Christoph Klüppel - Back From the Jungle! part 1

It wasn’t until 2006 I became aware of the mighty presence of Christoph Klüppel. I’ve probably seen him before, on VHS home in Sweden when I was younger and had no idea that it was possible to watch movies outside the United States. Well, maybe just Hong Kong and Jackie Chan. But you can imagine how my fascination started when the first I saw of him was this:


At this time I knew this was a Thai movie, because I bought it at Uncle Chai’s shop at the Pakkret intersection, in Bangkok. A small store, like many others, but this one’s filled with vintage Thai movies – mostly flicks with Mitr Chaibancha, Sombat Metanee and Sorapong Chatree – the holy trio of Thai male movie stars. At this time I was mostly looking for productions starring Panna Rittikrai, because I saw his directional debut Born to fight earlier that week, plus the in-name-only remake, and I wanted to see more!

Fast forward to 2011 and I actually managed to find every known movie starring Mr Klüppel, including the fantastic, cheap and entertaining Hong Kong movie Satanic Crystals where Mr Klüppel has a smaller part – but still manages to kill a lot of people and flex his muscles. The way we want it of course. What come next? Should I write a book about him, start a blog? No, the best way was to find him, ask him for an interview and tell people about his work and career in the Thai movie industry. So, that’s what I did, a very detailed interview with everything you would like to know about Christoph Klüppel!

Ninja Dixon: It’s an honour to be able to interview you about your action career in Thailand! Nowadays you are in a completely different business, which I will get back to later in the interview. Today, when you look back, how do you feel being the big guy killing hundreds of bad guys in these old Thai action movies?

Christoph Klüppel: As it is all fiction, I don’t really think much about the action I had to perform playing my parts in these movies; after all, as an actor, one doesn’t really have much saying in it, but has to do what the director/producer requests. But what I can say is that even today, more than 20 years after the shooting of “The Lost Idol” and other of my action movies, local people, especially in their late thirties and forties, often still recognize me from my parts in these movies and greet me with enthusiasm because of them. My action and performance appears to have generated a lasting impression in these people’s minds. To be acknowledged and greeted by people or even asked for an autograph so many years after my active movie career came to an end, is still a quite elevating feeling for me, and whenever it happens, I always thank people for remembering me from the “old days”.

ND: First of all, can you tell us a little bit about your background, how you ended up in Thailand for example, your training, etc?

CK: After graduating from High School in my German hometown Fulda, I moved to Austria to study medicine at the Karl-Franzens-University in Graz. I had already started to train with weights from the age of fifteen, pursuing regular weight training throughout my last few high school years in Germany. Then, during the initial years of my university studies in the late seventies and early eighties, I trained bodybuilding and Olympic weight-lifting at the Union Graz Athletic Club, the same place where Arnold Schwarzenegger had started his impressive bodybuilding career a few years earlier. As a member of the Olympic Weightlifting Team of Union Graz, I participated in many local and international weight lifting competitions and won many prestigious awards. My enthusiasm for weight-training and my engagement in competitive sports became so strong that it caused me to eventually curtail my medical studies after completing seven semesters and to rather pursue a career in the fitness industry. My partial studies of medicine and subsequent studies of fitness sciences proved an excellent basis for my further career as a fitness trainer and fitness manager, gym equipment manufacturer and gym owner, fitness- , nutrition- and natural health consultant, most of which took off in Thailand after moving over here .

Moving to Thailand was actually the final consequence of having met and fallen in love with a Thai girl in Austria. She had already lived in Austria for years before we met and fell in love with each other, but throughout our relationship, she conveyed to me a lot of things which are unique and positive about Thailand and about Thai culture; getting to know her better and getting acquainted with more of her relatives and friends, who likewise lived in Austria, I gradually learned so much more about Thai people, Thai culture and life in Thailand that I felt I might enjoy living there. So I eventually decided to move to Bangkok without actually having ever visited there before; I just sold whatever of my possessions where possible for me to sell and took a one-way KLM flight from Vienna to Bangkok. And I never had to regret my decision, as Thailand indeed provided me with a number of unique opportunities, one of them the chance to play parts in a variety of action movies, TV series and commercials. Living here also offered to me the great chance to make a good living with my favorite hobby and passion - fitness - , and, while pursuing my work and fitness lifestyle, also allowed me to enjoy life on a daily basis. I met many loyal and pleasant people over here, made great friends from all over the globe throughout the past decades, and found respect and recognition for what I do in the local society. The movie career of my early years in Thailand definitely helped to successfully establish myself in business over here.

