Raiders of the Doomed Kingdom

A story about the last mercenaries' last mission in the war in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon could be an intriguing plot, but this film is definitely NOT an international "5 star rated movie" as the video-cover "promise".

A group of thai-mercenaries, in the service for the americans, is signed to a mission of rescuing a south-vietnamese general held captured by the victorious vietcon-forces. But why on earth do they, after the escape from the vietnamese mainland, have to land on an island inhabited by lepers? After this, the rest of the film is a mindless bodycount show.

By the way. How did such a ridiculous (almost whimpering) person ever become a general?

And finally. This is definitely not a film about the americans in Vietnam. Their presence in the film is actually minimal, and when they do occur, they are NOT shown from their best sides.

As US troops pull out of Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, Cobra (Sorapong Chatree) and his group of Thai mercenaries are given one last mission—to rescue South Vietnamese General Chu (Peter Ramwa) from the Viet Cong before he squeals about 'Operation One-Legged-Rabbit'. After springing their target with ease from a poorly guarded Viet Cong camp, Cobra and his team flee the mainland, taking cover on a jungle island inhabited by lepers, where they must put to use all of their guerrilla warfare skills to make one last stand against the enemy.

Opening with genuine news footage of Vietnam war atrocities, Raiders of the Doomed Kingdom immediately looks set to be an exploitative Asian treat; indeed, early scenes featuring the point-blank execution of soldiers, a 'from-out-of-nowhere' sex scene, and the sight of a severed head on a table only go further to give this impression. However, despite its rather cool 'men on a mission' set-up, lots of undeniable brutality, and the occasional spot of nookie, the film comes nowhere near to fulfilling its potential as a hugely entertaining slice of unnecessarily violent cheese.

Although Cobra and his men carefully prepare umpteen savage looking booby traps to surprise their enemy, the film ignores this golden opportunity for some really outrageously gory mayhem in favour of routine, low-budget, Asian action flick territory, wherein lots of indeterminable characters (I honestly couldn't tell the 'good' guys from the 'bad') wander through dense foliage aimlessly shooting their guns and blowing stuff up. A couple of the traps get activated towards the end, which is nice, but so much more should have been made of these more primitive and much nastier methods of dispatching of the enemy. One thing's for sure—the Italians would have done it all so much better.

3.5 out of 10, rounded up to 4 for IMDb.