Invaders of the Lost Gold (1982)

Simply A Masterpiece

People are voting emotionally.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

In 1945, Japanese soldiers hid 2 heavy cases of gold in a cave before they had to leave the Philippines. 36 years later, Jefferson (David De Martyn) finances an expedition to find the gold. Tobachi (Harold Sakata, 'Goldfinger') is the only survivor from 1945 and is needed to show the hiding-place. Forrest (Stuart Whitman) and Larson (Edmund Purdom) shall lead the expedition together although they are deadly enemies – they simply can't resist the wages. Cal (Woody Strode), Forrest's girlfriend Maria (Laura Gemser) and Jefferson's daughter Janice (Glynis Barber) join the crew. The expedition seems to run as scheduled, but when they get deeper into the jungle, members of the expedition begin to disappear one by one when mysterious accidents happen...'Invaders of the Lost Gold' aka 'Horror Safari', in my country 'Söldner Des Todes' ('Mercenaries of Death'), is a low budget adventure flick that has no outstanding qualities despite the good cast. Mostly filmed in a 'jungle' where the natives apparently use a lawnmower and plant palm trees neatly in rows to make it look like a park, poor action scenes, long dialogues in tents and clumsy editing do not result in a thrilling picture. The DVD distributor obviously didn't even bother to watch it before they created a tag line saying something about 'the green hell of Malaysia (!)'. Can we really blame them?

A disappointingly routine jungle romp, packaged as an exploitation movie but with little exploitation values to actually recommend it to the pulp crowd. Instead this is a cheap, cheap rush job, with little in the way of action, and some really boring, pedestrian direction by Alan Birkinshaw (who delivered the delightful KILLER'S MOON a few years previously to this). Even though the Italians financed this, don't expect a Lenzi movie. It's nothing like that and could probably be rated PG today. The story is lightweight and it seems most of the budget was spent on the admittedly enjoyable opening scene. It involves Japanese soldiers battling Filipino headhunters, involving lots of shooting, grenade explosions, and heads on sticks. There's even a guy who falls into a spike trap, great stuff. After this the film goes downhill as it reaches the present day.The smarmy, always unlikable Edmund Purdom visits the ex-soldiers and asks them to come with him to find the gold. One is shot dead, another commits hari-kiri, and the third one agrees, mainly because he is Harold Sakata, aka Oddjob from GOLDFINGER, and he's one of this film's major draws. Then a huge group of old actors and cheap Filipino extras join in and off they all go in a boat. But not before has-been Stuart Whitman has decided to join in on the expedition, and that takes him about half an hour. From here on in, we get a series of uninteresting deaths by snake, falling off a rope bridge, crocodile etc. but there's no gore and each death is staged in a ridiculous slow-motion style that stops you seeing what happened; Birkinshaw is no Castellari, that's for sure.Along with routine scripting and obvious double-crosses, this film really is a tease: offering you tons of gore and nudity throughout, and never providing them. There's a strip show in a filthy nightclub but the girls on view won't provoke much interest. So the only possible reason to watch this film? It's gotta be the great casting. Purdom chews the scenery with relish, and Whitman convinces us all too well with his portrayal of a washed-up drunk. Glynis Barber (BLAKE'S 7) is on hand as the appealing young blonde love interest but her acting isn't up to much. Then there's the aforementioned Harold Sakata. I like him here. He laughs a lot. I've got a feeling he was a charismatic guy, from the little we get to see of his screen presence. Laura Gemser also shows up to strip off, and her death scene is still the film's biggest puzzle (just what happened exactly?). And finally there's good old Woody Strode, as hard as ever, beating up a bunch of guys in a bar and looking muscular, but his death scene is a real disappointment and a real downer. So, there we have it, a diverse group of actors trapped in a boring film, not what I expected, but still pretty funny to watch.

Man these people deal with death so well. People are dropping like flies and they just move on to the next site. It is truly an amazingly terrible picture! The fight scenes were awful. Also, like the other comment, if you like hearing the horrible deaths, then you will love it. I am truly disappointed in this film. How it is considered a horror pic is amazing enough. One Porter gets killed by a Crocodile, but I am so sure the crocodile is very small just with a close up camera shot. A lady dies while swimming with no reason given. Its one mistake after another. It started with like 30 people on the expedition, only two make it. Can someone please tell me what happened to all the other people. The editing is so bad people are apparating(harry potter) all over the place....lol

Yes this started out with a promise of being a rather good adventure outing. With in the first 5 minutes a head hunting tribe against Japanese Army showdown begins resulting in a lot of gore and bloodshed.Then it just degenerates further and further into large plot holes, bad acting and terrible editing for effects shots.This movie was enjoyable as a novelty for the first 2/3, then became a chore there after till the convoluted and "you guessed right" ending.