Tomorrow read about Mr Klüppel's first movie in Thailand, The Lost Idol - starring Erik Estrada!

(all photos from the movies belongs to Dr Christoph Klüppel)

Incubus (1982)

I have a soft spot for the work by director John Hough. With The Legend of Hell House as his big horror masterpiece, minor movies like American Gothic and even Disney’s try on family-horror, The Watcher in the Woods, has been forgotten – at least as works by him. So it was a bit of a surprise when I realized it was Hough who directed Incubus, a Canadian supernatural thriller that I’ve avoiding for years – mostly because I heard it was boring and nothing special. Of course I shouldn’t have listen on all the opinions over the years, so now in 2011 I finally bought the DVD and sat down to watch this trashy piece of horror.

John Cassavetes, in full slumming-mode, is Doctor Sam Cordell. He’s the new doctor in the town of Galen (which means “Crazy” in Swedish by the way…) and has moved there together with his eighteen year old daughter Jenny (Erin Noble). Suddenly a woman is raped in an extremely brutal way and her boyfriend is killed at the same time. The rapes continue, and someone – or something – is more or less destroying the women during the “act”. He/it leaves red-tinted sperm in enormous amounts and soon Sam suspects that it might be something supernatural going on. Jenny’s boyfriend, Tim (Duncan McIntosh) has horrible nightmares and claims to be connected to the killings, maybe even the rapist himself…

Hands down, Incubus is a very sleazy and trashy movie, which makes it even more surprising that John Cassavetes decided to star in it. But an actor of his stature brings also a lot of quality to something that usually would star lesser known people and be less regarded as a serious production. Not that he’s giving everything he’s got. He’s clearly sleepwalking through the part and understands that he’s not really that important for the story. The main character is the murder- and rape-scenes and the unhealthy dose of sleazy atmosphere! Now I make this to sound like something extreme, but it’s not. It’s more the dialogue, the subject itself. I promise you will never hear the word “sperm” as many time as in this movie again, often in the combination with “severely damaged uterus” and other graphic expressions regarding someone who’s been raped to death by a demon. It has some blood, but only one scene with some graphic gore – very nicely done – but once again, nothing extreme. It’s just very violent.

It might be the daring mission to have made a movie that never even tries to be “entertainment” in the 1982 sense of horror entertainment that attracts me with this film. It’s a dark and cynical, a bit pretentious, but well-made and filled with atmosphere. This is very far from the typical eighties horrors, which is a blessing in disguise. If you expect to watch something that fits with beer and popcorn and some drunk friends, this might be the only eighties horror movie you should avoid. If you want to see something more complex, but still sleazy and violent, this is it. The first half is the better part, with better pace and more “fun” and terror. The second part offers a very nice demon-monster, but have a tendency to repeat stuff we already seen or knew since earlier, and it was a couple of time I glanced at my iPhone to check the updates on Facebook. It picks up during the finale and in the end it’s a quite good horror movie, dare I say underrated?

Judge for yourself, buy or rent the movie and give it a try. Let me know what you think about it!

Brain Dead (2007)

It’s rarely nowadays you see something that actually feels like a movie directly from the eighties. Sure, you have wannabe’s like Hatchet 1 and 2, bragging about their pretend-to-be-retro-seventies-throwback-nostalgia-bullshit-productions. When it comes to Brain Dead it’s actually directed by Kevin Tenney, a director who did some of the more prolific eighties horror-films and still seem to have the same gut-feeling about old school splatter. Personally I don’t care whatsoever if a movie has CGI or physical effects, as long as the script is good and fun – because you still see quite clearly it’s not the reality you’re watching. It’s just a movie, nothing else.

