The Direct to Video Connoisseur

I'm a huge fan of action, horror, sci-fi, and comedy, especially of the Direct to Video variety. In this blog I review some of my favorites and not so favorites, and encourage people to comment and add to the discussion. For announcements and updates, don't forget to Follow us on Twitter and Like our Facebook page. If you're the director, producer, distributor, etc. of a low-budget feature length film and you'd like to send me a copy to review, you can contact me at dtvconnoisseur[at]yahoo.com. I'd love to check out what you got. And check out my book, Chad in Accounting, over on Amazon.

Saturday, May 9, 2020

The Secret of King Mahis Island (1988)

So this is it, 1000 posts at the DTVC! Who'd a thunk, not only when we started this thing back in 2007, but also when I went on an unplanned four-year hiatus starting in 2015, that we'd ever make it here. But we did, and I am thankful and so appreciative of all the support everyone has shown me and the site over the years. The idea of doing this for number 1000 came out of Jon Cross from After Movie Diner's suggestion of doing Bloodmoon for 1000. It definitely qualified, but I felt like since I'd done it before, it wasn't quite good enough for a repost. But, I had just caught this on YouTube through JCT, not long after our friend and tireless collector Simon at Explosive Action had obtained a Japanese VHS copy. A Holy Grail film that I've been wanting to see since I started the blog, nothing felt more fitting for this post.

The Secret of King Mahis Island has Daniels as a fortune hunter searching for a secret treasure. On his heels are a series of baddies looking for the same thing, plus dangerous natives who want nothing to do with treasure hunters invading their island. Will our hero find the treasure and make it out alive?



This one is a definite fun time. Part of the charm is knowing this is one of, if not the, first Gary Daniels films. That novelty alone, combined with the fact that I've been wanting to review this for so long, makes it work. We also get some great Daniels kickboxing action, which we can't always say about all of his modern efforts. For a film shot in the Philippines, this is a bit bereft of huts getting blown up. It's not your traditional Vietnam War in the Philippines flick, and in that sense, I think this maybe only works on the novelty factor as Daniels's first flick and being one we've all wanted to see for so long, but sometimes with this kind of thing, that's all you need!

When I decided to not do Dolph for 1000 because I had just celebrated him being the first to 50 film reviews, the question was who's next, and while to some Daniels may not seem like a natural choice, he is second to Dolph in all-time reviews, and one of only four members of the 40 Club, along with Dolph, Art Camacho, and Albert Pyun. In that sense, he was probably more overdo for a spotlight in a milestone post like this than an iffy choice. The one thing that strikes me about this here is not only how young he is, but how much he's just going for it, and I don't know that that part has ever left him--it may have morphed in him with age and become something different, but it's never left. Even if he only has a small part, he does his best to make that small part his, and I think that more than anything is something we here at the DTVC can appreciate. The crazy thing is, when I finally decided on this film and to spotlight Daniels, it just happened that the date of this post falls on his 57th birthday! Sometimes things just work out.



As I mentioned, for many years, this was a Holy Grail film, one of those ones we saw listed on imdb, but we looked everywhere for and couldn't find. There was a feeling though, if anyone could make it happen, it was Simon at Explosive Action, and sure enough, he finally found it. He has a fantastic YouTube page with videos on his collection, and he did one about this find, so you can see more details, like the box, and clips of it. The title of the post is "Three Rare VHS Tapes!" It's been one of the great parts of doing this blog over the last 13 years and 1000 posts, the people I've met and friends I've made, among them Simon and Jon, but also the community out there overall for people who love these kinds of movies, and try to track them down however they can, both for their own collections, but also so we can all have chance to see them. Just looking at Daniels, I've seen his on Japanese VHS like this and rips from Greek DVDs. I started out in 2007 expecting to go it alone and try to get my hands on whatever I could, and found instead a community to which I have graciously been a part for many years. In that sense, choosing this movie for the 1000th post is as much a celebration of Gary Daniels and finding a film we've all wanted to see for many years, as it's a celebration of all the wonderful people I've met along the way, and the great friends I've made.

