Film Review: Hunters of The Golden Cobra (1982)

 

Genre: Adventure/ "Raiders of the Lost Ark" coat-tail rider

1944 Somewhere vaguely defined in South East Asia 
 A mission to retrieve a certain item goes wrong and only the intervention of a young woman saves tough American agent Bob Jackson (David Warbeck) from death.

  A year later Bob is tracked down by his old partner David Franks (John Steiner - apparently channeling the spirit of Terry Thomas) with an offer. Go back into the jungle, retrieve said item (Hint: see the title of the movie) and earn lots of money.
  Admittedly there is a sect of Golden Cobra worshipping nutters to deal with, not to mention the hostile natives who almost killed him last time. There's also  a young woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to the jungle beauty (the delightful Almanta Suska pulling a double shift) and her not-remotely- trustworthy uncle (Luciano Pigozzi) complicating matters. Easy money, right?

  I should probably mention that there is no point where anybody wears a bikini in this film, golden or otherwise.  Despite this Hunters... is pretty decent for what it is: An Italian film hoping to cash in on the success of the Indiana Jones franchise without the budget, effects or star power.

  The director wisely keeps things moving along at a decent rate, with liberal sprinklings of action while  David Warbeck  makes a damn good fist of his open-shirted heroics, with Warbeck and John Steiner playing off each other rather well.
 The climax is maybe not as good as it could have been and the Golden Cobra stubbornly refuses to give any indication of the alleged supernatural powers. But on the whole I enjoyed this film.

Hunters Of The Golden Cobra is the sort of thing Sony Movie Channel might put on Saturday afternoon for some harmless adventure fun. Not great cinema but entertaining enough if you're in the mood.

Watch the whole film here: https://youtu.be/c_vXz65Yoeg