Brain Dead (a title which can be confusing for us here in Europe, because that’s also the – almost - original title of Peter Jackson’s splatter masterpiece Dead Alive) started of like a story with a bunch of characters fighting of giant spiders in the forest, but when Tenney got a hold of the script they turned it to a classic, very eighties-style zombie/demon/alien b-movie feature. Which I think was a good thing, because it would have been more difficult making huge spiders with this budget than the zombie creatures it has now.

Anyway, a meteorite containing a alien-parasite crashes out in the wilderness and infects a fisherman who turns into a brain-thirsty zombie! A couple odd characters – two escaped convicts, a preacher and his young sexy assistant and two girls out hiking – meets up, without wanting it, out in a cottage and has to defend themselves against the creatures outside! That’s the story and believe it or not, it turns out pretty good!

Shot digital and probably with a budget lesser than my annual salary, this is one helluva ambitious and fun splatter-movie. The story itself is, as you all can see, nothing special but it comes alive with interesting characters and for once very funny one-liners and a good amount of very graphic and colourful gore. Heads are split open, shot to pieces, arms are ripped off, people ripped apart, lots of black goo and blood for the whole family. And for those caring, the female nudity is quite plentiful – I think so anyway, I always loose interest when I see a couple of tits.

Directed with a frantic energy by Tenney, this never feels like a low-budget shlock-fest. Sure, it’s cheap, but the talent of the crew and actors shines through and Brain Dead becomes a movie worth watching. Every actors is doing fine, but Joshua Benton as the unlucky convict Clarence Singer makes a very good hero and is genuinely funny. I hope to see him in bigger stuff sooner or later, because he’s good enough to find a bigger audience.

You can easy find Brain Dead on DVD and I’m sure that if you prefer and likes eighties splatter this is the move for you. Here in Sweden it’s out on a cheap disc from Dark Entertainment and also has a lot of interesting extras.

H-Bomb (1971)

Together with Kom Akadej, Philip Chalong was probably one of the best and most talented action directors of Thailand. His career contained many co-productions with international stars and better budgets than his colleagues in the same genre. I H-Bomb he had the hot up-and-coming Chris Mitchum, still a few years before his bigger genre hits like Summertime Killer and Ricco. What’s more weird is the presence by Olivia Hussey, still fresh from her sensational role in Franco Zeffirelli Romeo and Juliet. How she ended up in a HK-Thai co-production with Chris Mitchum beats me! More on the cast later, first a few words about the slightly Jamesbondish-storyline…

After witnessing the top CIA agents of the world getting killed in various ways during the pre-credit sequence and finding out that a top secret experimental missile (Alpha) has been stolen, the US sends blond-haired CIA agent Eddie Fulmer (Chris Mitchum) to Thailand to co-operate with the Thai secret service in finding the missile again. Luckily for him his ex-girlfriend, Erica (Olivia Hussey) is the daughter of ruthless businessman Jake Koo (I think he’s played by Kecha Plianvithee) who’s also a suspect in kidnapping the deadly weapon! He’s also working together with the terrorist group Fuji (which suggests that they are Japanese, but nothing more is mentioned about that – expect that they have mount Fuji tattooed on their arm) lead by General Yang (the always bald and evil Pipop Pupinyo). Everything could be an easy match from here, but Zeke (Krung Srivilai), Koo’s henchman is also in love with Erica and this makes him even more destined to kill Eddie!

Even if H-Bomb is a movie co-produced by Shaw Brothers and starring to famous American actors, this is mainly a Thai movie in ever way possible. Krung Srivilai was a big star in his own right, even if he always had a darker streak than for example Mitr Chaibancha or Sorapong Chatree. Co-starring Mitchum’s Thai secret service contact is Phairoj Jaisin, who was one the actors supposed to replace Chaibancha as the big star after the latter’s death in 1970. H-Bomb was probably one of the first movies Jaisin made, a nice start of a long career. General Yang is played by Pipop Pupinyo, who was typecasted as a balded villain in tons of flicks from the seventies and up to the early eighties (for example in Kom Akadej’s The Killer Elephants and comedian Thep Thienchai’s James Band 007.

