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German Karate teacher Frank Mertens battles the drug lord Van Bullock in the streets of Madrid.

Largely so-bad-it's-good martial arts from Germany

Hilarious Midgetsploitation from the crazy 70s!

Excellent Kung Fu Mystery Action Movie from Top Singer.

&quot;I am going to get a chess set out of the bones of his skull.&quot; A priceless moment of dialogue from what is for the most part a largely worthless production, ROOTS OF EVIL stands true as the first (and perhaps only) German-made martial arts epic in the world. Filmed in Madrid with a cast of supporting Spanish actors, this marks the one and only major starring role for German folk singing legend Christian Anders, who unsurprisingly penned the film&#39;s music and script as well as starring and co-directing. Anders is a Bruce Lee-wannabe film star whose idea of acting is to copy the acting and style of his hero as closely as possible. Sadly, he lacks both the charisma and skill of Lee, instead coming across as a slightly pathetic but nonetheless earnest fighter who attempts to carry the film on his wooden shoulders. It doesn&#39;t work, but the effect can be hilarious. The plot is clichéd and tired from the very beginning. First off we see Anders training in his own fight club, where we see what a nice guy he is by being friendly to his female secretary and helping out those who are training. Soon enough a dwarf, Van Bullock, arrives in the neighbourhood - a red carpet is thrown from his car - and is dismayed to see a rival karate school in the area where he himself had planned to set up shop. Instead of choosing another location like 99% of people would, he instead tries to get Anders to move elsewhere. When his bribes and offers of power fail, Van Bullock tries harder tactics like sending a squad of goons to the local graveyard where Anders is paying his respects to his deceased teacher. After repeatedly failing, he ends up planting drugs in Anders&#39; coat and calling in the cops. Anders is imprisoned in jail indefinitely. At this point the mildly watchable film gives up the ghost completely with a total lack of plot or action for approximately half an hour. Finally, Anders learns that Van Bullock is the one responsible for his incarceration and the death of a girlfriend, so he breaks out of jail (in a scene that would impressive even John Rambo) and interrupts Van Bullock&#39;s orgy at his country mansion. The police arrive and force Anders to flee wounded into the woods, where Van Bullock and his bodyguard follow to finish him off. The film is poorly-plotted and the story is pretty uninteresting, offering no attempts at humour to liven the leaden dialogue. The action sequences in themselves aren&#39;t bad; obviously the fighters aren&#39;t as skilled as they would be in eastern productions, but they move along nicely and at least provide something worth watching. Viewers hoping for sex and violence will be sadly let down by this film&#39;s politically-correct attitude. There&#39;s an orgy, yes, but it has to be the tamest orgy ever filmed - one woman struggles to keep her flimsy dress on throughout and the scantily-clad female cast members aren&#39;t really that appealing. The action is virtually bloodless, and the only nasty bit is a double leg-breaking at the climax. One good stunt involves Anders being thrown through a first-floor window and rolling over the roof of a car, a surprisingly well-edited and staged sequence in an otherwise below average production. Scenes of Anders training hard dressed in only his underwear are repulsive and much of the film&#39;s entertainment value comes from overacting dwarf actor Deep Roy, nowadays an established player in Hollywood. Check out the hilarious climax in which he is tossed unceremoniously into a river by our erstwhile hero! ROOTS OF EVIL has promise and is occasionally hilarious in a so-bad-it&#39;s-good way, but long stretches of nothingness test the patience and make it sometimes a chore to sit through.

tt0163989

Roots of Evil

he he...this movie is fun. Its so bad you cant believe your eyes. The strange part is that Christian Anders (both music and director)look like he have martial art skills. That training sequence is funny as hell. The bad guy role is also hilarious a dwarf that looks like a child with mustache his name is Van Bullock. He want to buy the place where Christian Anders main character has his training school. Think bad Asian martial art movie and add some German cheese and you have &quot;Roots of Evil&quot;. This movie is worth seeing cause of the cheesy music the serious acting by Christian Anders. ....................................................................

