The Film Detective will be teaming with the Gravel Road
Entertainment Group on Feb. 21 for the release of a restored special DVD
edition of noted South African cinematographer Louis de Witt’s 1973 film, Joe
Bullet.
Joe Bullet is film school, it’s Blaxploitation (but if you are a genre fan, Joe Bullet might be
unfamiliar to you), it is history too and so much more.
Imagine making an all-black film in South Africa in
1971. Nelson Mandela was in his seventh
year as a prisoner on Robben Island (he would be there for 18 long years) and
Apartheid was the law of the land.
In was in this environment that Joe Bullet was made. It is every bit a Blaxploitation film (as we know them) and it also a martial arts
films … and if it would have found its way out of South Africa back then it
would have been a theatrical hit.
That it would be a commercial success in early 1970s in the
United States, however, was not to be the case. It was finished in 1973, and had, according
to history, just two theatrical screenings, and was then was promptly banned by
the South African government.
How could you have a black action hero? Ken Gampu was just that, the title character,
who takes on the mob, who are trying to intimate The Eagles, a soccer team with
championship aspirations.
The name Ken Gampu should ring some bells, he was featured
in such films as The Naked Prey, The Wild Geese, Zulu Dawn and The
Gods Must Be Crazy. But even with
a known property, the film was lost for forty years! Now, thanks to the Film Detective and Gravel
Road Entertainment Group the world can finally savor Ken Gampu starring in Joe
Bullet on DVD.
Bonus features include commentary by writer Tonie van der
Merwe, prolific documentary filmmaker Calum Waddell and Gravel Road
Entertainment Group’s Benjamin Cowley and a before and after restoration demo.
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