Well, that’s interesting. Yes, indeed … interesting, very interesting.
Word arrived this past week that Cauldron Films, with sales and distribution support provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has assigned a street date for a film that they’ve unearthed … an exceeding rare exploitation film from prolific filmmaker Gordon Ho.
Being released in association with the “Neon Eagle Video” label, Kill Butterfly Kill is a new 4K film restoration from what is believed to be the “best surviving elements” of the English-dubbed export version.
But wait, there’s more, because it’s Cauldron Films they’ve gone extra mile and included two additional cuts of the film for fans, film buffs and the curious to delve into.
First, there is Underground Wife, which is the original Mandarin language version in standard definition (filmed in Taiwan circa 1982).
But the big bonus here is the 1987 re-cut version of the film titled American Commando 4: Kill Butterfly Kill. This is one of those IFD Films & Arts Limited “specials” with additional footage spliced in — and with additional actors — to take advantage of the untimely death of the film’s star. It is an entirely different storyline that is only loosely connected to the original.
American Commando 4: Kill Butterfly Kill is also a 4K film restoration from the original camera negative.
To be honest, we are not familiar with the film (regardless of its various titles), and the release has been on the radar for a while (a limited edition came and went) … until now!
Look, it’s backed by Cauldron Films, which has an impressive track record for delivering unique and cult films, so you pay attention when a double-disc Blu-ray edition of Ho’s 1982 (’87) film, Kill Butterfly Kill (aka: Underground Wife; aka: American Commando 4: Kill Butterfly Kill) gets a Dec. 12 release date.
As to the story itself, the exciting Juliet Chen Li-Yun (Li-Yun Chen — Commando Fury, The Vampire Dominator, Angel’s Blood Mission, etc.) has the lead as an attractive young woman, Tang Mei-Ling, who inexplicitly goes out walking one evening in a seedy part of town. Sure enough, a quintet of young joy-boys spot her and decide to have their way with her (note, in the IFD re-cut her attackers are members of a drug gang).
After all, any woman walking the streets after dark in this neighbor is obviously asking for it, so why not oblige! Although skilled in martial arts, Mei-Ling holds her own in the early goings of the assault, but five against one eventually proves too much for her to handle and she is beaten and gang-raped.
Bloody, humiliated and violated, she commits suicide by leaping to her death off a bridge. But, as luck (or fate) would have it, she is rescued by a former killer-for-hire played by “Tattooer Ma” Sha (aka: Liu Jin-Zhen — The Witch with the Flying Head, Guns to Heaven, Ma! Don't Die on My Back, etc.), who nurses her back to health and spends the next few years imparting his skill-set as an assassin so that she can have her revenge … which she does!! In the alternate IFD cut of the film, she has outside “help” bent on taking down a criminal drug-dealing enterprise.
As to bonus goodies, the Kill Butterfly Kill version has commentary by Kenneth Brorsson and Paul Fox, podcasters for the Fire Network.
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