Ten Zan - The Ultimate Mission (1988)

For our next DTVC Hall of Fame inductee, we have the one, the only, Frank Zagarino. He was featured on a DTVC podcast episode back in June that I did with the guys from Comeuppance, and I had this one on my top five Zags, so I figured it was a good one to review, especially with the novelty of it being shot in North Korea. In addition to us, the guys at Comeuppance have also covered this, so you can go to their site to see what they thought.

Ten Zan - The Ultimate Mission is about Charles Borromel ("Borromel, the thorough, gentle laxative") running experiments on kidnapped women. Some people aren't happy about that, so they send Zags in to find out what's happening and take him down. When he gets there, he teams up with a buddy on the ground, and said buddy's sister, whom Zags falls in love with. At the same time, Borromel is working with some tough customers, including Glenda (The Not so Good Witch), played by Sabrina Siani (of another Ator film fame) in a leather jumpsuit. As Zags gets closer to the truth, things get more dangerous, and it's going to take all he's got to stop Borromel and his sinister plans. Oh, and it was shot in North Korea.

This is a fascinating film. It's essentially a late 80s Philippine action film with an Italian director using an English name (Ferndinando Baldi as Ted Kaplan), but shot in North Korea! I think this was a one-off because Zags was arrested by the North Koreans after he took some pictures and they thought he was a spy. Can you imagine that happening in the Philippines? Or Thailand? Beyond that, Zags is great as the hero, he's the perfect blond-haired all-American these Italian directors love when trying to get funding and sell the film abroad--this version I watched was on YouTube of a Dutch VHS rip. Had it been made in the Philippines, I think it still would've been fun, but it has that added kick of the North Korea novelty, and I love the idea beyond that that North Korea couldn't not North Korea long enough to avoid arresting Zags for being spy during filming. Oh you guys!

This is our first Zags review since 2013, and while with most stars we induct into the Hall of Fame I give the requisite "this was long overdue," in Zags's case I don't think that's true. This is about the time he should've gotten in after all the other names were inducted. The thing is, he's known for a lower tier of movie, but as a star he's probably more deserving of higher tier films, as this movie shows. He has a leading man quality that should've made him a lead in more films, but I guess the name recognition is what hurt him--maybe his best known movies are the Project Shadowchasers, which he plays a baddie, and an android baddie at that. He was an integral part of the 80s and 90s though, and beyond the Project Shadowchaser franchise he also had the Airboss franchise, which may or may not have been good, but it's a franchise for him nonetheless. Zags is truly one of the great ones, so it's good for us to be able to celebrate him officially with his induction into the DTVC Hall of Fame.

"Borromel, the thorough, gentle laxative." One of my favorite jokes from MSTK's Cave Dwellers episode. It also carried over to the Boromir character in Lord of the Rings for me. I was looking through our archives, and I think Cave Dwellers is the only other Borromel film we've done on here, which isn't surprising considering he last worked in 1990, so he didn't do many films in the video age. Some things I didn't know about him: he was born in Scotland, where he moved back to after he was done in movies, and where he eventually passed away in 2007 at the age of 74. Unlike in Cave Dwellers where he played a benevolent, heroic scientist, here he plays an evil, baddie scientist, but still a scientist all the same. I guess with a name like "Borromel," if you're not a laxative company, scientist is your next best bet. Here's to you Borromel, you were one of the great ones.

This might have been director Ferdinando Baldi's final film, at least how it's listed on IMDb anyway. Like Borromel, he didn't go far into the DTV age, so beyond the fact that this is our first film of his on here, he's only done a couple others that we could review, Just a Damned Soldier and Warbus--both of which the guys at Comeuppance have covered. Like his contemporaries, Bruno Mattei and Antonio Margheriti, Baldi has that professional, Italian style, that gets the film done quick, efficiently, but artistically enough that it doesn't feel like it was produced on an assembly line, which is something I've always appreciated about these directors. It's one thing I've noticed too about Williamson's style, in his late 80s/early 90s films, as it seems like he was influenced by these directors in his time over in Italy working. It was a unique moment in time, but these directors and their upbringing in the Italian cinema industry added a fascinating element to the low-budget actioners they made, which to me is a big part of why that period from the late 80s to the early 90s was so big for low-budget action.

 

If you go back to April and the episode Will from Exploding Helicopter was on, "Virtual Reality Action Movies," I get into my passion for train travel and how important I think it is, and how America is so far behind on that, after I bring up the high speed train from Vegas to LA in Virtual Assassin that I think is unfortunately never going to happen. Anyway, here we get a look at a train station in North Korea. It's really nice, and I have to assume it was included here as a way to show off some of the nicer aspects of the country. And to be fair, I don't think you'd see a train station like this in a film shot in the Philippines, Thailand, or Indonesia at this time. Overall North Korea looked like a nice place to film a movie like this, the problem was, North Korea just couldn't keep their shit together long enough, and I have to assume once Zags was arrested and spent two days in jail that they were like "no more making movies in North Korea," so instead of becoming the start of an industry or sub-genre, this movie ends up simply being a novelty, but a fun one at that.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing, it looks like YouTube is your best bet, unless you're a collector and go the foreign VHS route. I think it's worth checking out, especially if you're a fan of Philippine actioners from the late 80s, simply for the novelty. Beyond that, it's a fun film, and the Zags is solid, so it does what you want for a Saturday night time killer. I think a great one to get Zags into the Hall of Fame on too.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0254814

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