What strikes me the most with H-Bomb is the ambitious action set-pieces, concentrating on very impressive car- and motorcross-stunts. This is international quality, maybe even more spectacular stuff than in the Bond movies from that time. Most impressive is when one character jumps with his motorcross onto a speeding train, something Michelle Yeoh did in Stanley Tong’s Jackie Chan-production Police Story 3 in 1992. But I must admit that the stunt performed in H-Bomb is a lot more impressive and better shot. This is not the only stunt of course and we’re treated to several very nicely executed action scenes with big explosions and dangerous vehicle acrobatics.

Even if H-Bomb has a more “realistic” atmosphere, its still feels a lot like a Bond-movie. From the pre-credit sequence, the extremely Bondish theme song, Phairoj Jaisin Felix Leiter-style character, the action, the underground monitor-filled base and a plan to take over Thailand (maybe even Asia) by controlling a secret missile to the overall sense of an international spy-adventure. H-Bomb is a great action movie and proves once again what a talented director Philip Chalong was.

Surakksha (1979)

As the real Bond-series became more and more exaggerated and out of this world, so followed the rip-offs around the world. And as usual, India fast took the lead in the race in delivering the most outrageous and over-the-top entertainment. Director Ravikant Nagaich wasn’t a stranger in the genre, and his Farz (1967) is still a timeless spy-classic who also took a lot of inspiration from the Bond-saga. But when Farz clearly is referencing the Connery movies, Surakksha goes all the way into colourful Roger Moore territory with more action, more comedy, more effects and a Bond villain right from the comic books.

Mithun Chakraborty is CBI Officer Gopi, aka Gunmaster G-9! After an insanely groovy credits-sequence with Mithun surrounded by beautiful ladies and doing kung fu moves in a studio the story blasts of with a lot of chases and action directly. Everything seem to evolve around Officer Jackson (Tej Sapru) who after an airplane accident is believed to be dead – well, it’s quite clearly the case after he’s delivered in a box to his daughters birthday! But Gundmaster G-9 suspects foul play and discovers that it’s not Jackson, it’s really some other dude who made some surgery to look like Jackson. The lack of subtitles made the story a bit vague, but of course a lot of people want G-9 dead after he discovered the truth and everything leads to a big underwater base where the evil Doctor Shiva (K. Balaji) roams with an eye-patch and a hand of steel! He also has a machine that creates natural disasters, and the only one to stop him – with martial arts – is Gunmaster G-9!

I always respect filmmakers who make what they want even if they aren’t even near the budget they needed to make their dream come true. Surkksha is a living proof for this mentality, because this can be one of the cheapest Bond knock-offs I’ve seen, but director Nagaich obviously never stopped and said no to his own crazy ideas. He made them anyway, and that’s one of those details that make Surakksha so brilliant. Sure, the storyline aren’t especially interesting, but with Chakraborty in the lead and a frantic direction and editing by Nagaich makes this a movie with virtually no boring moments at all. Sometimes it’s almost abstract in its weird visual solutions, for example the exterior of Officer Gopi’s house:


So let’s talk a little about the special effects. It’s very clear that there wasn’t any budget to create big stunts and spectacular effects, but that didn’t stop Nagaich from just using toy cars and very primitive miniatures to create the action set-pieces. Not that this is a bad thing, because like with stop-motion monsters and CG monsters we all know it’s not real, but we know what it’s suppose to be. This is the idea with Surakksha. Even if the filmmakers just throw toy cars between them or use an alarm clock to simulate a bomb or en elevator counter going 300 meters below the sea level, we’re still aware of what the purpose is. We know what’s happening and if we can ignore the cheap effects and focus on the entertainment, both in the story and the entertainment created by the cheap effects, it’s suddenly easier to accept the movie. Surakksha also has a variety of real stunts, mostly really wild fighting and fast and exciting chases in every possible environment.

