After the hype that I had heard about CANNIBAL MERCENARY - I have to honestly say that it was a pretty big let-down. I went into this film hoping it would be some sort of PREMUTOS-style gore-fest mixed with some CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST-ish elements. Well - it wasn't...
An ex-soldier is recruited for one last mission. Reluctantly our hero agrees as his daughter suffers from a rare and extreme case of polio, and needs the big pay-day that he's been guaranteed to pay for her treatment. The group of soldiers descend into the jungle on an assignment to contact some lady named Jumpa (I think...) who has further information on their target. Along the way, the group encounters booby-traps, spies, hostile villagers and the Viet Cong...oh yeah...and cannibals.
There ARE some decent gore scenes in CANNIBAL MERCENARY, but most of them are quick and don't happen until the end of the film. In fact - not much of anything happens until close to an hour in. Of note are a few throat-slashings, a decapitation, some stabbings, and a whole slew of gun-play and hand-to-hand combat action - none of which are really that notable. The only scenes that are worth any real mention are a (non-graphic) castration, another scene where a guy is buried neck-deep then a spike is driven into his skull and his brains are eaten, and one particularly nasty scene where the soldiers come across a maggot-riddled corpse and one of the team scrapes a handful of the rotted flesh and maggots and eats it - yum. Unfortunately, the cannibal elements are sadly under-rated, as they don't even come into the film until the last few minutes. Honestly, I found this one to be a bore overall, and caught myself nodding off several times. Not the worst thing out there, and a few decent scenes make it "better than average" - but I can really only recommend this one to rabid cannibal film fans or exploit completists...6/10
An ex-soldier is recruited for one last mission. Reluctantly our hero agrees as his daughter suffers from a rare and extreme case of polio, and needs the big pay-day that he's been guaranteed to pay for her treatment. The group of soldiers descend into the jungle on an assignment to contact some lady named Jumpa (I think...) who has further information on their target. Along the way, the group encounters booby-traps, spies, hostile villagers and the Viet Cong...oh yeah...and cannibals.
There ARE some decent gore scenes in CANNIBAL MERCENARY, but most of them are quick and don't happen until the end of the film. In fact - not much of anything happens until close to an hour in. Of note are a few throat-slashings, a decapitation, some stabbings, and a whole slew of gun-play and hand-to-hand combat action - none of which are really that notable. The only scenes that are worth any real mention are a (non-graphic) castration, another scene where a guy is buried neck-deep then a spike is driven into his skull and his brains are eaten, and one particularly nasty scene where the soldiers come across a maggot-riddled corpse and one of the team scrapes a handful of the rotted flesh and maggots and eats it - yum. Unfortunately, the cannibal elements are sadly under-rated, as they don't even come into the film until the last few minutes. Honestly, I found this one to be a bore overall, and caught myself nodding off several times. Not the worst thing out there, and a few decent scenes make it "better than average" - but I can really only recommend this one to rabid cannibal film fans or exploit completists...6/10