Krai Thong initially had little interest in his new wives, he has now accepted his lot in life and just wants to live a normal life. Wimala, on the other hand, is pretty bitter about the whole affair. With her crocodile king husband Chalawan (Sombat Methanee) dead, she's been living a lonely existence in their gold underwater cave, with only Chalawan's other wife; Luemlaiwan (Duangcheewan Komolsen, who was Miss Thailand in 1976), and an old mystic guy named Thao Rampai (Sor Asanajinda), who sits in a giant crocodile skull meditating 24/7, as company. If you can call it that.

There's another man-who-can-transform-into-a-giant-croc on the block called Aikiam (Lak Apichat), who shows up and starts terrorizing the village during a hilarious (and thankfully also LONG) montage which shows it tipping over boats, stealing oars from people, whacking people with its tail and gobbling up all kinds of villagers, including a guy who pushes his girlfriend into the water, an old pervert who attempts to rape a young woman on his boat, a crocodile wrangler who attempts to lasso it, a bunch of buck naked little boys, a whiny wizard (played by extremely annoying "comic" actor Lor Tok, who was very popular in Thailand at the time) and even a newborn baby. When another man tries to save a young woman from the croc's jaws, he grabs her legs and pulls her pants right off! Krai Thong indeed.

Aikiam rips the head off a water buffalo after it shits all over his face (!!) then decides to take over Chalawan's lair, become the new crocodile lord and lay claim to his former wives. He also kidnaps Kaew and drags her down to the cave to add to his harem. Wimala is receptive to the new guy and plots with him, though Luemlaiwan rejects him and tries to protect Kaew. Chalawan is revived by the old mystic, which leads to a battle between the alpha crocodile men. Krai Thong shows up too, looking for Kaew. There are a couple of poorly choreographed and edited kung fu fights with subpar wire work and Krai Thong gets to ride on the back of the Aikiam crocodile and stab it on the top of the head about 100 times.

Story-wise, this is a mess. The 1980 Krai Thong did a much better job in this regard because it had the folk tale to use as its backbone, while this is a brand new story. However, this sequel does manage to eclipse the original when it comes to sheer mindless fun! It goes from one crocodile attack scene to the next at such a quick clip you never get bored and a lot of these scenes are downright hilarious... some even intentionally so! Sure, main characters all get sidelined in the process and we don't really care much about their stories, but if you're just wanting to see dozens of people being attacked by large model crocodiles, this is a rousing success. The highlight, which seems to be trying to one-up the wedding reception scene in ALLIGATOR (1980), is when the crocodile attacks Krai Thong's wives and their friends at their home, which features people getting thrown around everywhere, a guy scalded by boiling water, a woman being bitten on the ass and legs and arms being ripped off.

Apparently there are a number of different cuts of the film floating around. The Crocodile Fury version with newly-added footage is the shortest, running 87 minutes, but it's also the only version in English. The most common print, which has been issued on VCD and DVD a number of times in Asia, runs a little over 92 minutes. According to ThaiWorldView, there's a third, longer cut; an extremely rare 109 minute version released only on Betamax in Thailand. Later versions of Krai Thong were made in 1995 and 2017 (both for the TV network Channel 7) and 2001 (a theatrical release).

★★1/2