The flimsy premise for this is the decline of US interest in the Vietnam war, a kind of Dirty Dozen set-up, and a wandering moustache.
Sam Jones, whoever he is, is summoned by a chronically bad actor to summon another guy called Nguyen to train up a load of vietnamese guys to transport stuff from somewhere to somewhere else. What follows is a hilarious and really badly edited sequence where we are introduced to our Dirty Dozen. There's Richard, who's kind of clean cut and rubbish at everything, and Nguyen, who's his brother and the leader, and a guy with glasses, another bald one, and several others. They do karate and race each other and three weeks later all go to the pub, fully trained, to fight some GIs.
Jungle Heat takes a swift turn into nasty territory where two guys caught up in the fight are brought, tied up, into a hut and doused in gasoline. What follows is a sport where a rat is set on fire and let loose to run about in the hut amongst the sodden captives. Whoever is not dead wins, then gets killed anyway.
I had to guess, due to the heavy censorship, that a rat really was set on fire and let loose. For once I'm glad 23rd century just bunged their video collection onto DVD, and what I got was some very sharp cuts of people jeering.
And the plot hasn't even started yet! The rest of the lads all set out for somewhere and get captured in almost no time at all by the most un-VC looking VC ever. These guys look like pirates!
First off, the guy gets his head shaved. Then, the leader of the VC, a very pirate like fellow, razors his head open and pours acid into the wound. Then, and this bit wasn't cut, the man's skin starts melting of his body and he leaps screaming out of his own skin!
Not content with bizarre torture, pirate guy hangs everyone except Nguyen upside down, and secure Nguyen to a tree using a strap inserted through his hand. Once again, edits still don't make this scene any less nasty, nor does it effect the revulsion I felt when Nguyen simply (?) tore the strap out of his hands to rescue his mates.
Everyone escapes and after kicking Sam Jones about for being a coward Nguyen hands are back to normal and it's time to go out and get tortured again! Before this we're shown a strange sport which involves driving under log carrying trucks at great speed for cash (you seem to get more cash if you die, but there you go) and before you know it everyone's involved in a firefight with the VC pirates. While they do so there was a kind of cool bit where a VC was hiding inside a tree and the tree opened up and he caught a guy and garroted him inside the tree. Richard, by the way, had fallen in love with a barmaid and she tries to convince Nguyen to go out and get him, which he eventually does. They get the moron who burned the rat to drive them out and get caught up in another firefight which involves them finding the secret VC pirate base behind a false wall in a well. As Nguyen and his mates are traipsing about the sewers we get some scenes of women being molested and others being tortured. Here for me, besides the rat bit, was the most horrible part of the film. There's a guy tied down with two cotton buds stuffed up his nose and his mouth jammed open with a stick. Water has been continuously dripping into his mouth and the camera pans down to his swollen, pulsating stomach.
The end is almost nigh as Nguyen et al storm in and get involved in a massive fight with the VC pirates which involves arms being lopped off, pummellings, a man being sawn in half by a hacksaw, and finally a decapitation by axe.
The film still hasn't ended yet because the director has still to find some sort of use for Sam Jones, so he turns up for a bit of Nam action near the end before Richard, upset that the war has left him penniless, signs up for some motorbike-truck avoiding. The film ends pathetically with his barmaid walking in the sunset calling his name, followed by Nguyen and his mates.
Jungle Heat lulled me into a false sense of security by it's crapness and kept doing so throughout it's duration, while constantly throwing me off guard with extreme nastiness.
The crapness is something I haven't mentioned throughout the review. Obviously the main reason for this film existing is the torture scenes, and scant attention is paid to anything outwith those scenes. Main thing: the moustache. Nguyen has a moustache when he's first introduced to us in the film. From there on out, this moustache magically appears and dissappears throughout scenes so frequently that I thought I was watching two different actors. At one point he enters a cave cleanly shaved - next thing we know he's exiting said cave with upper lip fully clothed!
Another appalling thing about this film is the dubbing. As it is an 'ensemble piece' we have really terrible dubbing of about ten people talking at once. Some of this dubbing carries on from one scene to the next, so one minute you see everyone escaping from the Cong and the next minute everyone's back at camp, and you STILL hear people going 'capture them'. The one truly funny moment in this film (apart from the moustache) is the scene where a truck blows up and one of the dubbed voices says 'aaaaaaah' in a totally deadpan manner.
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