Golden Temple Amazon — Golden Temple Amazon(Blu Ray)
Golden Temple Amazon( aka Les amazones du temple d'or, Amazons in the Temple of Gold) was made in 1986, and seemingly was jointly directed by Jess Franco & French sleaze director Alain Payet(as James Gartner). Much like the other recent MVD Classic Franco release Diamonds Of Kilimandjaro, the film is an attempt at making an action/ adventure film- with this time around a off-balancing blend of child-friendly, cute & comic jungle adventure, tons of female nudity, and a few gory deaths/ torture scenes.
The film opens in true sleazy & cheesy fashion with slow-mo shots of a group of topless white women riding on horses with cheap looking tribal get-up on- all backed by jaunting 80’s funk soundtrack. Fairly soon the group come across a cabin, and with barely a warning fire their bows at a middle-aged man & women, promptly killing them, leaving their young daughter to find them. Then we flash forward some years; & we find out the daughter has been brought up by a local tribe- she is now in her late teens/ the early twenties- she appears topples, has a tight perm & dressed in a mishmash of furs- we see her talking with a monkey, riding an elephant, and playing with baby tigers. She returns to the cabin, to find one of her father friend- who uncovers her father's diary, and we get yet more flashbacks, and we find out he was stealing gold from the topless Amazon. Fairly soon the daughter decides to search out the Amazons & their gold mine.
The daughter hooks up with balky & bumbling witch-doctor, treasure hunting couple, and a sleazy bearded tracker. The first three-quarters of the film quite jarringly switches from campy PG lead action adventure with contrived comic moments from the witch doctor, lots of leering female flesh shots, and cheesy jungle action. In the latter part of the film, the group come across the group of Amazons- who are led by overweight & sleazy white man, and we get introduced to a wicked warden like blonde haired, eye patch wearing, and bare-breasted lead Amazon who whips & tortures the group.
The films jungle setting is more authentic compared with the likes of Diamonds Of Kilimandjaro, and we get generally the interaction between the animals & cast. As mentioned the soundtrack is very funky, campy, and buoyant- really giving the whole thing a very positive/ bright vibe- but this also makes the more sleazy/ violent moments more unbalancing. On the whole, the film was an enjoyable romp, and the odd blend of sleazy & PG action really gives the whole thing a fairly distinctive vibe.
This new region free Blu Ray is very barebones- we get just the film, either with its original French track or English track. And trailers for other MVD Classic releases. The print looks good enough, though the audio mix is still not great- as at times the music over-runs the dialogue.
Golden Temple Amazon was a lot of cheesy 80’s fun with a sleazy underbelly- certainly one for fans Franco’s 1980’s output, and those who enjoy tonally unbalancing genre fare.