This lists Philippine DTV mainstay Jim Gaines as the uncredited director. According to the IMDb trivia--which it's amazing there's any trivia at all on this gem!--the original director quit after one week of filming, which, considering it was a low-budget Philippine actioner, I can't imagine there was much more filming going on than that. But I think Gaines is another example of an actor I hadn't heard of when I started this and now know and can recognize when I see him in a film. When I conceived of the idea of this, Direct to Video Connoisseur was a tongue-in-cheek term, trying to evoke this image of me like Alistair Cooke, in a smoking jacket and ascot, smoking a pipe, but watching Dolph flicks instead of a ten-part BBC production of Nicholas Nickleby. I don't know that I've ever lost the tongue-in-cheek aspect, but what I didn't expect was to develop the almost connoisseur aspect of recognizing names like Jim Gaines that only someone who really gets into movies like this at a high level would.



The other piece of trivia on the imdb page is that Gary Daniels almost drowned when he was swimming with a backpack on for a scene, and the backpack filled with water. Beyond the obvious, that we're glad he didn't die, in part because he's had such a fantastic DTV career and has given us such memorable performances, this also highlights the danger that comes in making DTV films that we often forget about. When I had Jacob Gustafson, who wrote Awful Awesome Action Vol. 1 (more info on which can be found on the DTVC Book Review page), we talked about Mankillers, and he said how scary it looked with the explosions, how they had to make sure they got them right so no one got hurt, but how do you know when you do them on the cheap? That's another thing I've learned as I've done this: I'd rather they settle for cheap CGI than do the real thing if it means everyone's safe hahaha

Getting back to Daniels's DTV career, watching something like this, you can see the young actor who's just excited to be in something. Over 30 years and 60+ films later, I think Daniels would be disappointed that he didn't have that one big screen breakthrough. Cam Sully at the Action Elite and Jacked Up Review Podcast said he talked to someone who interviewed him, and Daniels thought Fist of the Northstar would be that one, but it just didn't happen. Unlike Dolph though, he didn't have those early big-screen roles, like the iconic Ivan Drago, that could give him an in with Hollywood later-on down the road, which I think Dolph leaned on in The Expendables and has since road to big-screen roles in movies like Creed II and Aquaman. Daniels has one of the best fights in The Expendables, but really, only people in our DTV watching community knew him and respected his role in that fight. And maybe on that score too, it's better that we're using one of his films for our 1000th post instead of Dolph, because this can be a moment where he isn't overlooked in favor of someone like Dolph for once.



One of the things I used to do a lot when I got my screenshots was get the logo of the production or distribution company. I still do it for ones like Canon or PM, but sometimes it's these ones that are more fun. We've done one other Solar Pictures flick on the site, like the Gary Daniels action Final Reprisal, but according to imdb they have some that Phillip Ko directed in the late 90s/early 2000s starring the late Darren Shahlavi, so maybe I'll have to track those down. One Holy Grail search ends, and many more begin...

Well, that does it for the 1000th post. The celebration continues with two more honorable mentions for posts 1001 and 1002, so we're not done yet. Right now you can stream this on YouTube through JCT's account, and I think it's totally worth checking out--plus don't forget to check out Simon's post about it on his Explosive Action YouTube page. Thank you again to Jon for his suggestion of a Daniels film for this post, and Simon for finally tracking this bad boy down; and thank you again to everyone for sticking with the site through the hiatus and being here now. Without you I wouldn't be doing this, so I appreciate all of your readership and support. Hopefully at some point in the future we'll be here with a 2000th post.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903017

2 comments:

  1. A 1000 posts! Good on ya, mate!!
    Man, my blog "When the Vietnam War..." has been going since 2008 and I haven't even reached 500, haha.
    In any case, big congrats!

    PS: I've never seen that film but have now downloaded it!

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    1. Thank you very much! And your site is a great read just the same! And the film was quite a Holy Grail find. I don't collect, but Simon at Explosive Action does, and he finally found it!

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