Cobra Thunderbolt

Cobra Thunderbolt (1984)

Runtime: 89 minutes

Directed by: Tanong Srichua

Starring: Sorapong Chatree, Rapeetran Kornsakul, Krung Srivilai, Siriporn Lamsoontron

From: Saha Mongol

Here's another review where a lot of it is copied and pasted from my Letterboxd review, with additional information added here. This is a super obscure Thai film I found on a site called Rare Lust, which sounds dirtier than it actually is. It's a site filled with links to downloads of real obscure films. I picked it out due to its title, the fact that there are several posters of it out there and all are 80's-riffic awesome, and the description.

To write up the plot description myself: This is about an armored vehicle known as the Cobra Thunderbolt. It is designed by an ex soldier in a wheelchair known as COLONEL DAVE. He has a daughter known as LIEUTENANT MOLLY. A private army and weapons dealers are both looking for the blueprints for the vehicle and they're willing to kidnap the mom/wife of the family to do so.

Now, onto the part I copied on over from Letterboxd.

I discovered this film then "acquired" a copy of it from the bowels of the Internet. I had to see it after seeing the title, looking at the poster, then finding out it's from Thailand. There was a copy online but it vanished just recently. Don't ask how I know but it seems to be a common thing for Russians to dub movies by having one dude translate the dialogue over the audio of the movie. Really. So, the YouTube copy was an English dub of a Thai movie with Japanese subtitles and a Russian was speaking over it. Crazy.

As I found out, it wasn't just in recent years that Thailand has produced crazy wacky action movies. This is one of them. While there are some slow spots and there is ineptitude all around, I rate it as such due to pure entertainment value.

If you enjoy low-budget zany action films from the 80's then this is worth seeing. If you enjoy the likes of Miami Connection, Order of the Black Eagle, Action USA, or 80's movies also from Southeast Asia such as The Stabilizer (which is even crazier and better than this) or various Filipino programmers, then you'll likely also enjoy this.

The movie contains the following:

* A vehicle (where you get the title of the film) that reminded me of the one from Damnation Alley.

* Hilariously bad dubbing. That was a good part of its charm to me.

* Plenty of gratuitous explosions and general carnage during the action scenes, including a gas station blowing the F up. Also, plenty of gratuitous dirtbike wheelies.

* A guy whose name is either Dick Simone or Dick S'more (he's a convict but he's supposed to be one of the good guys despite having escaped from jail and helps out Dave and Molly) drives the title vehicle while wearing an Oakland Raiders football helmet, just because.

* A dirtbike stunt that obviously went wrong (I presume it was supposed to clear all the cars; it fell a little short and the stuntman crashed and burned) and yet they left it in.

* A random Snoopy poster is seen in a newspaper's headquarters. I do not know why either.

* Molly uses a JETPACK as if she's James Bond.

* An incredible 80's synth soundtrack. It was great, even if it got repetitive at times.

There's more but I don't want to give everything away. You'll know by now if this is up your alley or if you should avoid.

I shall return on Monday night.