Let me start by saying no, this is NOT a pornographic film
in spite of the title. In actuality the title refers to the twelve year old
mentality of humor found in the film, something that every single male on the
planet hides within themselves for fear of being slapped enthusiastically by
their spouse or better half. It is indeed a movie about cockfighting, that
ancient battle between birds armed with spikes tied to their talons.
Conceived and co-written by star Russ Hagen and directed by
Gus Trikonis (his second film) the film tells the tale of legal cockfighting
that takes place in the Philippines. Big money involved in the battles that
take place there draw cock fighters from around the world who gather to place
huge bets on the fights that take place. Among them is Seth Calhoun (Hagen) and
his specially trained rooster Friendly. Seeking the chance to win the $100,000
prize to start his own chicken ranch back in the states he has no clue what
he’s up against.
The big fight is promoted by the Nono brothers led by
brother Seeno (Subas Herrero), a group that will do any and everything to
ensure that their prized roosters are the winners of the competition. This
includes trying to kidnap Friendly as well as sending in their trusted
secretary Yuki Chan (Nancy Kwan) to seduce Calhoun.
Helping Calhoun maneuver the ways of the city is an American
expatriate and cab driver named GI (Tony Lorea). At first trying to hustle
whatever money he can from Calhoun he takes a liking to him and alters course,
trying to help him circumvent the bad guys the Nonos send out. Can he help stop
the bad guys from hijacking Friendly? Can he stop them from taking out Calhoun?
And will Yuki change sides and help our hero win the competition and end up on
that chicken ranch back in the states with him? All is answered by the end
credits.
Let’s face it there is no way to keep a straight face when
talking about this movie. And the humor involved revolves around the title and
its various forms from start to finish. One can call it low brow humor but
while watching the movie I found I couldn’t stop myself from laughing at every
mention of the word and how they not only inserted it into normal conversations
but how often they did so.
This is low budget film making at its finest. No money was
spent on major stars (though one has to wonder what Nancy Kwan did to drop from
the major roles she started her career with to end up here), no money on sets
and zero budget on high quality film stock. But every penny that was spent
definitely shows up on screen. I expected to hate this film and find it
completely worthless so imagine my surprise to find it one funny movie instead.
Garagehouse Pictures has outdone themselves once again,
offering a movie that might otherwise have disappeared from the face of the
earth sought out only by those rare collectors of the unusual. Instead it is
now available for everyone to enjoy and let lose that 12 year old while
watching. Not only are they releasing the film in blu-ray format they’re
including special features like an audio commentary track with director Fred
Olen Ray, trailers of their other films and a taped interview with Hagen by
Mike Malloy. Most interesting among those is the interview where Hagen
discusses the process of releasing the film with a PG rating and how difficult
it was to get print advertising at the time due to the film’s title. The movie
was also released as BET TO KILL, A FISTFUL OF FEATHERS and predominantly as
FOWL PLAY in order to handle those issues.
Strangely enough another film about the same subject was
released at the same time, a more serious take on the subject matter starring
Warren Oates called COCKFIGHTER. Neither did amazing box office more likely
than not due to the subject matter. But one has to consider something Hagen
brings up during the interview. In a world where men fight each other with
boxing gloves that’s trans morphed into bare fisted fighting how can this be
considered more brutal than that?
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