Dschungel-Django

A great Castellari with Franco Nero as a retired shark hunter! The soundtrack is A+ (another great tube from Guido and Maurizio De Angelis). Also, Take a look at Castellari, in a cameo, punching Nero in slow-motion near the end of the Movie! A must see for Nero and Castellari fans.

Decent enough mob flick/ Jaws ripoff, has Franco Nero sporting a supremely annoying, floppy wig, scouring the waters around small islands in the Caribbean, searching for millions of dollars, the result of a plane crash. Other searchers, as well as corrupt politicians, turn up looking for it as well- despite the fact that it is believed to be located in shark-infested waters. Well photographed in the Caribbean, and with a few good action scenes, but there is a few long stretches of nothing in between the action, and the music is sometimes effective and sometimes almost comically overpowering.

Overall, it is good, but nothing really memorable.

Franco Nero goes platinum blonde, dons a strange wig and heads for the Caribbean in a frankly bizarre and not entirely successful outing for Enzo Castellari.

Nero is The Shark Hunter, a mysterious fellow on the island who appeared from nowhere but is rather good at catching sharks. He's got his girlfriend, who has caught the eye of local thug/potential rapist Werner Pochath, who works for local crime lord Gomez. Nero has found something out there in the sea, and he's suddenly got loads of people following him.

Following a requisite bar fight with Pochath, Nero begins to work with a happy-go-lucky guy who has the diving experience and the gear to dive over three hundred metres. This guy seems trustworthy, so Nero reveals that what's down there is plane with one hundred million dollars in it. When asked what he'd do with the money, the guy says he'd spend it on orphanages and hospitals for the poor. Care to guess what happens to him?

Gomez wants to get his hands on the money, as does a stranger American fellow who arrived on the island. Can Nero get to the money and suck it out of the sea using that vacuum gadget and that huge inflatable ball? Would that even work in real life?

There's still the question of who Nero is and why he knows the money is there, and that gives him a chance to do his near-crying acting and have a few flashbacks. There's not much in the way of gunplay in this one but Enzo Castellari does get to punch Franco Nero right in the face. I wonder if that's why he gave himself such a big role? Some frustrations with his actors rising to the surface there.

Werner Pochath makes a good bad guy so we don't need to worry about that, but there's something strangely lacking from this one. I could have sworn it was aimed at kids until the end where people started getting eaten by sharks and harpooned in the chest. It's not a bad film, don't get me wrong - it's just not Castellari at his best.

Strange credits too - F. Nero? W. Pochath? Did they run out of money or something?

I saw this movie almost a thousand times when I was a kid. I had it on VHS. And I loved it every time. But now the tape has been lost for years, and I miss this great movie, especially the music score. Is there anyone out there who can tell me how to get this film? On DVD would be perfect, but I don't think that is possible. Even on DivX or SVCD is just fine. I would be VERY grateful...

"Guardians of the Deep" could more or less be described as a rip-off of Peter Benchley's "The Deep", only … this version is a whole lot better and numberless times more entertaining! It's a very silly and immensely grotesque adventure movie, with highly implausible stunts and unrealistic characters, but the whole thing is so spirited and so vividly directed by Enzo G. Casterllari that you can't help but be amused. Spaghetti western hero Franco Nero (wearing a blond wig that nearly makes him unrecognizable) stars as a treasure hunter on a quest to recover $10 million from a plane wreck that lies on the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. The valuable loot is located nearby a shark-infested cave, but that can't be an issue, as Mike also happens to be a fearless and ruthless shark hunter who doesn't even hesitate to crash down in the open sea with a parachute to take on a Tiger Shark with his bare hands, now how about that?!? His search is complicated when other parties learn about the treasure as well, like a CIA agent on "holiday" and a bunch of corrupt local police officers. "Guardians of the Deep" features a constantly high level of spectacle & suspense and the film benefices extremely from the lusciously exotic photography by Raúl Cubero. This film is very beautiful to look at … and to listen to, as the De Angelis brothers' score is downright phenomenal and dreamy. Although not exactly a legit entry in the "Sharksploitation" sub genre (like "Great White", "Monster Shark" or "Tintorera"), this film contains some of the greatest and most masterfully enacted shark attack sequences ever in low-budget cult cinema! The sharks in the cave assist Mike during the finale and explicitly devour a couple of his opponents. The action scenes are impressive at sea as well as on the mainland, with tough macho fistfights, wild car chases and shootouts. This puppy is quite obscure and difficult to find, but worth tracking down if you like tropical settings, shark-action and Castellari's versatile repertoire.