THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE is one of two martial arts movies that came out in 1975 with the same title; the other stars Lo Lieh and is even more obscure than this one. This film was mostly shot in the Philippines with a Filipino supporting cast, but it does provide a rare 'good guy' turn for Japanese megastar Yasuaki Kurata. Kurata plays an alcoholic cop who loses his job and joins up with a massive drug gang operating out of the Golden Triangle, but the good news is that he's secretly working undercover to bring down the bad guys. He ends up joining forces with a local hero and the film becomes a running battle of shoot-outs, fisticuffs, and general movie mayhem. It's cheap in the usual Filipino cheap style of filmmaking, but there's plentiful action, even if it is all basic. Kurata doesn't get to show off much in the way of special moves, but he's certainly agile and athletic enough for a leading man.
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Leofwine_draca11 February 2018
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When I saw this as a kid, I was impressed by the scene where Opium ring big boss (and Bruce Lee's Big Boss) Han Ying Chieh kneels and prays To Our Lady, 'cuz two cops are after him (Yasuaki Kurata and Cheung Lik). One of the boss' henchmen (Samson Key aka Chieh Yuen, an untimely died Kung-Fu champ also seen in the found footage of Game of Death as Lee's sidekick), mock the boss. What stroke me was to see a chinese supercriminal showing a kind of human weakness toward Christian religion. Seen today, this movie is just a low-budget Bond-like fare, with tons of Kung-Fu and even a soccer-play-mixed-with-Kung Fu jumps scene that was another extravaganza. Kurata and Cheung Lik plays the two undercover cops; Miss World Philippines beauty Evangeline Pascual plays the doctor assistant in the Golden Triangle's jungle; prolific actor-director-producer-writer Law Ki directed this with the same rudeness he directed films like Bruce Lee the Invincible or Life for sale aka That man from Singapore. Made the same year of the eponymous Golden Triangle directed by Wu Man. But this has many more Kung-Fu than that. Romeo Galang is credited as co-director, at least in the international version.