One of the more infamous piece of copy n paste cinema from the IFD Film & Arts factory of Godfrey Ho and associates, one that happens NOT to be a ninja movie with their pink ninja pajamas and 30 seconds superfights against caucasian ninja masters, but the other kind of exploitation the company specialized in, the “actionxploitation” flick with super american stereotypes fighting against criminals of some ilk, all played by the same 6 non-asian guys Ho and Lai employed.
And we’re lucky because we got Pierre Kirby in this one, playing agent Ted Fast, who only works alone because he’s so good and not utterly stupid, opposing the crime boss Solomon, after a secret formula that can make animals and plants grow to gigantic proportions, like 3000 times their original size.
But sadly Solomon will have to crime very hard for it, since the formula is actually from the “host movie” spliced in by Godfrey Ho (here directing), a 1984 Taiwanese kaiju movie titled “She Wang” (translating to “King Of Snakes”) about a pet snake, Mosla, belonging to a little girl that accidentally comes in contact with the formula, grows giant, and then stars rampaging because the terrorists after the formula kidnap the girl, and Mosla is having none of it.
Yeah, it’s another case where the IFD crew most likely had to cut relatively little around the original movie to accomodate the actionxploitation “Ted Fast VS Solomon” scenes, since the original movie – oddly enough for what is allegedly a “children” kaiju film – had terrorists and the likes going after the giant creature, to what i’ve been able to gather. No need to convolutely write absurd dialogues in a desperate attempt to torturously connect the two plots, not that much anyway.
Still, it’s a relatively ambitious attempt given the company usual wheelhouse, even for them it’s a weird combination of stuff to staple together, since the Taiwanese monster movie has some odd shit in it, like how they probably moved around a real snake with strings to make him nods to what the little girls says, and how the fake snake toy shown in one of the early scenes looks more real than the “real” pet snake. XD
Or shit i could have never predicted, like kids doing “ski rollerskates grass”, which i guess was a thing for children of benestant Taiwanese families to do, as in don ski stick to steer on grassy hills with rollerblades on. I don’t get it.
The result its a Taiwanese mixture of kaiju flick more akin to Gamera than Godzilla, with a Food Of The Gods plot device and hilariously cheesy 80’s actionxploitation by the IFD british and american actors that somehow feel dubbed over as well even if they are not, so cheesy is the delivery and tone, like so fuckin stereotypical american crime boss it’s funny. Better than their english dub of the taiwanese actors, especially the dub for the little girl is absurdly bad, like it’s so grating by the end of the movie you’ll be sick of this Betty Boopish little girl voice saying “MOSLAAAHH!”.
At least the backgrounds between “Movie A” and “Movie B” here more often than not match, so the back and forths from Pierre Kirby and the Taiwanese army lieutenant (for example) existing in another dimension and time……feel a tiny bit less obvious, heck, they even have Kirby dress up like them, that’s more care than usual in keeping up the farce.
Also, i’m not sure if the original kaiju film was ever actually meant for a younger audience, because there’s plenty of people getting shot and killed by armed terrorists, people getting killed in the rampage of the creature and trapped under rocks, but it also has the pet snake actually understanding the little girl and replying with positive or negative nods of the heads, there’s the “boy and his dog/secretly held pet” dynamic, they get into shenaningans, like Moslar secretly helping her in the aforementioned “roller ski grass hoedown” races, become the best of friends, etc.
Speaking of Moslar, it looks like a giant puppet most of the times… because it is, but to be fair the effects aren’t too bad for the era, the miniatures are decent, but yeah, some of the optical effects employed are cheap regardless and make it clear this is not a BIG budget kaiju flick as it could, though it’s not as “poor” as the earlier Gamera film could look/be, mostly anyway.
But fear not, the original “Ted Fast VS The Solomon Grundy Gang” has plenty of funny scenes, as he goes around the woods and gets ambushed by Solomon goons that react like Time Crisis 2 enemies when shot, only to retaliate with incredible rolls and flips and cheesy badassery to the sound of lifted soundtracks as usual.
And while there’s no ninjas this time around, that doesn’t mean Mr. Kirby and his foes can fight using martial arts for a bit, especially the finale, while stealing THAT line from Dirty Harry.
the more common version online comes with greek subs, hardcoded ones, guess because there is still that old VHS rip going around. There was a recent German DVD release that had this and Time Of The Apes in a double bill release, but it’s so recent (like released some months earlier this year) it hasn’t fully gone around the web, so you’ll most likely find the old grainy VHS rip we had for decades if you search for Thunder Of The Gigantic Serpent, at least for the time being.
And overall it’s not the more entertaining offer from IFD Film & Arts, it’s decent enough as far as these weird “cut n paste movies” are concerned, it’s definitely one when the two plots are tied together in a fairly easy to follow fashion, and one odd concoction, too, choosing an obscure Taiwanese monster movie (which might or might not have been made with an eye for children) that’s also pretty weird, but quite fun and put together in a solid fashion.
too bad it has a sad monster movie ending, bit of a downer and seamless as a fork in the anus when it transictions from that to the ending of the Solomon plot (again, if you forgot, the plot of “Movie A” is always given closure first in these “cut n paste” jobberinos), pure actionxploitation Z-grade cheese with Pierre Kirby finishing off the villain de jour in a matter of minute. Singular.
For completition’s sake, we’ll talk about “Moslar” again when we review the original Taiwanese film She Wang, as it can be found subtitled online, maybe for next Monster March…
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