Thunder Of Gigantic Serpent 1988 Screenplay by Yao Ching-Kang, Wu Wen-Liang and Godfrey Ho, directed by Lung-Hsu Yu, English version directed by Godfrey Ho. TOGS was created with scenes from a 1984 Taiwanese film called King Of Snakes and new footage directed by Godfrey Ho. He had the film dubbed in English and we watched it tonight.
A secret military lab has developed a growth serum that makes plants grow huge. The creator is reluctant to let it be tested on animals without more research. An impatient General takes charge the day some criminals attack the lab to steal the formula. The scientists are all killed but one, she manages to escape the baddies and intentionally crashes her car after tossing the formula out in a specimen case. She bales out of the car but is knocked out and taken to a hospital before she can retrieve the formula.
An annoying little girl finds the case and inadvertently uses the formula on her pet snake. It grows to gigantic proportions and slithers around the city, destroying property and eating the locals. The little girl can't understand why the military would want to attack her pet. By this time, a few mins into the movie, we've all come to hate the annoying little girl. We're hoping she gets eaten. We're all down with the snake.
The annoying girl gets chased by the baddies, she escapes and then is kidnapped. She doesn't know anything about the formula and despite constant threats she manages to survive the kidnapping. We were disappointed. It's generally a disappointing film with it's cobbled together story, cliched script, bad dubbing and clumsy special effects. Made me laugh though. You can see it on YouTube, link in the title above.
Death On The Nile 2022 Based on the Agatha Christie novel, screenplay by Michael Green, directed by Kenneth Branagh. It's the second Christie film with Branagh as Hercule Poirot and Tom Bateman as Bouc.
A long flashback to WWI shows us the reason for Poirot's mustache, shrapnel scars below his nose. We jump ahead to 1937 and Poirot is watching a singer in a nightclub. Six weeks pass and Poirot encounters his old friend Bouc at the pyramids in Egypt. Bouc's mother is there, played by Annette Bening. Poirot agrees to go on a cruise with Bouc up the Nile.
There's a long good time spent on the ship meeting all the passengers and being filled in on their melodrama. Inevitably someone is murdered and everyone is stuck on the ship while Poirot works his little grey cells. There's the usual tension among the suspects but no matter, Poirot comes through with the goods.
It's a very gorgeous film, there's plenty of scenery filmed at the golden hour. It almost makes me wish I was boating up the Nile. Hopefully I'm not the one getting murdered. Branagh does a good job of playing Poirot. The script was OK but I didn't think much of the WWI backstory and the final scene which ties back to that. I'd still happily recommend it, there's a good murder mystery and a good cast. Branagh and Green are already in development on a third one. I know I'll watch it again sometime and I've got a Blu-ray in the Agatha Christie section of my collection waiting for that day.