In the 70s, Christian Anders as the leading actor was well known in Germany as a crooner. But it was all over from one day to another when he told a reporter &quot;Day and night I&#39;m thinking about how to sell more records to these idiots&quot;. After that, he earned his living as a karate teacher, later he went to USA to become a guru. Due to Wikipedia, he compared George W. Bush with Adolf Hitler and thinks Mrs Michelle Obama was a man. His sidekick Dunja Rajter was a crooner herself, but she never did duets with Anders. They both play like wooden figures. The film consists merely of karate fighting scenes. The story as well as the dialogues are dumb. There is only one scene of intimacy, but too dark as usual, strictly clean, and they even taped Dunja&#39;s nipples. Don&#39;t waste your time with this flick.

If you&#39;re looking for a cheap laugh, then look no further than this film! I was fortunate enough to find this obscure turkey in the back of an old second-hand store, and upon viewing the cover, consisting only of a picture of Christian Anders looking angry with the title in huge lettering across, reading &quot;Djævelsk Terror&quot; (Devilish Terror), and then the description on the back: &quot;One man alone against a perverted midget and his gangsters&quot;, I had to buy it! The story is roughly as follow: The ambitious karate-teacher, Frank Mertens (played by German folk-singer Christian Anders) only wants to run his own small karate-school in peace and tranquility, preaching non-violence in the name of his deceased master, with the help of his secretary Ingrid (played by the Spanish actress Maribel Martín). But with the arrival of the evil, drug-dealing and martial-arts teaching midget Van Bullock (played by Deep Roy of &quot;Charlie and the Chocolate-Factory fame in one of his very first roles), everything changes. Van Bullock wants to place his own karate-school right next to Frank Mertens&#39; karate-school, but doesn&#39;t like the competition, so he tries to buy Mertens out, but he refuses. After that, Van Bullock sends some of his goons after Mertens to beat him up, to no avail. Then he tries more peaceful negotiations, but they fail miserably yet again, and he apparently has no choice but to eliminate Mertens from the face of the earth. Moving his own school to another part of the city, or accepting fair competition is not an option! With the help of his trusty, neutered (!) henchman Komo (played by notorious B-movie actor Fernando Bilbao aka Fred Harris), Van Bullock beats his way to whatever he wants, and even scores with the most sexy ladies imaginable, including his mistress Cora (played by the Croatian/German actress/singer Dunja Rajter). But Frank Mertens is the one man that cannot be controlled, so Van Bullock frames him for a crime and Mertens then goes to jail. What happens next is totally ridiculous, as Mertens more or less turns himself into a John Rambo-clone and breaks out of jail, going after the bad guys.. mind you, this was made BEFORE &quot;First Blood&quot;, so every reference to Rambo is actually non-existent, and the Rambo-films actually should pay THIS film homage instead! Overall, this was a pretty bad movie, poorly directed, poorly acted, and (especially) poorly written! But it does have some redeeming points, such as having a couple of German folk-singers in the lead as action-stars, and Deep Roy giving a hilarious portrayal of a hysterical and egotistical gangster-boss. At one point, we see a montage of Mertens training to funky 70s music, and some of his routines are - to put it mildly - a bit bizarre, as in wearing tight leather-shorts with straps attached, and speed-jumping up and down with only his belly touching the floor, etc. The ending of the movie was particularly weird, as Mertens runs around in the woods fighting Van Bullock and Komo, and at the same time also fleeing from the police, practically rendering him an outlaw! But when all is said, I have to give this a 5/10, as it was very entertaining, and I laughed quite a lot while watching this. However, I wouldn&#39;t recommend this film to people who can&#39;t appreciate movies that are &quot;so bad they&#39;re good&quot;, as this one clearly falls into that category.

ROOTS OF EVIL (1979) Directed by Christian Anders (Germany) I must admit that I had no idea what to expect from this as I popped it into the DVD player. I remember seeing the old Temple VHS cover in the mid 80s but never ever got around to renting it. That was about 30 years ago! On watching Christiam Anders epic movie how could I have waited that long to see it. Is Roots of Evil a good movie? Is it a film of exceptional interest to then common man? No! No! No! Roots of Evil is awful in every aspect of film making. Badly made, badly acted, badly...... fill in the rest yourself. It&#39;s just bloody terrible on every level you can think of. But.................... It&#39;s bloody hysterical! Anders plays Frank Mertens, a peaceful Karate teacher who just wants to be left alone. He has a small band of students and an assistant, Ingrid, who loves him. You can tell she loves him because she looks all dreamy when he walks into a room. Enter Deep Roy! (Sounds like a 1973 porno). Deep Roy is Van Bullock and he&#39;s 4 foot 4 of one of the most entertaining bad guys in film history. Roy is most famous for playing 165 Oompa-Loompas in Tim Burton&#39;s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.... That&#39;s every one of them. Anyway, Van Bullock wants Anders to give up his school because he wants to start his own school. He also sells drugs to kids. The back story is that Van Bullock killed Anders&#39; master a few years ago because he was giving info to the cops. Van Bullock did 9 years in prison and he&#39;s still pretty angry about it. And that;s the story. Simple. It&#39;s what happens in the middle that makes this film a little gem. Terrible fights, terrible dialogue, terrible music, terrible drunken dwarf scenes. It&#39;s all here. Why was there never a sequel? Why? Why I Ask Ya? Anders looks like a young Chuck Norris but does Bruce Lee sounds when he&#39;s fighting. He also sings the super song. He also directs, producers, writes, does the catering and probably does hair and make-up! I love Christian Anders. He needs to be seen to be believed. The film has a wonderful training montage to. Every film should have a training montage. Anders does all kinds of super techniques. He ties wires to his undies and fiddles with himself. I believe this is the way David Carridine died. Anyway, would I watch this film again? Hell yeah! I&#39;m watching it now! The film should have its own designated channel on sky so you can dip in and out whenever you like. It&#39;s hypnotic in its badness. I love that. See it if you can! Van Bullock!!!!!!!!!

The amazing martial arts flick from the 70&#39;s starring Deep Roy as &#39;Van Bullock&#39; a midget with an attitude.And a desire to own the Karate school.With his trusty cohort &#39;Como&#39; he goes out to destroy &#39;Frank Mertens&#39; by planting drugs and having an orgy of lust with some big birds.BUT NO!&#39;Frank&#39;fights them off and throws a &#39;Van Bullock&#39;in a stream,its actually a child shop window dummy in his clothes but still a bit good.He then snaps &#39;Como&#39;in two in a weird homo erotic kind of a bumming move,bit weird then runs off in slow mo half dressed Christian Anders wrote the film,directed the film,wrote the theme tune,sings the theme tune and plays &#39;Frank Mertens&#39; AND does his own stunts.What a talented bastard! A true cult classic.

Christian Anders one of Germany&#39;s greatest singer/songwriters of melodious smooth pop ballads , here makes his directorial debut to superb effect. Unlike previous ignorant tasteless comments from s.kahrs this movie delivers both action, mystery, romance and suspense to keep the viewer spellbound. Anders always uses a professional quality approach to his singing , acting and directing he finds loud garbage rock/metal/punk/hip hop drugged up noisy &quot;music&quot; utterly repulsive and delivers high class pop music and film thrills for millions to enjoy. A high quality intense thrilling film.

User reviews

Roots of Evil

Largely so-bad-it's-good martial arts from Germany

Cant be more B than this

Completely a waste of lifetime

Hilarious Midgetsploitation from the crazy 70s!

Van Bullock!!!!!

Just Brilliant.

Excellent Kung Fu Mystery Action Movie from Top Singer.

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