Bloodstone — Bloodstone(Blu Ray)

Here from Arrow Video(in the Uk & US) is Bloodstone- the next in their series of reissues of the films of Nico Mastorakis- Greek B movie producer/director- who between the ’70s & early ’90s was involved in putting out all manner of horror, action, and adventure fare. Bloodstone is a decidedly pulpy & comedy edged 1980’s action/ adventure film set in Indian- and aside from the now rather dubious racial stereotypes & mocking tone, it’s an enjoyable enough  romp. This new Blu Ray release features a new scan of the film, two commentary tracks & a few other extras.

Released in 1988 Bloodstone was very much jumping on the Indiana Jones/ Romance In The Stone bandwagon. Though it also very much nods back to the American pulp adventures of the ’30s & the ’40s, as we have a blond-haired & blue-eyed hero at the centre of the whole thing- a sort of light Doc Savage if you like. The film was produced/ co-written by Mastorakis & directed by southern Californian Dwight H. Little- who since the mid-1980s has run up 50 directorial credits- taking in film & US TV, he helmed Halloween 4, Free Willy 2, and 2010 Tekken. The film was an American/ Indian production, filmed in both Tamil Nadu, India, and the US- which I’m guessing was on sets, as the locations look largely Indian.

The plot finds Americans blond-haired textile magnet Stephanie(Anna Nicholas) & her blond hair & blue-eyed ex-cop boyfriend Sandy McVey(Brett Stimely) making there way to an Indian City by train.While on the train they meet a twitchy & sweaty fellow American man, who drops in their bags the Bloodstone, that’s he’s trying to smuggle into the city. From here we get expected switches & double-crossings- and added into the camper we get roguish Indian taxi driver Shyam Sabu- played by Rajnikanth- a South Indian Bollywood megastar. Bumbling & Peter Sellers like Inspector Ramesh- played by American actor Charlie Brill, who’s browned up & has more than a few racial ticks. And well spoken-meant- be- Dutch villain Van Hoeven- British actor Christopher Neame.

The film moves at a fairly rapid & bright pace- we have fights, car chases, risky wooden bridge crossings, rafting rapids, underground tunnels, snakes, high wire sliding, and gun knife play. We have a host of cheesy one-liners, bumbling slapstick, and hammy villains & heroes, There are no great/ huge action setups or dramatic underground treasure quest- but the budget looks fair enough for a B movie. On the whole, Bloodstone is an enjoyable, if not original/ terrible distinctive 80’s action/ adventure romp- but the whole Hollywood-meets- Bollywood does add its own flavour/charm.

Going onto this new Blu Ray presentation of the film- and the new high definition print looks very good, really putting across both the dusty & worn colours of Indian, and how very hot it was while filming. Moving onto the extras- and we get two commentary tracks- the first is with director Dwight H. Little- he starts off talking about his career in general, before moving onto talking about the film to hand & it’s production- touching on the difficulties of filming outside with Rajnikanth due to his popularity, working with the various animals, and more- on the whole, it’s one of the better more focused & interesting directors tracks I’ve heard. The second track is with LA-based film journalist Bryan Reesman, and this is a packed track- as he moves from discussing actors bios, on set stories, Indian history and how it relates to certain locations, the film's production, and much, much more- it’s one of the tracks you could play a few times & not grab all the info he’s giving you. We get a twenty-eight on I-phone( due to Covid) interview with producer/co-writer Nico Mastorakis- here he talks about how the film came about, the cast & crew, etc- it’s a worthy extra, and as always Mastorakis comes across well. Lastly, we have a twenty-minute visual essay by Indian cinema expert Josh Hurtado discussing the whole career, and importance of Rajnikanth in Indian cinema.  So a good & bountiful selection of extras.

It’s great to see Arrow Video digging deeper Nico Mastorakis filmography- and once again they’ve done a most splendid job of this new Blu Ray. I’d say you’ll either need to be a  Mastorakis fan or enjoy campy 80’s action romps- as unlike some of Mastorakis more known films there is nothing in anyway horror bound or shocking here, so do keep that in mind when picking this up!.