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The Golden Triangle
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Dark Force Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (29th August 2025). |
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The Film
 The geographical intersection of Thailand, Burma, and Laos protected by dense jungle and treacherous mountain ranges known as The Golden Triangle produces the bulk of the world's supply of opium from plentiful poppy crops, resulting in the area's inhabitants largely engaging in either manufacturing, transporting, or stealing with even some in the surrounding country's governments profiting by hindering the efforts of international law enforcement. Having escaped from Hong Kong police, drug trafficker Tony Wong (Jade Tiger's Lo Lieh) has fled to Thailand where he lies low until he intervenes in the harassment of hostess Pon (Hanuman and the 5 Kamen Riders' Tanyarat Lohanan) by local thugs which turns out to be a ploy to get Tony to her brother (In Gold We Trust's Somchai Samipak) who offers him a hiding place in the mountains working for his boss Lo Han (The 14 Amazons' Tien Feng) who raids local opium caravans to sell to the American mob. Also turning up in the lawless land around the same time and is Chat (The Tiger Devil's Sombat Metanee), a young Thai man who makes himself known as a scrapper by standing up for Lau Su (I Remember's Sawin Sawangrat) against cheating gambler. The grateful Lau takes Chat up into the mountains and introduces him to his boss Hangson Wu (A Queen's Ransom's Tanny Tien) who inherited the job of transporting opium for local manufacturers from her father and feels responsible for the livelihoods of the men under her even though she loathes their product. Trusting Lau, Wu makes Chat swear an oath to her and sends him along with Lau on their latest transport, not realizing that buyer Lo Han is setting up the caravan for an ambush lead by Tony. In the aftermath, Wu is hell bent on revenge and Lo Han proves just as treacherous to those under him, leading to double crosses and secret identities revealed in a bloody climax. A Thai/Hong Kong co-production, The Golden Triangle is a surprisingly lifeless action film that squanders much of its potential. Lo Lieh is more of a guest star and both he and Thai boxer Matanee not only barely interact but also get little opportunity to engage with anyone else in martial arts, with the bulk of the film's violence consisting of gunplay. Tanny Tien strikes a formidable figure but seems less impressive when her character softens and falls in love. What should be scenes of suspense building merely pad out the running time, with the caravan scenes leading up to the ambush feeling quite drawn out, while the third act requires several of its characters to do stupid things like team back up with a villain who has set them up to be killed by the police and the cops to leave an injured drug trafficker unguarded in the hospital. The warehouse finale is blandly-staged and smacks of local "crime doesn't pay" censorship. Beneath the rather uninspired dubbing and scoring, one is uncertain which of the jointly-credited directors is more responsible for it all. Rome Boonag had served as local production manager on some Hong Kong action films shot in Thailand while Hong Kong action cinema character actor Wu Ma had served as assistant director and joint director to Chang Cheh like Shaolin Temple and The Magnificent Wanderers before going on to more outrageous and entertaining films like The Dead and the Deadly and The Manchu Boxer. 
Video
One of a number of unsold Asian martial arts films picked up in the late seventies by Dick Randall's Spectacular Trading Co. and dubbed into English in Italy – hence the use of some Armando Travajoil tracks dating back to Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory, The Golden Triangle had scan theatrical release in the United States followed by cropped releases from Unicorn Video and Magnum Entertainment, one of which was presumably the source for Xenon Pictures' cropped DVD. Surviving U.S. prints seem nonexistent as Dark Force Entertainment has had to utilize an Italian 35mm theatrical print and the audio from an old Greek-subtitled VHS – the Italian version is based on Randall's English dub so everything lines up with the exception of a short dialogue scene introducing Tien's character that was either lopped out of the source for the Greek VHS or perhaps too damaged to be usable – and the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.38:1 widescreen Blu-ray transfer restores the original Panavision framing but rarely looks better than what has come before apart from some close-ups. Dark scenes are impenetrable, jungle sunlight and sky shots largely blow out, and pretty much everyone has an orange tan. Damage is intermittent but generally not as distracting as the other image defects but even with all this it is probably the best viewing option for this film unless another print turns up. 
Audio
The English-dubbed DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track is fairly clean, although there may be a line or word dropped by damage here and there. Effects are lifeless while the music track seems to be made up entirely of Italian genre library tracks, the choice of which might have been that of the dubbers in Italy or even the original production given the amount of "recycled" music in Asian exploitation. There are no subtitles even for the brief bit that reverts to Italian but it is easy to follow. 
Extras
There are no extras. 
Overall
The action and intrigue one can only find in The Golden Triangle is sadly not to be found in the film itself.
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