Another interesting thing with Surkkasha is the disaster scenes. This is a movie from the age of disaster movies, so it wasn’t that surprising to see a big scale disaster scene in the finale. The villain sets his machine to create a big mother of a tsunami that completely crushes Bombay in a glorious sequence of very cheap minatures and a few seconds of black & white footage from much older movie. But most of it is created for this movie and as a fan of disaster movies it was a nice surprise and a welcome twist!

Surakksha became a big hit and a few years later Chakraborty and Nagaich teamed up to make Wardaat, a movie I hope to review sooner or later – because it seem even more far out and wild than this one. Stay tuned for more Bondesque adventure from India!

Cut-Throats Nine (1972)

I’m not even sure when I heard of Cut-Throats Nine the first time, but people said it was something special. I missed out on the legendary bootleg from Eurovista and that was it, I thought it would never appear on an easy-to-find and not to damn expensive DVD again. But as usual Code Red came to the rescue with a very cheap and good-looking version, completely uncut and with the right Grindhouse-quality (scratches and dirt, but overall very good quality). I’ve mostly heard about the gore and violence, but what really surprised by was the complex and interesting storyline, which makes it to the top of my favourite westerns now.

Nine mine-workers, convicts – killers, rapists, bastards. After a lot of hard work they are being transferred from the mines together with a tough sergeant (Claudio Undari) and his daughter (played by Emma Cohen). It won’t take long until some bandit’s stops and tries to rob them, believing there’s gold in the wagon. When they can’t find gold they kill the guards and let the convicts – including the sergeant and the daughter, believing them to be convicts to. The carriage crashes and soon they find themselves far out in the wilderness attached only in thick chains. The sergeant knows one of the men killed his wife, but keeps a low profile, trying to figure out who it is. But that’s not the only secret he has, something that makes the friction between the chained men and him more tense…

Writers Joaquín Romero Hernández and Santiago Moncada really cooked up something special here. On the surface a typical snow-set western, but filled with so many great ideas and twists that I actually can understand the upcoming remake. It’s a too good story to just be forgotten! Not only have we the sergeant looking for the killer of his wife, we have nine men who all wants to be free but can’t because of the chains, and then we have the twist that comes halfway through the movie and makes everything more interesting. I’m sure most of you know about it, but for those who haven’t seen it I’m not gonna reveal anything. It’s just lot of great ideas mixed with a very gritty and raw atmosphere, created in an excellent way by director Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent and cinematographer Luis Cuadrado. I mean, you can feel it’s cold and shitty all the way from start to finish. So far away from the US romantic westerns as a movie can take you.

With actors like taken from what I could imagine is the reality and brutal and very graphic violence (it has a lot of gore and blood, cheap but effective – and also very sadistic), this is one helluva good western. The ending, downbeat and even more black, is the rotten cherry on the bloody cake.

I really don’t want to say so much about Cut-Throats Nine, it’s a movie that’s important to be experienced without spoilers and to much hype (which I’m already guilty of, hyping…). Go get the Code Red DVD and thank me later, please :)

Two forgiving screenshots from The Hero: Love Story of a Spy (2003)

I'm a very forgiving person, and I have a superpower which makes me find something good in almost every movie I watch. Not all, but many of them. Regarding The Hero: Love Story of a Spy, I just don't have the energy to write a write of this overlong, crappy-paced action-drama-romance-musical starring Mr Silly Haircut himself, Mr Sunny Deol.

I like him, make no mistake, but here's a good example of a wasted opportunity. A big budget, shot in several parts of the world and both Amrish Puri (the bad guy from the second Indiana Jones movie) AND Kabir Bedi (Octopussy) in supporting parts - and still it feels so uninspired, boring and with a deep quality dip in editing. The action scenes are outrageous, but paced badly and feels rushed.

That's why I here give you two screenshots which gives you the collected talent and entertainment of The Hero, and it's from the grand finale when Sunny Deol goes Steven Seagal on a train in Canada. Enjoy: