Blind Rage

What a damn exploitation gem from Manilla...Underrated and not for intellectuals, but rather single blue collars after work or for sundays matinees. Lousy directing, laughable dialogues as in a cartoon album for ten years old kids, corny script, where sub characters are so unusual, where there is no real lead role and a topic for which the audience never gets bored. Every one watching this film wishes the gang to suceed in his task: rob the bank. The most unexpected heist film I have ever seen and of course improbable too, except DOBERMAN GANG, where a bank heist was pulled not by blind men but dogs; you can confound both movies, at least put them on the same scale. I highly prefer this to any Hollywood one hundred million dollars budget crap. I repeat, tha main thing to remember is that there is NO LEAD, MAIN character in this movie. And that's the first time in my moviegoer life that I see a film where the "should be main character" appears in the last seven minutes of the feature. All the rest of the crew, the cast have already "disappeared". Sooo unexpected, and hat's precisely what I like. I love.

Banker Johnny Duran (Charlie Davao) gets in on a bank job offer from criminal Lew "My friends call me Wilbur" Simpson (B.T. Anderson) that is too bad to be true. Simpson wants to have five blind men rob a bank of $50 million dollars. Why? See the above quote. Well, I guess that settles it. They assemble the global blind crew - Triad member Lin Wang (Leo Fong), US gangster Willie Black (D'Urville Martin), magician Anderson (Dick Adair), Filipino Ben Guevara (Tony Ferrer) and blind matador (!!!) Hector Lopez (Darnell Garcia) - and get trained by teacher for the blind Sally (Leila Hermosa) in a bank mock up. Seriously. The job goes off perfect before Ben is suspected ("Hey, I've got this blind guy in my files") and provides cinema's quickest ratting out of partners ever. Everyone expect Duran is killed in a huge explosion (their next grand idea was to sneak into the airport by hiding inside a gas tanker actually carrying gas!). Duran makes it to Los Angeles at the 70 minute mark where Jesse Crowder (Fred Williamson) is waiting to take him down.

Makes the bank robbing dogs concept in THE DOBERMAN GANG (1972) look credible in comparison. You have to love any film that adopts such a ridiculous concept and follows through on it. I mean, there is seriously a line where Duran says, "Alright, let's start by synchronizing your Braille watches." The crooks could have had the same success rate and saved some time if they just barged in with guns a blazin' rather than take the time to train a bunch of blind guys. The film is all over the map - literally, as they shot in the US, Mexico, Japan and the Philippines. I'd love to hear the financing stories on this. Williamson shows up as an afterthought, only appearing on screen for about ten minutes. Director Efren C. Piñon also worked with Leo Fong on ENFORCER FROM DEATH ROW (1978).

... This would be unwatchable. Hongkongsploitation at it's utter worst. Terrible story, acting and dialogue along with one of the top ten stupidest plots - blind guys robbing a bank - this is just trash from beginning to end. Now I've watched some bad movies in my time, the creeping Terror comes to mind, but this is just not even funny!

I can't disagree with any of the above reviews. There's never any real attempt to explain why using blind guys to rob a bank is such a great idea. Yes, no one would suspect blind guys of robbing a bank, but really, wouldn't a sighted electronic expert be more useful? At one point one of the cops posits that the blind men wouldn't be able to identify the "mastermind" (which seems an extremely generous description of Willie Black) because they are blind. Wouldn't it just be easier to kill the thieves after the crime. Dead men can't identify anybody either.

My favorite part of the movie though has to be the chase scene that starts at an International House of Pancakes and then ends up on the roof of an International House of Pancakes! The International House of Pancakes is also where the crime is planned at the beginning of the movie (a great place to plot a international crime).

That's really too much International House of Pancakes for one movie.

Ever see a film that you knew deep down was bad, but you were able to suspend your usual beliefs about what a good movie should be and enjoy it anyway? Meet BLIND RAGE, a low-budget '70s anti-masterpiece.

The plot is highly original, if not ridiculous. Five blind men are assembled to rob a bank in broad daylight. Why? Because who would ever suspect blind men of robbing a bank? (Well, there's a bit more to it than that, but I won't spoil it for you). The group of visually-impaired thieves (no, you've never heard of any of the actors) is carefully trained in a mock bank by the lovely Sally (Leila Hermosa, who later landed a coveted role in the highly acclaimed BONGGA KA DAY). But can they pull it off? Well, this is a dumb '70s movie, isn't it?

BLIND RAGE isn't rife with so-bad-it's-good humor, but it certainly has its moments. I'll never forget the badly-dubbed scene where one of the blind dudes breaks up an attempted sexual assault by another. In a voice with about as much emotion as Eeyore before coffee, our hero orders the aggressor to "Get off her... sex hungry bastard." Then there's the hilarity of desperate producers trying to pass this off as a Fred Williamson actioneer. They don't tell you that Freddy doesn't show up until about the last 20 minutes (though he is vintage cigar-chomping Williamson once he finally arrives).

If this review has at all piqued your interest in BLIND RAGE, you're definitely a candidate for enjoying it. (Though you'll probably have to scour eBay to find it).