My review was written in March 1984 after a screening at 42nd St. Times Square theater.
"The Hunters of the Golden Cobra" is an unspectacular Italian adventure film, lensed in 1982 in the Philippines under the title "Raiders of the Golden Cobra", and not surprisingly, heavily derived from the worldwide hit "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Trene is okay filler for action audiences.
British actor David Warbeck, (whose post-synched dialog varies from a Yank accent in opening reels o his own Blighty voice in later reels) toplines as soldier of fortune Bob Jackson, working on missions in the Philippines during W. W. II, with a British officer Bracken (John Steiner). He's tabbed by the Allies to return to an island jungle (site of film's one-year earlier teaser opening) to retrieve a stolen idol, the Golden Cobra, worshiped by the native religious cult of doped-up Awoks, and believed to possess incredible powers.
Besides Bracken, Jackson is aided on his mission by Juen (Almanta Suska) and her uncle (Alan Collins), searching for June's twin sister April, who was lost in the jungle years ago, and whom Jackson encountered in his first visit there. Finding her to be a white queen lording it over the natives. After several double crosses. Jackson and April escape with the golden idol in a nicely staged volcanic eruption climax.
Filme on a low-budget and generally small scale (but including director Antonio Margheriti's usual quota of topnotch miniatures and special effects explosions), "Cobra" is of interest due to its careful transfer of the basic gimmicks of George Lucas/Steven Spielberg's "Raiders" to a new story and setting. Instead of Nazis, the supernatural totem of absolute power is being contested by the Japanese here, and numerous scenes recall the look & action of the original opening and closing escape to a seaplane with blow dart natives in pursuit; hero thrown into a dungeon that fills with snakes; heroine kidnapped in an open-air market; even Warbeck exclaiming "I'm making this up as I go along" when caught in a tight spot, a la Indiana Jones.
Oddest touch is the film's unintentional predictive aspects: the baddies are named Awoks a year or more before Lucas's race of Ewoks were made public in "Return of the Jedi", and dual-role-playing femme led Almanta Suska is virtually a European double for Kate Capshaw, later to get the "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" plum part. Serendipity at work, no doubt.
Acting by a troupe of Margheriti regulars is okay, and for fans of this genre, Warbeck and Margheriti have recently teamed up for another unauthorized "Raiders" pic, "The Art of the Sun God", filmed in Turkey.
